President Donald Trump threatened massive attacks on Iran if the regime does not open the Strait of Hormuz. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” “However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?” Trump continued. Trump has given Iran a deadline of 8 p.m. EDT Tuesday to make a deal to reopen the key oil shipping lane. If Iran doesn’t come to the table, Trump has said he will decimate every bridge and power plant in the country. “We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World,” Trump wrote. “47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!” The United States struck military targets on Kharg Island, a key Iranian oil export hub, on Monday night. However, Vice President JD Vance said this does not mark “a change in strategy” in the conflict. “We were going to strike some military targets on Kharg Island, and I believe we have done so,” Vance said in Budapest, Hungary. “We’re not going to strike energy and infrastructure targets until the Iranians either make a proposal that we can get behind or don’t make a proposal,” he added. “I don’t think the news in Kharg Island … represents a change in strategy, or represents any change from the president of the United States.” Iran says it would retaliate against U.S. allies in the Gulf, whose desert cities would be uninhabitable without power or water. It claimed to have carried out fresh strikes on a ship in the Gulf and a huge Saudi petrochemical complex. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that Tehran would “deprive America and its allies in the region of oil and gas for years”. “Up to today we have shown great restraint for the sake of good neighbourliness and have had some consideration in choosing targets for retaliation,” it said. “But all these restraints have since been removed.” Reuters contributed to this report. The post Trump Issues Chilling Threat to Iran: ‘A Whole Civilization Will Die’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Americans overwhelmingly oppose moving live sports viewing to paid streaming platforms, according to a poll by the Internet Accountability Project released Tuesday. The poll found that 93% of likely voters—across party, gender, and age demographics—said it’s important for live sporting events to be available on broadcast television so they can be interrupted for local emergency alerts, such as tornado warnings. Another 84% said NFL games should remain on broadcast TV or be available on both free and paid viewing platforms. “Big Tech and the NFL are quietly dismantling the free broadcast infrastructure that American families relied on for generations, and they’re doing it one exclusive streaming deal at a time,” said Mike Davis, founder and president of the Internet Accountability Project, a conservative advocacy group warning about the potential harms of Big Tech companies. “Americans know what they are losing,” Davis added. Only 1% of poll respondents said sporting events should be available exclusively on paid streaming services. The survey found that a smaller majority—51%—said they were concerned about their local TV station’s ability to fund local news and emergency coverage if it lost the rights to broadcast NFL games. The poll of 1,800 likely voters was conducted by OnMessage Inc. from March 2–3 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3%. Davis said he supported Sen. Mike Lee’s, R-Utah, request that the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, and state attorneys general investigate whether tech companies’ streaming agreements violate antitrust laws. The Internet Accountability Project cited data from the Federal Communications Commission that found fans would have required paid subscriptions costing an estimated $1,500 per year to watch every single NFL game in 2025. “As FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said, working families should not have to choose between paying their bills and watching their favorite team play on a Sunday afternoon,” Davis added. “When Big Tech monopolists control live sports, they control the focus of the nation, and that means they control whether your family gets a tornado warning in time to take cover.” The post EXCLUSIVE: As NFL Embraces Streaming, Poll Finds Overwhelming Push Back appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Critical minerals are mined all over the world but the majority of the supply ends up passing through China. For a broad range of key metals and minerals, China is either the largest miner, the dominant refiner, or both. This is true for rare earths, lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, and many other metals and minerals that are essential to defense, energy and high-tech applications. It is less about where ores are dug out of the ground and more about where they are turned into usable components. In other words, Chinese processing plants are essentially the gatekeepers of global supply. Australia and South America host much of the world’s lithium, while Congo supplies the lion’s share of cobalt and copper. But the rocks themselves can’t become a battery or magnet without intensive downstream processing and refining. China built those downstream industries at scale over decades through state support and investment. The result is clear—China has effectively monopolized refining for most critical minerals while the rest of the world depends on it for much-needed supply. China is listed as the dominant refiner for 19 of 20 materials analyzed by the IEA in their Global Critical Minerals Outlook for 2025, making up roughly 70% of the global processing capacity overall. How dominant is dominant? The numbers illustrate the scale and variety of China’s concentration. Data from 2024 shows China as the leading producer or processor for roughly 99% of gallium, 95% of magnesium, 83% of tungsten, 79% of graphite and over 