It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Wednesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour News Talk 1110-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you.
Well, U.S. inflation ticked down in the month of July. This is according to new data that we are tracking this morning out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That data shows that inflation in the United States slowed slightly in July with the Consumer Price Index, that's the CPI, rising by 0.2% on a seasonally adjusted basis. Over the past 12 months, the CPI increased by 2.7%, slightly below June's figure of 2.8%.
Those figures surpassed economists' expectations as most analysts forecasted a modest increase of 0.2 percent for July. with the annual rate remaining at 2.8%. Instead, inflation slowed slightly, bolstered by stable prices in key sectors as well as declining energy costs, which we know has a major impact on the economy, and in this case, the CPI and the inflation index. The report indicates rather that core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.3% in July, exactly in line with economists' forecasts. Over the last year, core CPI has risen 3.1 percent, remaining within a manageable range for policymakers and consumers alike.
Grocery prices, meanwhile, remained steady month over month, with some categories experiencing decreases that eased pressure on household budgets. Energy prices, however, made a significant downward move with gasoline prices dropping two point two percent in July, which is nearly ten percent lower than they were at this time last year, with fuel oil, that's what folks use to heat their homes, things of that nature, down two point nine percent. Egg prices continue their long decline, falling twenty percent since President Donald Trump's administration took office. Overall, energy commodities declined by nine percent year over year, reflecting an ongoing easing in prices that has provided continued relief to American consumers. Further easing also came in as it relates to shelter costs, which is the largest contributed to overall inflation, which has hit its lowest level since October of 2021.
So looking at a many years since that level has been where it is right now. While state-specific data for July is not yet available, data from June for the southeastern region, which would include, of course, the state of North Carolina, showed that the region experienced a 0.1 percent increase in prices, slightly below the 0.2 percent increase for the country as a whole. For July, the Bureau also released new figures on wage growth, which continue to paint a positive picture for American workers. Real wages increased in July with earnings up 1.3% compared to 12 months ago, July of 2024. This growth outpaced inflation and signals a trend of rising purchasing power amid an environment of steady inflation.
The White House press secretary in Caroline Levitt said in a press release yesterday after this data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, quote, Today's CPI report revealed that inflation beat market expectations once again and remains stable, underscoring President Trump's commitment to lowering costs for American families and businesses. The panikins continue to be proven wrong by the data. President Trump's tariffs are raking in billions of dollars. Small business optimism is at a five-month high, and real wages continue to rise. The American people have rightfully put their trust in President Trump's America First agenda that is making America wealthy again.
Despite the ongoing debate about the impacts of tariffs, many experts agree that the recent inflation data does not yet reflect the full effect of recent trade policies.
Some economists warn against prematurely attributing the inflation slowdown to the president's ongoing tariff policies across the world. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also released new figures on some of that wage growth as well. Real wages increased in July, so some positive numbers there as well. Many economists have been expecting that in the inflationary impact of Trump's tariff policies to come through in new inflation data. They've been expecting that over the last couple of months, but so far that result has been muted.
Brian Valfour, the senior vice president of research at the John Locke Foundation, said, trying to tie overall inflation trends to Trump's tariffs is both premature and off base. It's premature because many of the tariffs didn't even take effect until October the 7th. After the latest CPI number was calculated. Moreover, it's off because overall inflation is a reflection of the monetary policy, not tax policy. Inflation is caused by an increase in the money supply, whereby more dollars are chasing the economy's goods and services.
The more relevant measure is how tariffs impact the prices of those items being tariffed, along with the prices of the finished goods that utilize inputs that are subject to tariffs.
So some pretty good economic numbers coming out of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in the month of July. We've got some additional details on this story, including that quote from Caroline Levitt and Brian Balfour of the John Locke Foundation. Those are available on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. With that in other news, this morning, President Donald Trump signed an executive order extending the current trade deal with the People's Republic of China, that's the PRC, which was set to expire yesterday on august the twelfth.
