White House Chair of the National Economic Council (NEC), Kevin Hassett, walked out to the press pool to discuss the latest excellent inflation figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics today {BLS REPORT HERE}. However, the insufferable press pool wanted to talk about other things.
I’ll get to the BLS data below – with a gold nugget just for you, don’t share it. But first, NEC Director Hassett also let something slip in his responsive comments that most will miss.
When asked about Trump’s decision to terminate all trade negotiations with Canada, Hasset noted the discussions were frustrating, and “The Canadians were very difficult to negotiate with.” Then comes the key point (03:28), “The fact that we are now negotiating with Mexico, separately, reveals that it’s not just one add, there’s frustration that has built up.”
What Hassett just confirmed again, as if we needed more evidence, is that the trilateral trade agreement -the USMCA- is not going to exist once Trump opens it up for renegotiation. The USA team is already working on a separate bilateral trade agreement between the USA and Mexico, proactively. The USMCA is dead – we just have not made it official yet. WATCH (prompted):
.
On the inflation data, the September inflation rate was 0.3 percent, much lower than all economists and pundits predicted. The tariffs are having no impact on the rise of consumer prices. In fact, the sectors with the most imported goods are the sectors with the lowest inflation.
To pull out an example, look at the apparel sector. Apparel is dominantly an imported product category, coming from China and Southeast Asia textile manufacturing factories. The apparel sector is 0.7 overall, with many of the sub-sectors significantly lower – See Table-2
To drive home the point, look at detailed TABLE-2 HERE: furniture, electronics, toys, cell phones, appliances etc. the highest imported goods sectors are all running negative inflation rates; meaning, consumer prices are factually lower even with the global tariffs in place. Imported products are NOT causing inflation; in fact, their prices are dropping.
Just like 2018 and 2019, tariffs on imported goods do not drive up consumer prices, particularly when those tariffs are connected to policy that lowers overall energy prices – transportation and shipping costs lowered. The producing countries are offsetting the tariff rates by lowering the wholesale prices.
♦ Now, a golden nugget for consideration later. Combine the value of what we import from Canada with the conversations that President Trump has had with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin. Elevate your thinking, and overlay the U.S. withdrawing operational support with the NATO alliance.
Now think about those icebreakers that President Trump has ordered from Finland, and the policy initiatives within the trade agreements that are going to build arctic fleets of USA ships to ensure navigation. Russia is the closest country to the USA, and Russia has exponentially more of the same valuable raw materials that we import from Canada.
Trump is ending the USMCA. Trump has discussed a post-Ukraine war relationship with Putin. Canada is cozying up to China and the EU, and Trump has ordered icebreakers to operate in the region between the USA and Russia. Who has the largest consumer market, and who has the largest capacity to deliver raw materials in a strategic relationship based on trade. Things look a little different now?
We keep watching.
Very interesting points and something to watch. Fact is, this is the way Trump works. Miles ahead of everyone(except Sundance).
Love Kevin Hassett… The Happy Warrior!
Are these ice breakers already built and ready for delivery, or do they have to be built? Must take more than a few month’s to build one.
Russia has ice breakers so maybe in the meantime they can deliver the products to us?
It would be really nice if the USA and Russia could build a strong relationship with each other. It would be good for both countries.
I’m starting to believe that we have more in common with Russia, than we do with the current state of the UK and EU.
We DO!!!
Especially the intact traditional family is strong in Russia!
Ditto that! I believe it is Trumps plan to increase trade with Russia. China is our enemy, not Russia. As far as Russia and China, they have always been at odds. There is a long history of that. As proof, they don’t have the same railroad track gauge so that trains on either side of their border cannot cross into the other country. This fact is not by chance, but intention.
White Christians vs. Godless Marxists? Ya think?
Why do you suppose the Globalists pivoted three seconds after WWII to divide the Caucasians, and then pivot to open China?
A culture divided is a culture defeated.
Look at it this way:
We are on the West side of EU—Russia on the East side
We are on the East side of China—-Russia on the West side
We supplied Russia in WWII with equipment and supplies
We stymied the USSR in the cold war, until Russia could rid themselves of Bolshevism.
