Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appears on CNBC to outline some of the topline details behind the latest U.S-China trade agreement.

As Lutnick notes, with all the terms agreed over two long days of negotiation, the details now move to “the paper” where President Trump and Chairman Xi will review and approve.  The agreement is ¹only between the USA and China and does not involve trade details with other nations who will not be pulled along by our U.S. position.

.

This facet is very interesting because it means ¹Canada, a nation entirely dependent on China for industrial raw materials, does not gain benefit from the outcome of the U.S-China trade agreement.   Canada is openly, publicly, trying to develop their economic model with a relationship toward the U.K and EU, to the detriment of the USA.  If China grants benefit to the USA that are not existent for Canada, the U.K and E.U, that puts their coalition of economic adversaries at a disadvantage.

Lutnicks’ throw-away line, “we tried to help them, but it didn’t work out”… moving on.  lol

(more…)

President Trump announces that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer have successfully concluded three-days of topline trade negotiations with their Chinese counterparts.

President Trump and Chairman Xi will now evaluate the successfully negotiated details and institute the topline strategy as part of the overall future trade agreement. According to the Truth Social post, there will be a 55% tariff on Chinese imports and a 10% tariff on U.S. goods to China.

[SOURCE]

At a 55% tariff rate against Chinese finished-goods imports, there will be ZERO inflationary pressure to the U.S. consumer.

None. Zero. Zippo. Zilch.

I will explain why below.

(more…)

This indictment summary reads like a movie script.

A member of the Chinese Communist Party, Shenghua Wen, 42, of Ontario California, came to the USA on a student visa in 2012; he never left.

Wen remained in the USA illegally, while somehow purchasing “a firearms business in Houston, paid for with money sent through intermediaries by one of Wen’s North Korean contacts.”

After organizing a covert life in the United States, and after purchasing the firearms company, Wen began sending weapons and sensitive military hardware to China, where it was transshipped by prior agreement and sent into North Korea.  You just have to read the DOJ press release to review the unbelievable system Shenghua Wen had put into place.

“Wen also acquired or offered to acquire a civilian airplane engine and a thermal imaging system that could be mounted on a drone, helicopter, or other aircraft, and could be used for reconnaissance and target identification.” [READ MORE]

Wen plead guilty to the charges and now faces “a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the count of violating the IEEPA and a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on the count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 18.”

(more…)

This is actually a very surprising development.  The World Bank (WB) is a heavily controlled multinational exploit of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Economic Forum assembly (WEF).  This could be looked upon as the WTO/WEF taking a knee as they finally accept Godzilla Trump is not going to relent.  Remember, the Build Back Better agenda was a construct from the WEF/WTO.

Looking a little more deeply at the people behind the latest shift in tone and paying close attention to the wording they are using, there’s an inference the World Bank is telling Europe to stop being intransigent or they will lose U.S. military support.  A very unusual shift in WB tone.

In my first review opinion, as the legal arbitration system for trade complaints, the WB are trying to mitigate President Trump’s full-frontal assault on the global trade imbalance that brings the global trade wealth back to the USA.

NEW YORK POST […] – Top economists at the international institution, which helps finance low and middle-income countries, acknowledged that many nations do not provide reciprocal trade access to the US.

“This [situation] could not be sustained indefinitely,” the World Bank’s chief economist, Indermit Gill, said during a news briefing, the Washington Post reported.

[Gill] contended that Trump’s actions were merely a response to uneven trade access between other countries and the US.

Other experts at the World Bank concurred with that assessment and indicated that Europe, Japan and China should all take steps to reduce trade barriers on the US, while calling for an across-the-board rollback on tariffs on all sides. (more)

(more…)

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will be departing London, leaving Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to finalize the details with the Chinese trade delegation.

Apparently, the talks have been very productive according to Bessent and extended well beyond the previously scheduled timeline as they get very specific with the expectations and terms of compliance.

LONDON – U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday he is departing ongoing trade talks with China because he has to travel to Washington, D.C., to testify before Congress the next day.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will remain in London to continue the negotiations with Beijing, which are still underway after two lengthy days of talks, Bessent said.

Lutnick said earlier that the parties were “trying to finish” by Tuesday evening.

(more…)

After reading the details of this arrest involving the smuggling of biological Roundworms, parasitic nematodes that can infect humans and animals, I am definitely adding Ivermectin and fenbendazole to the crisis kit.

Last week, two Chinese nationals were charged with allegedly smuggling into the U.S. a fungus called “Fusarium graminearum, which scientific literature classifies as a potential agroterrorism weapon. This week another Chinese national was arrested for smuggling in biological material containing Roundworms. Both the fungi and the Roundworm material can target and impact the U.S. agriculture sector, i.e. food supply.