That deadline has now been kicked down to November the 10th. Joseph Harris, fiscal policy analyst for the John Locke Foundation, told the Carolina Journal, President Trump's second 90-day trade pause with China will keep the tariff rate on most Chinese imports at 10% until November the 10th. A one hundred and twenty five percent tariff was implemented in April before being paused during the first trade truce, which happened in May. Between 2014 and 2024, China's trade relationship with North Carolina experienced notable shifts, with Harris noting, interestingly, over the past decade, North Carolina's trade gap with China has narrowed before tariffs climbed to levels that prompted the first 90-day slowdown. On the import side, China fell from being North Carolina's largest source of imports in 2014 to all the way down to third place in 2024.
From 2014 to 2024, Chinese imports into North Carolina decreased from approximately $12.5 billion to just $7.1 billion, which is about a 43% decline. This was the third most significant decline among the top 50 countries where North Carolina imported goods in 2024. On the export side, China's position strengthened, moving from the third largest to the second largest destination for North Carolina exports over that same decade, 2014 to 2024. The value of exports from North Carolina to China more than doubled, rising from roughly $2.7 billion in 2014 to about $5.9 billion in 2024. That's an increase of approximately 120 percent, according to EDPNC.
Within the next top 50 export destinations for North Carolina in 2024, this growth was the 11th most significant increase. Joseph Harris says, quote, the decline in Chinese imports to North Carolina has been substituted with surging shipments from Vietnam, Mexico, and Cambodia. Each has recorded triple-digit growth since 2014, stepping into supply goods once dominated by Chinese producers and Chinese markets. President Donald Trump put out a recent Truth Social post, noting: China is worried about its shortage of soybeans. Our great farmers produce the most robust soybeans in the world.
I hope China will quickly quadruple its soybean orders. This is also a way of substituting, reducing China's trade deficit with the USA. Rapid service will be provided. Thank you for your attention to this matter. North Carolina is one of the largest soybean producers in the United States.
China, the number one buyer of U.S.
soybeans across any other country.
So, the ongoing trade war and the ongoing tariff debate with China can have a major impact on both the import and export side. We do have some additional details on this story as we continue to watch tariffs, their economic impact on North Carolina's largest sector, which continues to be agriculture and, of course, the goods, services, and products that many North Carolina citizens provide and produce. You can get those additional details by visiting our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com, the headline: Trump extends China Trade Talks Deal another 90 days. It's 522. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News.
Our news talk 1110-993-WBT. A pretty interesting situation unfolding earlier this week in North Carolina. A Superior Court judge ruled that a company must immediately halt what it described by state officials as an illegal mining operation in Mitchell County in the small community of Poplar. The operation was uncovered by officials from the Department of Labor earlier this year who saw irregularities when they showed up to provide safety training to the folks working on that mine site. Horizon thirty L L C, which has offices in both Raleigh and Allentown, Pennsylvania, had been mining without environmental permits in that area since earlier this year.
According to a North Carolina DEQ press release, Horizon 30 submitted a mining permit application to mine at the site earlier this year. A hearing on the matter was scheduled for july twenty ninth. The permit would have allowed the mine to operate on a little over fifty acres of land mining construction aggregate at a proposed depth of five hundred and fifty feet. The actual area of the mine excavation would have covered approximately twenty three acres. The company planned to produce what is known as solid granite ballast and crusher run rock, which is a mixture of crushed stone and dust which is often used in road construction.
According to documents submitted to North Carolina, the company planned to mine materials for emergency repairs of the CSX railroad lines damaged by Hurricane Helene in the western half of North Carolina in the eastern half of Tennessee. On Friday, North Carolina Labor Commissioner Luke Farley sent out a press release that officials from his department discovered the operation earlier this year after the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration requested that the department provide minor safety training at the site. When the North Carolina Department of Labor visited the site, they discovered multiple problems and immediately questioned whether the site had had the required state environmental permit. According to Commissioner Farley, he says, quote, this is exactly why I've made it a priority to support and empower our field staff. Their experience, judgment, and vigilance are critical to keeping workers safe and enforcing the law.
