Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appears on CNBC to discuss ongoing trade initiatives including NAFTA, China and the more broad Asia background.  Additionally, Wilburine discusses growth in GDP and anticipated economic enhancements from the tax cut legislation.

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Earlier today it was announced that ADP private payroll growth for January has exceeded 234,000 jobs gained.   “The job market juggernaut marches on,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said in a statement. “Given the strong January job gain, 2018 is on track to be the eighth consecutive year in which the economy creates over 2 million jobs.  (read full story on payroll report)
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NAFTA renegotiation round six ended yesterday in Canada will no substantive progress on the most contentious trade issues.  One negotiation chapter on corruption was closed, but there was little to no agreement on much else.
Each of the primary Trade Representatives gave a closing statement at the conclusion of Round #6.  U.S.T.R. Lighthizer blasted Canada for attempting to inject schemes, fraud and deceptive dealing within the negotiations. Princess Rainbow Sparkles from Canada tried to pretend the Canadian proposal was realistic.  It was all awkward.  Hopefully President Trump will soon get us out of this nonsense. Lighthizer Transcript below video:

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Ambassador Lighthizer: It is a pleasure to be here in Quebec. Montreal is one of the great cities of the world, and I have not been back in many years, and I’ve missed it. I used to come here in the 70s and 80s with my wife and children to go to Mont-Tremblant and learn how to ski. We loved the French culture, we loved the excellent food, the wonderful skiing and as I recall, it was cold all the time. That hasn’t changed at least.
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Round six of NAFTA renegotiation talks continue today as Canada and Mexico claim cautious optimism that a round seven will take place.  This round of talks is scheduled to continue through Monday and end with a much anticipated a joint press conference between Ildefonso Guajardo (Mex), Chrystia Freeland (Can) and U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer.   There were seven rounds initially scheduled.
Canada and Mexico are trying to close less important, and less controversial, trade chapters in an effort to give the illusion of progress and frame a political narrative that lends itself toward continuing to talk; ie. round seven.
However, if there’s no significant progress on the larger issues it’s doubtful Lighthizer will find value in endless words that amount to nothing.
Canada and Mexico have been lobbying U.S. politicians hard to retain their parasitic trade positions.  Additionally, a significant number of Washington DC politicians are willing to take massive bribes from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbyists and support the export of American economic jobs and wealth.   This is another key UniParty indulgence issue.
Big Corporate Agriculture (Big AG), the consortium of massive multinational agriculture companies who hold stakes in the entire continent, are pushing hard to keep their “controlled market” dominance in place, and is attempting to stoke fears using false claims about farms and negative trade impacts to farmers.  Pure nonsense.
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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross at the World Economic Forum in Davos (President Trump departs the U.S. tonight to attend). The attendance by Secretary Ross provides an opportunity to further enforce the position of the Trump administration regarding free, fair and reciprocal trade deals.
Believe me, the economic globalist attendees were/are entirely freaking out.  There’s a panel discussion video at the bottom which will highlight the tenuous position of the multinational corporations, banks and the economic interests of the globalists.  Prior to the panel Secretary Ross gave an interview to CNBC. WATCH:

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As mentioned Secretary Ross also outlined how the ‘America First’ economic policy and platform engages with the global community during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum.  Generally the attendees have been historic champions of multinational corporations and multinational financial interests, ie. fans of “economic globalization”.
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Oh, go figure.  They re-cog-o-nized that all by themselves…
Yesterday CTH noted Princess Rainbow Sparkles was in Washington DC lobbying Washington State Representative Dave Reichert, Senator Jeff Flake, Senator Lindsey Graham, et al. Isn’t it funny how Canadian officials lobby U.S. representatives for their unique economic interests, but if a U.S. official stepped into Canada to lobby one of their members of Parliament,… yikes, heaven forbid. Foreign election conspiracy. I digress.

Reuters is reporting today that Canadian trade officials are increasingly convinced that President Trump is going to pull out of NAFTA.  The next round of negotiations is scheduled for the end of this month.  Half of the Canadian contingent thinks Trump will exit, the other half think the appearance of a pull-out is simply a negotiating strategy.
An official WH source “close to Trump” is attributing a statement to POTUS: “I want out”.
Ya think?  Scott Minerd, Global Chief Investment Officer at Guggenheim Partners, said “if Trump were to announce a NAFTA exit, the stock market would probably pull back by 5 percent or so, before advancing to new highs.”  He’s correct.
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Well, that didn’t take long.  About a decade ago we needed a phrase to describe a very specific set of republican senators, thus originated the term “Decepticons”.
Decepticons are different from traditional ‘establishment’ types in that they are a cloistered club, a sub-set of the upper-tier within the GOPe, and they protect their exclusive position because of the payments and benefits they receive from an individual lobbyist, Tom Donohue.

