Human population set to decline for the first time since the Black Death

From LifeSiteNews

By Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute

The world’s population is not only not exploding, it’s on the cusp of collapsing.

The collapse in birth rates that began in post-war Europe has, in the decades since, spread to every single corner of the globe.

Many nations are already feeling this death spiral, filling more coffins than cradles each year.

Just this past year, Japan lost nearly a million people. Poland lost 130,000.

However, the big story comes from China, home to one-sixth of the world’s population.

The decades-long devastation wrought by the one-child policy has sent that country, for centuries the pacesetter in population, into absolute decline.

China finally admitted that its population was shrinking, but demographers — including myself — believe that the numbers have been falling for almost a decade.

The Chinese government’s official population figure of 1.44 billion also greatly exaggerates its overall numbers, some analysts say by as much as 130 million people.

India, the country that has now overtaken China in population, is still growing, but not for long.

The average Indian woman was having only two children over her reproductive lifetime, the Indian government reported in 2021, well below the 2.25 or so needed to sustain the current population.

The current total fertility of Tunisian women, for example, is estimated at 1.93.

The result of all these empty wombs is that humanity just passed a major milestone, although not one we should celebrate.

For the first time in the 60,000 or so years that human beings first arrived on the planet, we are not having enough babies to replace ourselves. No wonder Donald Trump has suggested providing free IVF to all Americans “because we want more babies,” he says.

Because of ever-lengthening life spans, the population will continue to grow until mid-century. But when this demographic momentum ends—and it will end—we will reach a second grim milestone on humanity’s downward trajectory:

For the first time since the Black Death in the Middle Ages, human numbers will decline.

The 14th century bubonic plague was the worst pandemic in human history. It killed off half the population of Europe and perhaps a third of the population of the Middle East.

But even as the plague was filling mass graves, the survivors kept filling cradles. And because the birth rate remained high the global population recovered although it took a century or so.

This time around, we may not be so fortunate. All the factors that influence fertility, from marriage rates to urbanization to education levels, are pushing births downward.

Now you may be excused for not knowing about the current birth dearth.

After all, powerful international agencies like the UN Population Fund and the World Bank have done their best to keep it out of the public eye.

Moreover, these agencies, set up during the height of the hysteria over “overpopulation” in the 1960s, like to overestimate births in one country and pad population numbers in another.

For example, the UN, in its annual World Population Prospects, claims that 705,000 babies were born in Colombia last year, when the country’s own government pegs the number at just 510,000.

This is not a rounding error.

Neither is the UN’s claim that Indian women are still averaging 2.25 children, defying the country’s own published statistics, which show that it is now below 2.0.

All this number fudging allows the UN to claim that the global total fertility rate last year was at 2.25, still above replacement

It’s even wrong about replacement rate fertility, which it says is 2.1 children per women.

It’s wrong because in many countries sex-selection abortion skews the sex ratio strongly in favor of boys.

To make up for the tens of millions of unborn baby girls missing in China, India and other Asian countries, those countries need more need 2.2 or even 2.3 children on average.

The UN exaggerates human numbers for the same reason that the Biden-Harris administration exaggerated employment numbers: for financial gain and political survival.

There are billions of dollars at stake, funding that is fueled by a dark fear of mushrooming human numbers.

The population control movement does not intend to go quietly to its grave, even as it continues to dig humanity’s own, so it feeds this fear.

But the world’s population is not only not exploding, it’s on the cusp of collapsing. Which is why it’s time to end the war on population.

This article was originally published on www.pop.org on September 3rd, 2024, before being reprinted in the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family’s Academy Review in November 2024. Edited and republished here with permission.

Related Topics:#LifeSiteNews FertilityRates PopulationResearchInstitute ShrinkingPopulation StevenMosher WorldPopulationCollapse

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Canada Caves: Carney ditches digital services tax after criticism from Trump

Published on June 30, 2025

Todayville

From The Center Square

By Brett Rowland

Canada caved to President Donald Trump demands by pulling its digital services tax hours before it was to go into effect on Monday.

Trump said Friday that he was ending all trade talks with Canada over the digital services tax, which he called a direct attack on the U.S. and American tech firms. The DST required foreign and domestic businesses to pay taxes on some revenue earned from engaging with online users in Canada.

“Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” the president said. “We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”

By Sunday, Canada relented in an effort to resume trade talks with the U.S., it’s largest trading partner.

“To support those negotiations, the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, announced today that Canada would rescind the Digital Services Tax (DST) in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the United States,” according to a statement from Canada’s Department of Finance.