If our staff hadn't gone above and beyond their duty to protect workers, this illegal operation could have continued unnoticed, putting lives at risk and undermining public trust in our regulatory system. The North Carolina Department of Labor officially alerted DEQ after Horizon 30 failed to produce the necessary documentation. DEQ then later confirmed that the operation was in fact unauthorized and violated state mining laws. The company first contacted the Division of Environmental Quality's Division of Energy, Mineral and Land Resources in December to find out about the state mining requirements. In January, that department found out about a potential mining operation at the site.
This group had reportedly notified Horizon 30 of required permits and violation and gave them multiple violations through the month of June. There have also been reports of a wildlife death in the area since the mining began, raising concerns from local residents.
So go back to July the 21st, that's when the North Carolina Department of Justice filed a complaint and an injunction on behalf of the North Carolina DEQ in Mitchell County Superior Court requesting a court order against Horizon 30. In addition to the immediate stop of activity, the judge also said that the company is not allowed to take any materials off site and must submit a plan within the next 30 days to reclaim some of that material. The state has also filed an injunction to force the company to cease operations until it gets its proper permitting. If Horizon 30 LLC does not comply, it could face civil or criminal contempt charges. According to WLOS, that's News 13 out of Asheville.
During the proceedings, Horizon's defense attorneys said that the company had, in fact, stopped mining activity back on October, rather on August the 9th, so just a couple of days before this hearing, with another scheduled for September the 23rd. A very interesting story unfolding in the western half of our state. A company apparently running an illegal or not permitted mining operation, going to the state originally to try and get the proper permits, only to then later apparently just conduct mining operations without those proper permits.
So as it stands from the Superior Court judge, that company must immediately halt its operations. They apparently have done so as of Saturday. We'll see if anything else there crops back up. It's 5:35. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 11:10, 993 WBT.
Don't forget, if you miss any of our program weekday mornings, 5 to 6, right here on WBT, you can check out the Carolina Journal News Hour podcast. It's available in Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere you get your shows. Search for the Carolina Journal News Hour, tap that subscribe or follow button, and you'll get a new program delivered each and every weekday morning. You can also watch live and demand after the fact on our Carolina Journal YouTube channel as well. Again, all of that over on our website as well, CarolinaJournal.com.
Been a lengthy legal proceeding that has gone on as it relates to the ferry and barge system that brings folks and supplies back and forth from the island. To get some details on this this morning, Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, ferry, barge, this has been like a multi-year legal dispute. What is going on in the village, a very small village of Baldhead Island?
Well, the latest ruling is more bad news for the village government of Baldhead Island because what happened was the State Court of Appeals, in an unpublished opinion, which has limited value as a precedent and usually is kind of buried among the court cases that are put out there. In this unpublished opinion, the Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court that Baldhead Island could not enforce this right of first refusal or ROFR to purchase that infrastructure that we're talking about, the ferry system, the barge, the tram system on the island, and the parking lot on the mainland that goes along with all of this. The dispute really stems from the fact that Baldhead Island was developed privately. And when the gentleman who developed the island died in 2013, eventually his estate decided they wanted to sell that private infrastructure. By that time, there was a village of Baldhead Island, so there is a village government.
And the government had talked about buying all this infrastructure, but the two sides could not come to an agreement. And so at some point, the private owners of the property, the estate of the original developer, decided to sell to this outside entity, Sharp View Capital, which sparked a lot of different legal battles from the village of Baldhead Island.
