Commerce Secretary Wilbur “Wolverine” Ross put the trade world on notice today when he announced a staggering $1.19 billion penalty on Chinese company ZTE for violating U.S. sanctions and selling electronics to Iran and North Korea.
China’s ZTE has agreed to pay the United States the fine.  Remember, in China all private businesses are politically attached to the central government.

(From Wilbur Ross Office) Secretary of Commerce Wilbur L. Ross, Jr. today announced that China’s Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment Corporation and ZTE Kangxun Telecommunications Ltd., known collectively as ZTE, has agreed to a record-high combined civil and criminal penalty of $1.19 billion, pending approval from the courts, after illegally shipping telecommunications equipment to Iran and North Korea in violation of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR).
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Ready yourselves – here we go again.  Up is down and down is up.
These “small government CONservatives” do have a rather obvious propensity to consolidate self-serving power when threatened, eh?  Crony CONstitutional CONservatives loves them some globalism when Wall Street is paying for their indulgences…

WASHINGTON DC – A staffer for Republican Senator Mike Lee told trade experts at a lunch in Washington this week that he is looking into ways to curtail the president’s wide-ranging powers to impose tariffs, according to one of Lee’s aides.
The aide said a bill could be introduced as early as next week, and it may require Trump to go through Congress to use tariffs.

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When President-elect Donald Trump says “America First” too few actually understand the severity of his determination to accomplish that goal. Leverage, or more accurately creating leverage, is a business art that Donald Trump has uniquely honed for decades. There are trillions of dollars in play.
Against the backdrop of a known position by President-elect Trump toward the business and financial monopolization by Amazon and Jeff Bezos, President Trump publicly brings Alibaba CEO Jack Ma to the cameras in Trump Tower. All except the business media will probably skip over the larger play within this epic display of 3-D leverage creation.

Titan Trump is almost too good at this; spooky good.  If he were an adversary, we’d be in big trouble. Thankfully he’s on America’s team.
China (writ large) and Amazon (domestically) both benefit from the historic constructs of Wall Street’s leveraged globalist approach. In essence, what we are seeing today are two natural sets of anti-American (monopolistic) business and financial interests being positioned against each other to create the leverage needed for an ultimate American win.
Trump is fracturing business globalism.  Remember, all large business leaders in modern China are essentially political emissaries.  China has been building an economic army for decades.
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Yesterday North Korea made the claim they were close to development of an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM).   As you look at the tweet reply from Donald Trump about this claim, it’s worth remembering two very important details:

1. This issue came up in one of the February 2016 GOP debates.
2. The sequencing of the two tweets below.

This declaratory tweet message was immediately followed up with the following:
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China understands very well the consequences.  President Trump very well understands the leverage.  The U.S. market is the customer in the trade equation.
This is not a negotiation for the faint at heart… This.Shall.Be.Epic.  THIS is the battle many of us have long awaited. Long awaited.  The patriotic industrialists, our titans, have been patiently waiting for the leveling….
The overarching policy is a simple two word summary, “America First”.  It is critical, absolutely critical, to remember: in the entirety of their economic rise to power, China has never had to contemplate an economic adversary ambivalent to their state-centric objectives.
In all prior economic negotiations China has simply bought off their Washington DC opposition through the use of lobbyists and Tom Donohue’s personal business enterprise, the U.S. CoC.  China’s only familiar option is now completely off the table.
(Via Reuters) Chinese state media on Friday expressed alarm and warned of a “showdown with the U.S.” after President-elect Donald Trump named Peter Navarro, an economist who has urged a hard line against China, to head a new White House National Trade Council. (more…)

WASHINGTON DC – Washington and Beijing have agreed to terms to return a Navy drone captured in the disputed waters of the South China Sea to the U.S., the Pentagon announced Saturday.
[…]  China’s decision to release the drone Saturday, came hours after President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter to slam Beijing’s actions.  (read more)
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(Via The Daily Mail) A Chinese warship has captured an underwater US Navy drone right in front of the eyes of the crew of an American ship in the South China sea, prompting a government official to say, ‘they stole it’.

The incident has triggered a formal demarche from the United States and a demand for its return, a US defense official told Reuters on Friday.

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President-elect Donald Trump continues to frustrate the legacy media by making his announcements around the traditional media enterprises; this time via Facebook.
A secondary source of media antagonism is the lack of institutional academics amid all of the various appointees and nominees.  The professional left are apoplectic about Donald Trump continuing to select successful private sector captains of industry and action-oriented military leaders.  The absence of institutionally academic wonks is making the media very unhappy.
Then again, the old axiom is self-evident:

Those that can, do. Those that can’t, opine about those that can…

(New York, NY) – President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced his intent to nominate Linda McMahon to serve as the Administrator of the Small Business Administration, a cabinet-level position.
“My America First agenda is going to bring back our jobs and roll back the burdensome regulations that are hurting our middle class workers and small businesses. To help push our agenda forward, I am pleased to nominate Linda McMahon as the head of the Small Business Administration,” said President-elect Trump.
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For more than a year we have been discussing the Trump ‘America-First’ economic platform.  Within the discussion you may remember the following:

[…]  In addition, an unquantifiable benefit comes from investment, where the smart money play -to get increased return on investment- becomes putting capital INTO the U.S. economy, instead of purchasing foreign stocks. (read more)

We would strongly urge people to grasp the fundamental outline of Trump’s economic path; because he continues specifically showing evidence of this fundamental economic paradigm shift:

Masa (SoftBank) of Japan has agreed to invest $50 billion in the U.S. toward businesses and 50,000 new jobs….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2016

In addition to the announced investment from Masayoshi Son of Softbank, a very Trump-esque business leader within Japan, President-elect Donald Trump also made a specific point about Boeing and the contract they carry to build the next generation Airforce One fleet.
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Forget President Obama breaking 40 years of U.S. diplomatic policy and engaging in direct talks with Iran…. forget that.
Forget President Obama breaking 50 years of U.S. diplomatic policy and engaging in direct political relationships with the communists in Cuba…. forget that too.
The Donald took a phone call from the President of Taiwan.

OMG Yikes, Stop The Presses !!

Quick, cue the Dobbs:

Repost – Donald Trump took a congratulatory phone call from the President of Taiwan, and now the Chinese will be apoplectic.
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