69% of all rare earths. For battery materials, Chinese firms account for an overwhelming share of manufacturing capacity, giving China control over the upper and middle parts of the battery supply chain, even though much of the raw materials are sourced elsewhere. Put simply: control of smelters and refineries is the chokepoint. Analysis from the United States Geological Survey shows how China’s share rises dramatically from mining to processing. Many minerals that are mined in other countries are still processed into a refined product within China. That clear advantage lets Chinese policy shifts ripple quickly through global supply and pricing—a growing threat for the West. In fact, China has already weaponized its stronghold on the industry in ways that have triggered both concern and action from the United States government. Over the past couple of years, Beijing has imposed a series of export restrictions on critical minerals that have sounded alarms in Washington. These controls immediately tightened global supply for various essential materials, including gallium, germanium, silver, graphite, and certain rare-earth processing technologies. This caused semiconductor and defense firms to scramble for alternatives while exposing how dangerously dependent manufacturers are on Chinese supply. These actions have shaped how Western governments view critical minerals. What were once perceived as simply commodities are now seen as strategic assets crucial to national defense. U.S. officials have become increasingly vocal about reliance on China for critical minerals and the associated risks, prompting government action to reduce exposure. These maneuvers include billions of dollars of investment into domestic production, executive orders empowering the Defense Production Act to boost U.S. mining and refining, and coordinated international initiatives to strengthen supply chains outside of China. Meanwhile, while Western governments work to diversify away from dependence on Beijing, it’s the private sector that is moving most of the world’s critical minerals. The raw materials that feed Chinese smelters often move through the world’s major commodity trading houses. These traders, including commodity giants like Mercuria and IXM, source raw ores from Africa, South America, and Australia and then sell them into markets structured around Chinese processing. As long as that remains an industrial norm, the West will face clear obstacles. Many of these firms are deeply embedded in China. Mercuria, for example, has carved out a business operation in China that is legally separate to their main Geneva-based entity. The company has set up a number of Chinese-based subsidiaries to directly engage with China’s valuable energy sector and has secured long-term energy and gas deals with notable state-owned enterprises. This allows Mercuria to integrate massive China-based operations with its international trading network. Beijing, also, may have given its vote of confidence to the firm when ChemChina, one of the country’s largest state-owned companies, purchased a 12% stake in Mercuria back in 2016. The benefits of being heavily involved within China’s dominant industrial and energy environment are clear, but the unpredictable geopolitical risks associated with it are less so. IXM, too, has been notable player for the Chinese side of the industry. The trading arm of China Molybdenum, IXM is directly controlled by a major Chinese mining conglomerate and plays a central role in supplying cobalt, copper, and other critical minerals into Chinese processing chains. The firm has built a global network of offices and logistics infrastructure to move resources from Africa and South America into Chinese industrial markets, making it a key conduit between foreign resource extraction and China’s downstream dominance. Such arrangements make these international trading houses both suppliers to, and partners with, Chinese processing. With the U.S. and its allies now seeing the concentration of mineral refining capacity in a single country as a vulnerability, traders deeply entrenched in China are now seen as bringing more risk rather than security. If the United States is serious about diversifying away from Chinese dependence and to protect its defense industrial base that sits on top of critical mineral supply chains, it must be cautious about doing business with Chinese traders deeply entrenched in Chinese state-owned enterprises and political influence. For the West, securing critical mineral supply without reliance on China requires more than just sourcing mines in friendly countries. It requires alternative processing capacity, substantial long-term supply agreements, and coordination between policymakers and private traders who still move much of the world’s ore. Until those pieces are in place, Chinese smelters and refineries will remain the world’s primary mechanism of transforming raw materials into products used for defense and high-tech applications. And while that remains the case, the rest of the world will have to navigate through the geopolitical risks that are brought on by Beijing’s mineral dominance. This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire. The post How China Dominates the World’s Critical Minerals Production appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm opposes President Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, according to a letter obtained by The Daily Signal. The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the SBC, wrote a letter to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee expressing “deep concern” over the nomination of Dr. Casey Means for surgeon general. “Dr. Means’ displayed convictions raise a number of concerns for us as Southern Baptists,” ERLC interim President Gary Hollingsworth wrote. ERLC LetterDownload Trump told The Daily