Now, earlier this year, the state Supreme Court decided not to take up the case of the actual sale of the system from the previous owners, the estate of the developer of Bald Head Island, to Sharpview Capital. But now the Court of Appeals has stepped in most recently and said it's not going to enforce this right of first refusal that the village claimed that it had for buying the infrastructure because that had never been put forward to the Utilities Commission. The Utilities Commission is involved because the Utilities Commission has for many years had authority over the ferry system and the tram system that operates on Baldhead Island because there's very little auto traffic on the island. And you might remember that there was some dispute for a while about whether the barge, which carries Materials other than people to Baldhead Island, whether that was going to be part of the Utilities Commission, and whether a parking lot that goes along with this on the mainland would also be under the Utilities Commission's purview. That has been the source of another legal battle.
But the latest decision basically says, no, Baldhead Island Village, the local government, you did not have the right to buy this property before it was sold to Sharpview Capital.
So it seems as if, other than a ruling that allowed the Utilities Commission to take over more control than it had before, other than that ruling, which was something that Baldhead Island, the village government, had pushed for, the rest of the rulings that have been coming out recently have been against the village government and in favor of the sale of the infrastructure from one private owner to another private owner. Mitch, what makes this kind of interesting is we talk about the village of Baldhead Island, the island. This is truly an island. The only way to get to and from Bald Head Island from the portions of southeastern North Carolina is through some sort of boat, ferry, or barge. There is no land connector.
There's no bridge. Even when the tide is low, there's no way to physically get there.
So I guess that's probably part of the reason why the village itself is fighting so hard to try and claim that they had the right to purchase some of these assets because it truly is the only connector to the municipality that they are as the local government. Yeah, I think that's true that the village government wants to ensure that there's mainland access. And I think there is some concern that if it is owned privately and not by the private owner who developed this, which was the original arrangement, that there could be some concern that there would be cutbacks or corners are cut. And so people aren't getting the service that they want. There's also been along the sideline here a concern that Sharp View Capital in buying this is trying to make it a moneymaker.
And so other than just having the normal services that Baldhead Island is used to, they might do something on the private parking lot that would be substantially different than what is seen today. I mean, I remember in some of the court discussions and court filings, there was talk about maybe they're going to build a huge hotel on this parking lot, which would completely change for some people the character of what. What Baldhead Island is all about. And so there has been a mix of reasons why the village has been interested to try to get this one just to ensure that they could kind of keep services as they are, and also to block private owners from doing something different that might change the character of Baldhead Island by adding a lot more people in the area.
Now, there is a little bit of safeguard for that. As you mentioned, the North Carolina Utilities Commission is overview and does have some responsibility for certain assets, including the ferry system, which transports people back and forth, Mitch. And with that, for any sort of major rate hike or any sort of substantial changes in service, wouldn't this new owner in Sharp View, wouldn't they have to go to the Utilities Commission, propose that? And wouldn't that have to be approved by, in this case, the state government? Yes, that's right.
The Utilities Commission does have oversight over the ferry system, over the island-operated tram system. And the recent rulings that have been dealing with what the Utilities Commission has oversight over and doesn't have kind of been a mixed bag. I believe that the parking lot was ruled as being under the Utilities Commission's purview, but the barge system was not. And so there's a mix of what is a public utility and what is not, which does, as you mentioned, give a safeguard to the people of Baldhead Island that there can't be major changes in the costs of these things without Utilities Commission approval. But what seems likely from the recent rulings is that Baldhead Island is, as a village government, is not going to be able to step in and block the private sale.
Now, another piece of this that we haven't really gotten into is that. There had been discussions shortly after the developer's death, which goes back to 2013, about the village purchasing this. The only reason this went to court is that the two sides couldn't come to an agreement about what costs would be paid. I think the developer or the estate of the developer wanted more money. They said this is a valuable asset.
And the village government, whether it's just out of penny pinching or trying to make sure that they're not having to pass along exorbitant costs to the residents, tried to keep the sale price low. And because they couldn't reach an agreement, that's why the move was turned to try to get private investors instead. And that's what ended up sparking all this court battle. Yeah, it's definitely been a lengthy, ongoing, very interesting legal case that's been going on over the last couple of years. You can read the most recent details and some of the backstory on all of this by visiting our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com.
