Earlier this Morning

President Donald J. Trump announced second-quarter GDP growth of 4.1 percent—putting America on track to hit its highest annual average growth rate in more than a decade.

Watch the President’s announcement here.

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U.S. Steel is back

“Hiding in plain sight in a suburb of St. Louis is one of the great success stories of President Donald J. Trump’s tough trade policies,” National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro says. “This is the rebirth of the Granite City steelworks, idled in 2015 — along with about 2,000 steelworkers — under a drowning flood of subsidized foreign imports.”

President Trump visited Granite City yesterday, where U.S. Steel is restarting its blast furnaces and putting hundreds of Americans back to work. “Our steel towns became ghost towns. More than 70,000 hardworking Americans lost their jobs, their hope, and their way of life,” President Trump told workers in Illinois. “After years of shutdowns and cutbacks, today the blast furnace here in Granite City is blazing bright.”

It’s never been a better time to enter the American workforce. For the first time on record, “there are more job openings in the economy today than there are people looking for jobs,” Labor Secretary Alex Acosta told students during a visit with President Trump to Northeast Iowa Community College. That statistic is crucial for Americans on welfare, as work programs offer the surest pathway out of poverty.

Watch: President Trump’s tariffs bring hope, prosperity back to Granite City.

More: Work is the best way to escape poverty—and the numbers prove it.

Something to share: ‘Made in America’ from all 50 states

President Trump hosted his second “Made in America” showcase at the White House this week. Companies large and small joined the celebration on the South Lawn—“products made with American heart, American sweat, and American pride,” the President said.

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See what great product represented your home state.

We need to hear the stories of persecution

“Nations that reject religious freedom breed radicalism and resentment in their citizens,” Vice President Mike Pence said at the first-ever Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom yesterday in Washington, D.C. “They sow the seeds of violence within their borders—violence that often spills over into their neighbors and across the world.”

To advance the cause of religious freedom, America needs partners the world over. So this week, the State Department brought together religious leaders, survivors of religious persecution, and delegations from foreign governments for this inaugural ministerial.

“We need to hear the stories of those persecuted, tortured, falsely imprisoned, and killed for their faith,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says. “We can honor their sacrifices by preventing these atrocities from happening again.”

Watch: “We will not rest … until ISIS is driven from the face of the earth.”

More: Free Pastor Andrew Brunson, Vice President Pence warns