DETROIT – Chengxuan HAN, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), was arrested and charged in a criminal complaint with smuggling goods into the United States and false statements, announced United States Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr.

Gorgon was joined in the announcement by Special Agent in Charge Cheyvoryea Gibson, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Detroit Division, Acting Director of Field Operations John Nowak, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Jared Murphey, acting Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Detroit field office.

(more…)

After President Trump had a direct telephone call with Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping, President Trump announced from the Oval Office that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer would meet with their counterparts from China again, only this time Bessent and Greer will be accompanied by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

President Trump repeated the same announcement via Truth Social:  “I am pleased to announce that Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Jamieson Greer, will be meeting in London on Monday, June 9, 2025, with Representatives of China, with reference to the Trade Deal. The meeting should go very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

While each of the trade Wolverines have teeth, Howard Lutnick is the enforcer. The issue surrounds prior promises made in Geneva to Bessent and Greer on the continuation of mined and refined rare earth minerals from China needed in batteries.

The addition of Lutnick is akin to President Trump saying, go ahead and make the promise again – only this time Lutnick will be there to spell out the consequences of inaction.

(more…)

President Trump and the trade team have made specific requests of Vietnam in order to negotiate a trade agreement.  Unfortunately, just like Canada, Vietnam’s problem is not an unwillingness to comply, it’s their inability.

CTH was in the manufacturing base of Vietnam in January; their factories are loaded with component parts from China used to produce finished goods sent to the USA (and globally).  President Trump is telling Vietnam they need to reduce their reliance on Chinese imported component goods, but China has spent billions in advanced positioning and contracts, influencing Vietnam.

Vietnam is a very poor country, and their population cannot afford to purchase the products they manufacture.  They do not have a domestic consumption base. They are reliant on exports to more wealthy nations to keep their manufacturing base afloat.  Practically, it is easy to have sympathy for Vietnam due to their economic dependence on both China (for imported raw materials) and the USA (for exported finished goods).

VIETNAM – The US has sent a “long” list of “tough” requests to Vietnam in its tariff negotiations, including demands that could force the country to cut its reliance on Chinese industrial goods imports, two people briefed about the matter told Reuters.

Washington wants Vietnam-based factories to reduce their use of materials and components from China and is asking the country to control more carefully its production and supply chains, one of the people briefed on the talks said, without elaborating on whether quantitative targets were included.

The list is part of an “annex” to a framework text prepared by US negotiators, according to four people familiar with the matter.

(more…)

The sense that this is not good expands when you consider the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the current conflict between the United States and China.  Two Chinese researchers in Michigan have been charged with smuggling into the U.S. a fungus that devastates agricultural crops.

Was this an ‘agroterrorism’ operation intended to unleash a serious problem in the U.S. farming system?  That intent cannot be dismissed easily.

MICHIGAN – Two Chinese nationals have been charged with allegedly smuggling into the U.S. a fungus called “Fusarium graminearum, which scientific literature classifies as a potential agroterrorism weapon,” the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, citizens of the People’s Republic of China, were allegedly receiving Chinese government funding for their research, some of it at the University of Michigan, officials said.

“The complaint also alleges that Jian’s electronics contain information describing her membership in and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party,” a DOJ press release said.

“It is further alleged that Jian’s boyfriend, Liu, works at a Chinese university where he conducts research on the same pathogen and that he first lied but then admitted to smuggling Fusarium graminearum into America — through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport — so that he could conduct research on it at the laboratory at the University of Michigan where his girlfriend, Jian, worked,” according to the press release.

(more…)

If we cut through all the polite pretending, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appears on Fox News to tell the bobble head the nation specific tariffs are going to hit regardless of what approaches need to be taken.  President Trump is going to remain focused on structural changes to the global economic system of trade, manufacturing and USA commerce despite all of the grandiose efforts of the multinationals and their Lawfare foot soldiers.

As Lutnick again repeats, there are a variety of legal mechanisms that can be used to enforce the tariff program triggered by President Trump.  Adhering to them is not optional for trade partners who wish to have access to the USA market.  If the exporting nation wants to play games, try and delay or delay tactics, the end result will be even more against their interests.  There is no alternative other than to acquiesce.  WATCH:

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is going to find this out on Thursday when he shows up in full Blackrock mode and only creates a worse scenario for himself and the EU Commission he represents.  If Merz wants ‘ugly’, no problem – President Trump has an endless supply of big ugly tools.

FA-FO!

(more…)