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Good morning again. It's 551. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 111099.3. WBT, I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you.
We've got some encouraging news out of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's the BLS this morning, that shows that inflation across the United States slowed slightly in the month of July, with the Consumer Price Index, the CPI, rising by 0.2% on a seasonally adjusted basis. Over the past 12 months, the CPI increased by 2.7%, which is slightly below June's figure of 2.8%, so a slight decrease there. Those figures surpassed economists' expectations as most forecasted a modest increase for the month of July, with the annual rate remaining at 2.8%.
So it was off 0.1% there. Instead, inflation slowed slightly, bolstering, bolstered rather, by Stable prices in key sectors and a big decline in energy costs across the U.S. The report indicates that core inflation, which does exclude things like food and energy prices, which are deemed relatively volatile month to month, rose 0.3% in the month of July, which is exactly in line with economists' forecasts. Over the last year, core CPI had risen 3.1%, remaining within a manageable range for policymakers and consumers. Grocery prices, meanwhile, remained steady month over month, with some categories experiencing decreases that eased pressure on household budgets.
Energy prices, however, made a significant downward move, with gasoline prices dropping 2.2 percent in July, nearly 10 percent lower than they were last year, and fuel oil down 2.9 percent. Egg prices continued their long decline, falling twenty percent since earlier this year when the Trump administration took office, and overall energy commodities declined by 9% over the past year, reflecting an ongoing easing in prices that is continuing to provide relief to American consumers. Another sector that did provide additional relief was what is defined as shelter costs, that is apartments, rents, condo costs, all of that, which is a large contributor to overall inflation, which hit its lowest level since October of 2021. And while there's not state-specific data for July available, data from June for the southeastern region of the U.S., which does include North Carolina, showed that the region experienced a 0.1 percent increase in prices, slightly below the 0.2 percent average for the country as a whole. For July, the Bureau also released new figures on wage growth, which continue to paint a positive picture for American workers.
Real wages in July were with earnings up one point three percent compared to last year. This growth outpaced inflation and signals a trend of rising purchasing power amid an environment of steady inflation. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt noted, today's CPI report revealed that inflation beat market expectations once again and remains stable, underscoring President Trump's commitment to lower cost for American families and businesses. Despite the ongoing debate around the impacts of tariffs, many economists and experts agree that recent inflation data does not yet fully reflect the effects of recent trade policy decisions.
Some economists warn against prematurely attributing the inflation slowdown to tariffs. Many economists have been expecting that the inflationary impact of Trump's tariff policies will come through in new inflation data, but that has been muted to this point. Brian Balfour, the senior vice president of research at the John Locke Foundation, told the Carolina Journal, quote, trying to tie overall inflation trends to Trump's Tariffs is both premature and off base. It's premature because many of the tariffs didn't take effect until August the 7th after the latest CPI number was calculated. Moreover, it's off base because overall inflation is a reflection of monetary policy, not tax policy.
Inflation is caused by an increase in the money supply, whereby more dollars are chasing the economy's goods and services. The more relevant measure is how tariffs impact the price of those items being tariffed, along with the prices of finished goods that utilize inputs that are subject to those tariffs as well. You can read more on the July CPI report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. The headline: U.S.
inflation ticks down by 2.7% in July. And with that, we are also watching the ongoing tariff discussion with China. Earlier this week, the president signed another executive order delaying the trade barrier and tariff situation for another 90 days. Chinese imports will stay at 10% until November the 10th of this year, as negotiations between the administration here and the U.S. U.S.
and the administration over in China continue to hash out a more lucrative trade deal for the United States. What was originally threatened as a 125% tariff was implemented earlier this year.
However, that has been delayed once again until November of this year. You can read details on that story as well, CarolinaJournal.com. That's going to do it for a Wednesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning, BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5-6, right here on News Talk 1110 and 99.3 WBT.