We would be a strong supporter of Russia vs China
U.S. Coast Guard to Receive 11 New Icebreakers Under Landmark Finland Deal
https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/us-coast-guard-receive-11-new-icebreakers-under-landmark-finland-deal
The USA also has commercial and military icebreakers …
My understanding is that Russia has the finest and most sophisticated icebreaking fleet in the world, with several more ‘superbreakers’ under construction. Nuclear powered and simply amazing vessels. My source is Andrei Martyanov. He has a blog centered on what he recognizes as the war between NATO and Russia. Ukraine is simply the battlefield.
The blog is-
Reminiscence of the Future.
An excellent source for the Russian perspective. However I must caution that he is definitely not currently a fan of President Trump. He does though recognize that much more than what meets the eye is in play and he understands the enemies from within that Trump has no choice but to deal with.
The Russians do have ice breakers, but I know not how many, or how good.
Do not dismiss the “Tunnel” between US and Russia that was in the news.
Not necessarily a good thing, but it was a way for Pr. Trump to send a message to Putin.
I just love to listen when Kevin speaks. The dude has his act in order. My lovely wife is Canadian and has lived in the States for 45 years. She really loves the winning courtesy of PDJT!!
Me too! 🥰
sounds like, looks like the Canadian leadership is coming from a place of hubris. This was on full exhibit with the handling of the truckers, freezing bank accounts, threatening US citizens who had donated to them via GoFundMe, and other foolishness. Screw ’em.
USMCA was put into place for one reason only: to eliminate NAFTA. But it simply does not make sense for there to be “one” agreement covering two radically different bordering nations. Apples and Sombreros.
The Canadian government has been very stupid for a long time. But, this is their bed to make, and they must now lie in it. This is the only hope for them: sometimes, as in the parable of the prodigal son, “reality(!) has to give you a b&tch-slap!” 🤡
They have willingly hurt themselves, and it’s gonna have to really hurt. Bad. Only this experience will force the Canadian people to realize that what’s happening to them is their fault, AND theirs to fix. (Which they at any time could have done. Can still do.)
You are right USMCA—each country has one vote! The deal was always too stupid to last! But did get us out of NAFTA.
Sundance says: “The tariffs are having no impact on the rise of consumer prices.”
But I have a counter example. In the months prior to the US putting 50% tariffs on Brazil, I was buying coffee at between
$10 and $11 per 25-oz can. In September, the same coffee brand and amount was over $18. Brazil is a coffee exporter.
Brazil also has had a drop in the production of Coffee beans in the last couple seasons. Cold snaps and drought have a significant effect on the yields at crucial points in the growing season.
Natural variability in the weather explains much of the price change. And most of the remainder can be chalked up to speculation in the futures markets among others.
This is all tangent to the tariff being on the wholesale price of the beans and not the retail price that you would see in the stores anyways.
No nation has be cozying up to China more than has Russia. Probably not even North Korea. Canada isn’t even in the cozying running by contrast.
Without their of oil and gas and minerals, Russia would be a very poor third world country. They would make some country, maybe China, a nice colony.
I don’t understand your comment as Russia DOES have their oil and gas reserves.
All you’re missing is the Ukraine flag in your post somewhere. The thing the globalist fear most is the US and Russia allying up and the dystopian dream of control over the masses is done. I’ll continue to pray for peace and a strong relationship between the two greatest super powers in the world. Time to end China and send them back to their rice fields and once done focus on India and ship back all their H1B maggots stealing our tech jobs.
Maybe I’m flying a Chinses flag? That wouldn’t be as bad a guess anyway.
“Russia has increasingly turned to China for trade, technology, and diplomatic support. While not a formal surrender, Russia’s economic pivot to the East has made it highly dependent on Chinese markets and supplies, raising questions about its long-term sovereignty in economic and strategic decisions.
Since 2022, Russia has reoriented much of its trade toward China due to Western sanctions and the loss of European markets. According to Chinese customs data, bilateral trade reached $240 billion in 2023, up from $190 billion in 2022. This surge has been driven by Russian exports of oil, gas, and other raw materials, while imports from China include vehicles, electronics, and machinery.”.
Chin’s exports to Russia are first world type exports – vehicles, electronics, and machinery. Russia’s exports to China are third world type exports – of oil, gas, and other raw materials.
Russia is like a Chia colony.
So would we!
Working on future trading with Russia while providing Ukraine weapons to use against Russia thru US sales to NATO countries.
I’m confused.
