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.

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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.

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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!

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on CBS News to counter the false information being spread by Margaret Brennan on behalf of Wall Street corporations.  The topics of interest surround China and tariffs.

Let me clarify for the audience that does not follow closely.  Tariffs are paid by the importer based on the wholesale price of the product as delivered by the exporting country depending on the exporters’ tariff rate.  Tariffs are NOT LEVIED/PAID based on the retail price of the product as sold to the consumer.

Example:  A pair of Denim Jeans made in China for Guess Brand.  The Chinese manufacturer sells the jeans to Guess Brand for $10 a pair manufactured.  Guess sells the jeans at retail in the USA for $100 (a $90 gross profit).

A 50% tariff on China means the jeans cost Guess Brand $15 instead of $10 (an $85 gross profit).  A 50% tariff on Guess brand jeans, that retail for $100, changes the cost to the retail brand by $5.

Multinational corporations who have off shored their production and manufacturing to China are the ones screaming about tariffs.  Ultimately in the final analysis, President Trump is exposing corporatism, multinational corporate vultures; he is not necessarily just exposing China.

In the example above the company makes $85 gross profit as opposed to $90 gross profit on the pair of jeans if they do not raise the retail price.  They don’t raise the price because their profit margins are already ridiculous, and that’s why consumer prices do not go up. A 50% direct tariff on Chinese goods only marginally hits the multinational corporation.  American consumers need to understand this dynamic better.    WATCH: 

[TRANSCRIPT] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning and welcome to ‘Face the Nation.’ We begin today with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Good morning and thank you for being here.

SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Morning, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s so much to get to. I want to start with China, because the Defense Secretary just said there’s an imminent military threat from China to Taiwan. Days earlier, Secretary Rubio said he’d aggressively revoked Chinese student visas. On top of that, you have curbing exports to China. Trade talks you said with Beijing are stalled, and President Trump just accused China of violating an agreement, and now says no more, ‘Mr. Nice Guy.’ Are you intentionally escalating this standoff with Beijing?

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Deputy Chief of Staff and White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller holds a press availability to push back against the nonsense narratives around the ongoing deportation operations and the support of the Supreme Court in verifying Presidential authority.

Mr Miller also gives a high-level overview of the China trade negotiations, the ongoing HHS initiatives from Robert F Kennedy Jr and other matters of media interest.  WATCH:

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United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is the guy who has to navigate all the legal and detailed structures around all of the trade agreements.  As USTR there is a lot of responsibility upon Mr Greer to navigate the way through the impediments thrown at him and President Trump by the multinational corporations and banks who are impacted by the America-First trade policy.

USTR Greer appears on CNBC to discuss some of the current issues and challenges, as well as the solutions and motivations behind them. If you are interested in the legal dynamics behind the larger trade policy issues, these appearances by USTR Greer are important.  WATCH:

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Not surprisingly, it appears the Chinese trade delegation that previously made commitments in Geneva, Switzerland, were wearing a panda mask at the time of the negotiations with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

According to a Truth Social post shared by President Trump, the panda mask was recently removed and the true Beijing dragon behind it appeared. This is not a shock to anyone who has followed the dynamic of Chinese trade promises and practices for a while.

PRESIDENT TRUMP – “Two weeks ago China was in grave economic danger! The very high Tariffs I set made it virtually impossible for China to TRADE into the United States marketplace which is, by far, number one in the World. We went, in effect, COLD TURKEY with China, and it was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, “civil unrest.” I saw what was happening and didn’t like it, for them, not for us. I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen. Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized, and China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!! The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”

China was moving slowly on promises to issue export licenses for rare earths minerals. The Geneva deal called for China to lift trade countermeasures that restrict its exports of the critical metals needed for U.S. semiconductor, electronics and defense production.

“The Chinese are slow-rolling their compliance, which is completely unacceptable, and it has to be addressed,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC, without specifying how that would happen.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced (via X) the U.S. State Department will begin revoking the student visas of Chinese nationals, “including those” connected to the Chinese Communist Party:

[SOURCE BACKGROUND]

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King Charles is arriving in Canada today in advance of an opening speech he will deliver to the Canadian Parliament.   Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney invited King Charles to attend, and while the media portray the visit as mostly symbolic there is no doubt the substantive issue for Canada is the economic dependency on the USA and how the U.K can bolster the position of Canada against that threat.

Everything is always about the money of the thing, this dynamic between the U.K and Canada is no different.  What we would call the ‘western’ global financial system is contingent upon all U.S. allies retaining the United States as their consumer base and stable currency center.  President Trump has exposed the vulnerability of Canada as he confronts the parasitic relationship {GO DEEP}.

In advance of the U.K positioning itself as the skirt behind which Canada can hide from the horrible Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer extended an invitation for President Trump to attend a state visit in his honor later this year.  The effusive praise from Starmer during the White House meeting was keenly strategic, so too was their urgency in creating the first new-era free trade agreement with the USA.

Perhaps President Trump’s embrace of Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia should be viewed through this financial prism where the EU, U.K and Canada will ultimately go to war (together) against the efforts of President Trump.  Within the partnership of the UK, EU and Canada, the Snow Mexicans are the weakest link, the most vulnerable to collapse from Trump’s economic policy.

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A meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin brings with it the focus of the entire world.  For a myriad of geopolitical reasons both domestically and abroad, there are ‘trillion-dollar’ interests who want to keep them apart.

Earlier today, fearing that President Trump might actually travel to Turkey, NATO Secretary Mark Rutte and Senator Lindsey Graham quickly arranged dispatch to intercept and participate.  The global intelligence apparatus wants to keep Trump and Putin apart, so too does the NATO alliance, the CIA, the U.K and every other influence agent in partial control of the USA proxy war against Russia using Ukraine.

A decade of carefully scripted narratives against President Trump and any forward leaning Russian foreign policy sits in the background, with an almost incalculable number of opposition elements aligned against President Trump forming any positive USA-Russia relationship.  There’s quite literally almost no place on the planet where President Trump and Vladimir Putin could meet without hearing the drumbeat of opposition against their assembly.  Almost….

For President Trump and Vladimir Putin to join in strategic interest is to disrupt the global order of things, and I do mean everything.  The military industrial complex, the global banking system, the World Economic Forum assembly, the multinational stock markets, the world trade system, the entire European continent, Asian continent, Australian continent, African continent and North American continent, as well as every conflict therein, could be impacted by joint decisions between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.  To say the stakes are high, would be to understate the scale of the dynamic.

In this interview, Secretary of State Marco Rubio seems to nurture the seeds placed by President Trump in his earlier remarks about sitting down with Vladimir Putin to hammer out the details of a ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and Russia.  The entire world pretends not to know that all of the military engagement within Ukraine and around Ukraine, is essentially a proxy war between the USA and Russia. A potential meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin destroys that framework.  This is heavy stuff.  WATCH:

Keep in mind that President Trump has been speaking to Vladimir Putin directly via phone, and consequentially through his emissary Steven Witkoff.  Vladimir Putin has been speaking to President Trump through the same channel.

A face-to-face meeting was always going to happen, the only part of the dynamic we were awaiting was how the two presidents were going to coordinate the meeting of consequence, and how would President Trump ditch the U.S. control elements.

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