Political Strategist Steve Bannon gives an exclusive interview to a far-left progressive media outlet where he asserts the big picture issue that matters above all other current policy issues, is the economic war between China and the U.S.

(Via Prospect) […] To me,” Bannon said, “the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we’re five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we’ll never be able to recover.”
Bannon’s plan of attack includes: a complaint under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act against Chinese coercion of technology transfers from American corporations doing business there, and follow-up complaints against steel and aluminum dumping. “We’re going to run the tables on these guys. We’ve come to the conclusion that they’re in an economic war and they’re crushing us.”

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President Donald Trump has cancelled the Manufacturers Council and the Strategic Economic Advisory Board.  There are trillions of dollars at stake.  The members of the boards, and their representative companies, were being targeted by left-wing groups like Move-On.Org with boycotts and opposition.

There are massive international corporate and financial interests who are inherently at risk from President Trump’s “America-First” economic and trade platform.  Believe it or not, President Trump is up against an entire world economic establishment.
I will outline how it works below; and when you understand how it works in the modern era you will understand why the agents within the system are so adamantly opposed to U.S. President Trump.
The biggest lie in modern economics, willingly spread and maintained by corporate media, is that a system of global markets still exists.
It doesn’t.
Every element of global economic trade is controlled and exploited by massive institutions, multinational banks and multinational corporations.  Institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Bank control trillions of dollars in economic activity.  Underneath that economic activity there are people who hold the reigns of power over the outcomes.  These individuals and groups are the stakeholders in direct opposition to principles of national economics.
The modern financial constructs of these entities have been established over the course of the past three decades.  When you understand how they manipulate the economic system of individual nations you begin to understand understand why they are so fundamentally opposed to President Trump.
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The transparency is obvious for anyone who has followed the history of motives behind U.S. business entities, and affiliates, who each have vested financial interests in global manufacturing exploitation to the detriment of America’s economic interests and U.S middle-class workers.
It would be laughable if their oppositional interest was not so consequential.  However, TEAM USA will prevail. Bigly. Believe it.  For many years CTH has been warning about the “trillion dollar stakeholders” in the multinational corporatism that infects the U.S. body politic. –Outlined HERE–

Toward that end manufacturing CEO’s, who have vested interests in retaining international manufacture of their products for U.S. market, took up positions aboard President Trump’s manufacturing council in an effort to steer the “America First” shift in economic policy.
Those CEO council voices initially convinced President Trump not to “scrap” the NAFTA trade deal and instead requested a “re-negotiation” therein.  However, on the eve of the actual re-negotiation taking place, and against the backdrop of looming and consequential trade sanctions against China, those same entities are facing a reality where the system enabling their continued indulgences is likely to be collapsed.  Because Trump.
The communist Chinese government is no longer trying to hide their prior insurance payments into the corrupt and exploitative economic policy of the U.S.
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CTH will not be part of the insufferable media narrative that China and North Korea are detached and independent; that nonsense is just plain silly.  Beijing’s old communist guard tells Kim Jong-un what he can and cannot do.
That said, Beijing flinched. Kim Jong-un takes finger off trigger. It appears Guam has nothing to worry about for the moment.
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un received a report from his army on its plans to strike the area around Guam and said he will watch the actions of the United States for a while longer before making a decision, the North’s official news agency said on Tuesday.

“The United States, which was the first to bring numerous strategic nuclear equipment near us, should first make the right decision and show through actions if they wish to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula and prevent a dangerous military clash,” Kim was cited as saying in the report by KCNA.
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During an afternoon announcement with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, President Trump announced the launch of section 301 trade investigations into China’s business practices for theft of U.S. technology and violations of U.S. intellectual property rights.
Perhaps the most overlooked portion of the remarks from President Trump happened as he sat down to sign the Presidential Memorandum authorizing the official investigation:

…This is only the beginning folks. This is only the beginning…

For approximately 30 years China has been engaged in a unidirectional trade war against the United States of America; facilitated and enabled by both Democrats and Republicans who have been purchased by multinational and corporate lobbyists to block any effort to defend our U.S. interests.  The biggest victims have been U.S. middle-class workers.
Today, for the first time in modern U.S. history, a singular President stood up and began what will be an arduous process of fighting back, defending the U.S. economy and balancing the rights of U.S. workers and companies with “fair” and “reciprocal” trade.