Just as long as America’s elected leader, President Donald J. Trump, isn’t confused, and he isn’t..
You may have missed it!!!! SD hinted it’s possible that PDJT may stop operational support for NATO.
If that were to happen, the jaw drops and outrage (including uni party con gress critters) would be a spectacle to see. Ordering more popcorn now!!! 😎
Lindsey Graham probably blow a depends on the Senate floor if the President stops operational and intel support of NATO.
Anything is possible, but don’t get your hopes up.
I hope POTUS Trump does do that. We need to go our own way. Europe is on a path to destruction and the US does not have to follow them down that rabbit hole.
” 0.3 percent, much lower than all economists and pundits predicted. ”
0.3 aint much different than the predicted 0.4
Try losing 25% of your body weight, and then look in the mirror and tell me it ain’t much. lol
How about being able to tell, in the mirror, if you had lost .4 pound or lost .3 pound ?
Before I could lose 25% of my body weight, I’d be dead.
I’m not exactly one of Secretary Hegseth’s fatties.
You either don’t follow financial markets closely or are being intentionally disingenuous- which is it ? The fact is that when President Trump slapped on the tarries the opposition, many economists, etc. said the sky is falling and we’d have significant inflation as a result. Given we’ve already suffered the effects of high inflation from Bidenomics no-one wanted to see another round from tariffs.
As Sundance has pointed out (for years if you’ve been on this site that long) when President Trump put tariffs on during his first term they caused mild disinflation as the producing countries cut their prices and/or devalued their currencies to offset the tariffs and retain their market share/production levels. The data shows the same thing is happening this time around as well.
That is a big deal and if it holds eliminates the main criticism of the tariffs inside the US and suggests that President Trumps team may well be correct about the other expected impacts/benefits to the US that are still to come. Of course I think you know this already or are choosing to be willfully blind.
“Here’s Why Plans For A Tunnel Between Russian and Alaska are Insane”, op ed in the Moscow Times.
From the Kennedy – Khrushchev Tunnel to the Trump -Putin Tunnel.
FTA: No sooner had Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin hung up their phones than Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev announced an ambitious plan: Russia would build a tunnel under the Bering Strait, connecting Russia’s Chukotka with Alaska. It would be called the “Trump-Putin Tunnel.”
A day later, it emerged that Dmitriev’s business entities had already been working on a feasibility study for six months and that the idea supposedly originated with a Soviet official during Khrushchev’s talks with Kennedy.
According to Dmitriev, modern technologies developed by Elon Musk’s Boring Company (owned by Elon Musk) supposedly make it possible to carry out this project for under $8 billion — a third of the cost of the Kerch Strait bridge to Crimea. He wrote that with cutting-edge engineering, construction could be completed in under eight years.
A tunnel under the Bering Strait could “open new prospects for international trade and strengthen economic ties between Russia and North America,” Dmitriev declared. As Russia’s Channel One put it, “It takes your breath away!”
….
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/10/24/heres-why-plans-for-a-tunnel-between-russia-and-alaska-are-insane-a90919
Not that I’m keen on this project, but—
A side benefit would be to run the fiber cable through the tunnel rather than on the seafloor,
thus eliminating vulnerability to China’s anchor-dragging nonsense.
Well, I’m looking at what was spent of tax payer dollars on the California rail system President Trump finally ended. This benefits all Americans, not just Californians.
The area between the two continents is a very high earthquake area; not sure how long any tunnels would last with the often 5.0 and higher on the seismic scale for earthquakes that occur in that area.
That’s a good point. I hadn’t even heard of this potential tunnel before and can’t fathom it happening anytime soon.
I’m concerned with the belief by so many people that tariffs are the cause of so many problems . All I see all over the web is people complaining about tariffs and their insistence that tariffs are the only reason prices remain high on so many things .
Even if prices are the same as they were the year before people constantly say if not for tariffs it would be cheaper . That’s a problem imo .
If Russian trade is truly desired with the USA the Trans Siberian Tunnel makes a lot of sense even if it is very expensive. The Panama Canal wasn’t cheap but it has served its purpose for over 100 years and continues to do so.
MAGA Baby!! Trump 28!!
I think the icebreakers will also be beneficial after Trump strikes a deal with/for Greenland.
The train tunnel is fun and interesting. Can’t love Trump enough when he asked Zelinski about that.