Signal last week that withdrawing Means’ nomination amid opposition in the Senate was a possibility. However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later said that “the president stands by her and the Senate should move to quickly confirm Dr. Means as our next surgeon general without further delay.” Is President Trump considering withdrawing Casey Mean's nomination for surgeon general? "Something like that would be possible," he told @DailySignal. "We certainly have a lot of great candidates for the job." pic.twitter.com/dg47SewSMf— Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell (@TheElizMitchell) March 30, 2026 The SBC is primarily concerned about Means’ stance on abortion. “First, as the Bible teaches, Southern Baptists affirm the full dignity of every human being and believe that every life is worthy of protection and celebration,” Hollingsworth wrote. “We believe life begins at conception and that all forms of abortion deny precious preborn human beings of their very lives.” “Dr. Means has repeatedly opposed these positions and supported abortion,” he continued. The letter highlighted Means’ confirmation hearing, in which she “skirted questions” about the chemical abortion pill mifepristone. She declined to answer a question about whether mifepristone should only be prescribed after an in-person doctor visit. “The question of whether it should be an in-person visit is out of the purview of the surgeon general’s office,” Means said, “but I do believe that every patient needs to have a very thorough conversation with their doctor before taking any medication.”  “I think that every medication has risks and benefits,” she added. “I think that all patients need to have a thorough conversation with their doctor and have true informed consent before taking any medication.” The Southern Baptist Convention found it “alarming that the candidate for our nation’s top public health official is clearly noncommittal on such a powerful drug, a drug that harms women and robs innocent children of their very lives.” The denomination also said that Means’ “blatant flaunting of prior illicit drug use is reason for alarm,” citing her “ongoing experimentation with psilocybin.” In her book, “Good Energy,” Means recommended that readers who “feel called” should consider using psilocybin, an illegal psychedelic drug. “Those who seek to lead others in pursuit of health and wellness would not ignore the lack of serious, evidence-based clinical data on psilocybin use,” Hollingsworth wrote. “Doing so is contrary to the protocols of the office she seeks.” The SBC concluded that Means is “not qualified to serve as our country’s next surgeon general.” “Should her nomination come up for a vote in committee, we urge you, with abundant cause for medical, moral, and legal concern, to oppose Dr. Means’ nomination,” Hollingsworth wrote to senators. The post EXCLUSIVE: Why Largest Protestant Denomination Opposes Trump’s Surgeon General Pick appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President Donald Trump and members of his administration celebrated Easter Sunday’s successful operation to rescue an air force officer whose fighter jet was shot down in Iran last week.  “Despite incoming fire and unforgiving conditions, our troops brought every American home,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said during a press briefing Monday. “No American lives were lost.”  After the officer’s fighter jet was shot down, the injured officer survived by climbing to higher ground, treating his own wounds, and contacting American forces to request rescue.  “We immediately mobilized a massive operation to retrieve him from the mountain holdout, and he kept going higher and higher,” Trump said. “The mountain kept getting rougher and rougher and really, very, very hard to find.” Because thousands of Iranians were searching for the pilot, the United States “executed a deception campaign to confuse the Iranians who were desperately hunting for our airman,” CIA director John Ratcliffe said.  On Saturday morning, the U.S. confirmed the airman was alive and hidden in a mountain crevice, “still invisible to the enemy, but not to the CIA,” Ratcliffe said.  The United States deployed three helicopters to extract the American pilot. He was rescued at midnight Eastern time on Easter Sunday. An air armada protected the rescue team, including tactical drones, strike aircraft, and more.  “God was watching us,” Trump said. “Well, it was Easter. We were in Easter territory.”  Trump praised the military for carrying out the operation without any casualties. He said he will “never forget the extraordinary risk taken by the warriors that we send into battle.”  “In a breathtaking show of skill and precision, lethality and force, America’s military descended on the area, the real area, engaged the enemy, rescued the stranded officer, destroyed all threats, and exited Iranian territory while taking no casualties.” Ratcliffe said he was honored to serve under a president who lives out the motto, “No man left behind.”  “We’ve seen it against the cartels in the Western Hemisphere, and we’re seeing it every day in Operation Epic Fury, including this mission to rescue an aviator buried deep behind enemy lines,” Ratcliffe said, “because it is the unique tradition of the U.S. armed forces that we leave no man or woman behind.”  “Peace through strength” is not a slogan, Hegseth said, but “a doctrine that saves American lives.” “His unwavering commitment to rebuilding our military and restoring the warrior spirit has paid dividends in missions just like this one,” Hegseth said. “Under this command, America progresses power with confidence and brings our people home with victory. And that continues today.” The post ‘No Man Left Behind’: Trump Celebrates Daring Easter Rescue of Downed US Pilot in Iran appeared first on The Daily Signal.