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 provides the United States with the authority to enforce trade agreements, resolve trade disputes, and open foreign markets to U.S. goods and services. It is the principal statutory authority under which the United States may impose trade sanctions on foreign countries that either violate trade agreements or engage in other unfair trade practices. When negotiations to remove the offending trade practice fail, the United States may take action to raise import duties on the foreign country’s products as a means to rebalance lost concessions. (LINK)

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis release a joint Statement/Op-ed discussing North Korea and accountability.  However, against the backdrop of visible diplomacy the joint statement is more about terms, than accountability.
Note a pointed subtlety.  Secretary Tillerson lays down the terms to China; while Secretary Mattis lays down the terms to North Korea.

WASHINGTON – The U.S., its allies and the world are united in our pursuit of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.
In the past few months, multiple illegal North Korean ballistic-missile and ICBM tests—coupled with the most recent bellicose language from Pyongyang about striking the U.S., Guam, our allies and our interests in the Asia-Pacific region—have escalated tensions between North Korea and America to levels not experienced since the Korean War.
In response, the Trump administration, with the support of the international community, is applying diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea to achieve the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a dismantling of the regime’s ballistic-missile programs. We are replacing the failed policy of “strategic patience,” which expedited the North Korean threat, with a new policy of strategic accountability.
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Asian policy specialist Gordon Chang interviewed by Maria Bartiromo on her Sunday talk show and accurately outlines the key to a denuclearized North Korea is an economically defeated China.  It appears Mr. Chang fully understands the Trump policy of using economics to achieve national security.
As we have continued to outline, China, specifically the old guard communist control agents within Beijing, use Kim Jong-un as a foil against the west, specifically against the United States.  The long-term objective in using the DPRK is retention of China’s economic strategy, and blockage of President Trump from upending their goals.  Watch:

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As we have outlined extensively, President Trump holds all of the cards in this economic and trade standoff.  The U.S. is China’s customer and there’s a $500 billion trade deficit.
However, President Trump cannot be completely open with the strategy because part of the long-term plan is to allow China to save face by giving up North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. It would be against Trump’s interests if the entire global and geopolitical community understood what was happening.
So they question becomes, how will we know when President Trump has won in the economic and national security challenge?
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CIA Director Mike Pompeo appears on CBS Face the Nation with DC advocate John Dickerson to discuss the issues surrounding DPRK ongoing hostility.  As with all MSM interviews the discussion begins with the first two minutes dedicated to undermining President Trump around the “weak Charlottesville response” narrative.
Fortunately Dickerson only stuck with that narrative for around two minutes and then began discussing North Korea, U.S. security policy, and the intelligence communities’ confidence in understanding the current level of the threat posed by Kim Jong-un.

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National Security Adviser HR McMaster appears on NBC ‘Meet the Press’ with Chuck Todd to discuss issues surrounding North Korea.   However, Todd predictably uses the first half of the interview to discuss the “Charlottesville Trump-is-racist narrative”, and then, rather sneakily, shifts the discussion into the “alt-right” -vs- McMaster angle.
Chuck Todd uses the “Bannon-wing talking points” and “allies within the White House” to draw out a division within the administration.  It’s obvious the MSM are ‘all-in’ on the strategy to highlight the division.  The second half of the interview finally focuses on North Korea.
At 08:06 the China as an economic enabler to DPRK comes in. Watch how HR McMaster responds on the economics of the North Korean issue.

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While President Trump confronts the North Korean military aggression through economic trade leverage with China, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson heads the diplomatic efforts toward regional partners in Southeast Asia.
Toward that end the Department of State conducts a Washington Foreign Press Center Briefing on “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s recent Trip to the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Regional Forum.  Patrick Murphy DAS of State for Southeast Asia holds a press availability to debrief. (Q&A begins at 12:00)

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