Tom Donohue is the President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest single lobbying group in all of Washington DC.   Donohue represents the interests of massive financial institutions and multinational corporations.  Donohue receives hundreds of millions from his corporate conglomerates; and he controls the distribution of tens-of-millions toward individual senators on capitol hill who agree to uphold those interests.
A ‘Decepticon’ will NEVER break ranks with the Chamber. EVER.  Regardless of the Chamber position.  That character trait is what makes them uniquely “Decepticons.”

WASHINGTON DC – Senate Republicans are growing frustrated with what they see as a lack of clear direction in President Trump’s trade agenda, which they warn is hurting U.S. exporters.
Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee vented their concerns in a recent meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

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The economic strategy of President Trump is so consequential and encompassing, even the domestic effects are felt globally.

♦Removing the U.S. from the multinational TPP trade deal initially planted the seeds of doubt amid multinational trade forecasters because the shift positioned the U.S. with unique leverage. They saw Trump using access to the worlds largest market as a negotiating strategy.
♦A few months later, President Trump walked away from the ridiculous regulatory restrictions within the Paris Climate Treaty.  Instantaneously this put even more strategic manufacturing and economic advance on the U.S. ledger, and simultaneously made American energy independence a foregone conclusion.
♦And now that congress has codified President Trump’s lower domestic business taxes, in conjunction with opening up ANWR for energy development (a strategic economic goal for 20+ years), the size of the U.S. economic and manufacturing advantage has just increased U.S. trade leverage to almost unimaginable levels.

Economic Nationalism – President Trump’s strategy has created: •Lower and long-term predictable energy costs, not attached to OPEC or multinational influence; •Lower and long-term raw material costs due to slashed regulatory environment; •lower and long-term business manufacturing tax rates; and now Trump begins negotiating trade deals.

Add these advantages together within the largest economic market in the world and the U.S. is now the place where manufacturers will want to do business.  Additionally, the process of utilizing Canada and/or Mexico as a workaround into the U.S. market, via NAFTA, is on the cusp of removal.
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T-Rex and Twinkles

Against the backdrop of NAFTA renegotiation that appears headed for certain doom, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appears contrast against the overly familiar Canadian Foreign Minister Mrs. Twinkles and Rainbows Chrystia Freeland.  I doubt you could find two individual personalities more divergent (watch you’ll see “Rex”?):

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[Transcript] FOREIGN MINISTER FREELAND: Okay. Hi, everybody. Great to see everyone here. Before I begin, I’d like to extend Canada’s thoughts and condolences to our American guests in light of the terrible train derailment in Washington state. We extend our sympathies to those who lost loved ones and wish a full and swift recovery to the injured.
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No-where is Trump Derangement Syndrome more evident than in the position of activist Democrats now swearing allegiance to multinational trade deals.
It was only a short time ago when Democrat activists and liberal politicians demanded U.S. withdrawal from TPP and openly discussed how NAFTA was disastrous for the U.S. worker. Both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton ran on pulling out of TPP etc.
Trump gets elected, actually fulfills a campaign promise and promptly pulls-out of TPP subsequently beginning to renegotiate NAFTA (with leveraged threats to withdraw); and suddenly, Democrats are joining arm-in-arm with corporate Republicans expressing their profound love for multinational trade deals. Go figure.

Round #5 of NAFTA renegotiation begins today in Mexico, absent any diplomatic trade ministers, and Canada announces their intent to use their access to congress as leverage over the executive branch in an attempt to work around President Trump:

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada will redouble its lobbying efforts in Congress to block any Trump administration move to pull the United States out of NAFTA, sources familiar with government strategy said, as talks to modernize the treaty run into trouble.
[…] Canadian officials say there is some considerable doubt as to whether Trump could pull out of NAFTA without approval from Congress, which makes lobbying its members so important.

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[Read with Looming British Voice] Crikey… deep within the Vietnamese rain forest we discover a large assembly of ferocious creatures… each followed closely by their tribal hierarchy.  Carefully, silently, we capture their stealthy movements amid the banana trees and deeply rich native vegetation… After four minutes and thirty seconds of breathless anticipation we finally got the footage we were looking for…
The largest of the beasts emerge from the brush… The predators. A giant panda, seemingly unaware of the cameras… Just then, there it is, the moment we never thought we would see, the apex predators – a bear and lion together just as the regional colluding myths have described through the ages; seemingly oblivious to our presence – fearless in their approach… we dare not move:

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