Canada’s Department of Finance said that Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump agreed to resume negotiations, aiming to reach a deal by July 21.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Monday that the digital services tax would hurt the U.S.

“Thank you Canada for removing your Digital Services Tax which was intended to stifle American innovation and would have been a deal breaker for any trade deal with America,” he wrote on X.

Earlier this month, the two nations seemed close to striking a deal.

Trump said he and Carney had different concepts for trade between the two neighboring countries during a meeting at the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, in the Canadian Rockies.

Asked what was holding up a trade deal between the two nations at that time, Trump said they had different concepts for what that would look like.

“It’s not so much holding up, I think we have different concepts, I have a tariff concept, Mark has a different concept, which is something that some people like, but we’re going to see if we can get to the bottom of it today.”

Shortly after taking office in January, Trump hit Canada and Mexico with 25% tariffs for allowing fentanyl and migrants to cross their borders into the U.S. Trump later applied those 25% tariffs only to goods that fall outside the free-trade agreement between the three nations, called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Trump put a 10% tariff on non-USMCA compliant potash and energy products. A 50% tariff on aluminum and steel imports from all countries into the U.S. has been in effect since June 4. Trump also put a 25% tariff on all cars and trucks not built in the U.S.

Economists, businesses and some publicly traded companies have warned that tariffs could raise prices on a wide range of consumer products.

Trump has said he wants to use tariffs to restore manufacturing jobs lost to lower-wage countries in decades past, shift the tax burden away from U.S. families, and pay down the national debt.

A tariff is a tax on imported goods paid by the person or company that imports them. The importer can absorb the cost of the tariffs or try to pass the cost on to consumers through higher prices.

Trump’s tariffs give U.S.-produced goods a price advantage over imported goods, generating revenue for the federal government.

Brett Rowland

Investigative Reporter

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Trump on Canada tariff deadline: ‘We can do whatever we want’

Published on June 29, 2025

Todayville

From The Center Square

By Brett Rowland

President Donald Trump appears unconcerned about an upcoming tariff deal deadline after abruptly ending all trade talks with Canada as his bid to overhaul world trade continues.

Trump is nearing the end of a self-imposed 90-day deadline to strike deals with nearly every U.S. trading partner as he works to reorder global trade by giving America a competitive advantage through tariffs on foreign goods.

Trump now says that the deadline could be extended past July 9 or even accelerated.

“We can do whatever we want. We could extend it, we could make it shorter. I’d like to make it shorter,” Trump said Friday at the Oval Office. “I’d like to just send letters out to everyone ‘Congratulations, you’re paying 25%.'”

On April 2, Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on nearly every nation that trades with the U.S. Seven days later, he paused those higher tariff rates for 90 days to give his trade team time to cut deals with key trading partners. That 90-day deadline ends July 9 and thus far Trump has brought home two deals: A limited trade pact with the United Kingdom and a trade truce with China.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg that new deals are on the way, and those could serve as models for others.

“We’re going to do top 10 deals, put them in the right category, and then these other countries will fit behind,” Lutnick said.

He said the U.S. was “close to the finish line” with India. Lutnick also said he had made an offer to the European Union.

Trump’s decision to suspend trade talks with Canada with just days left before the deadline underscored the flexibility of the president’s trade deadline.

“These are very complex negotiations and we are going to continue them in the best interests of Canadians,” Candian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday while leaving his office, according to local reports.

Canada has invariably been one of the top two trading partners for the United States for years. In 2024, Canada was the top destination for U.S. exports and the third-largest source of U.S. imports. On the other side, Canada exported 75% of its goods to the United States and imported almost half of its goods from the United States.

U.S. total goods trade with Canada was an estimated $762.1 billion in 2024, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. U.S. goods exports to Canada in 2024 were $349.4 billion. U.S. imports from Canada in 2024 totaled $412.7 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Canada was $63.3 billion in 2024.

Services trade with Canada, exports and imports, totaled an estimated $140.3 billion in 2023. Services exports were $86.0 billion, and services imports were $54.3 billion. The U.S. services trade surplus with Canada was $31.7 billion in 2023, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Trump put a stop to the talks on Friday.

“We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump said the digital services tax was a copy of a European Union proposal.

Earlier this month, the two nations seemed close to striking a deal.

Trump said he and Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney had different trade concepts between the two neighboring countries during a meeting at the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, in the Canadian Rockies.

Asked what was holding up a trade deal between the two nations at that time, Trump said they had different concepts for what that would look like.

The tariffs have frustrated Canadian leaders and residents. Tensions between the two neighboring countries have been high. And cities on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border have been affected.

Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada join the U.S. as its 51st state. He previously called former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “governor” regularly.