Our own analysis of U.S. consumer prices in 2019 showed that prices of imported goods actually declined despite the tariffs. A recent report from CPA takes a look at the impact to Chinese exports to the U.S.  [SEE DATA HERE] Bottom line, the tariffs worked to reduce Chinese imports.

CPA – […] Since the Section 301 tariffs were imposed, the share of imports from China has steadily declined from 21.6% in 2017 the year prior to the tariffs to 16.5%, a decline of 5.1%. No other country has lost as much share of total U.S. import penetration over the past five years.

In terms of total import value, Mexico gained the most from the tariffs, adding $110.8 billion. Vietnam gained the second most in import value by $78.4 billion and by far gained the most of total share of U.S. imports. In 2017, Vietnam accounted for about 2% of U.S. imports at $46.5 billion. In 2022, the U.S. imported $127.5 billion in goods from Vietnam, and the share of the total nearly doubled to 3.9%. Other countries in Southeast Asia such as Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia all saw significant increases in their value of imports by the U.S. (read more)

With the 2024 election rapidly coming, it is worth revisiting the actual tariff outcome to American consumers in order to dispel the popular myths about tariffs raising prices here at home.  This might be the cited data you want to bookmark for later reference.

It was the Fourth Quarter of 2019…..

Right before the pandemic would hit a few months later, despite two years of doomsayer predictions from Wall Street’s professional punditry, all of them said Trump’s 2017 steel and aluminum tariffs on China, Canada and the EU would create massive inflation – it just wasn’t happening!

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By now, most intellectually honest American observers have accepted the United States intelligence apparatuses are  the most political and dangerous institutions of government. All recent history shows how the Intelligence Community (IC), identified by Chuck Schumer as the “six ways to Sunday” targeting group, operate as the extra-constitutional fourth branch of government.

The IC conducts surveillance of Americans, and the apparatuses of the FBI, DOJ and DHS operate the enforcement mechanism for the targeting identified by the intelligence apparatus.  The public-private partnership between the domestic communication networks, including social media, and the Intelligence Community are well known. DHS operates on behalf of the IC and the legislative and judicial branches defer to the IC.  This is a specific outcome of the Patriot Act authorizing the IC to conduct surveillance of all Americans.

In his interview with Meet the Press today, former House Intelligence Committee Chair, and current Senate candidate from California, Adam Schiff, publicly stated his desire that the IC continue their operations against U.S. citizens and control any/all information that is shared with Donald Trump in national security briefings.  WATCH (prompted):

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The United States intelligence community is the most insidious threat to the Republic.  There is currently an information war taking place that encompasses pushback against the constructs of the IC and the control justifications known as “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation.”  All of these newly created terms serve the function of controlling, eliminating and censoring activity by a corrupt network of government actors.

There is no such thing as mis-dis-or mal-information – there is only information.  Unfortunately, too few Americans have an understanding of how and why these terms were created by the surveillance apparatus in order to control information they deem against their interests.

Lastly, Adam Schiff is likely going to be the purple tie candidate supported by the professionally Republican and communist Democrats in their effort to generate an insurance policy against President Donald Trump.  It is easy to predict how Schiff would likely be installed in the Senate Select Intelligence Committee (SSCI) with a specific responsibility to stop, impede and block any intelligence nomination by President Trump.

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The Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Mike Turner, may be a Republican – but he is no friend of the American freedom movement who do not like the surveillance state.

Factually, Mike Turner is a part of the deep swamp and has advocated for reforms that make the unconstitutional FISA-702 exploits even worse.  As a result, this meeting with the people who control the surveillance mechanism makes sense.

WASHINGTON DC – The House Intelligence Committee is slated to hear from a series of top national security officials for a public hearing Tuesday, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. That list includes:

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines
CIA Director Bill Burns
FBI Director Chris Wray
U.S. Cyber Command Director Gen. Timothy Haugh
Defense Intelligence Agency Director Jeffrey Kruse
(LINK)

The FISA-702 surveillance authority is scheduled to expire on April 19th, “Patriots Day.”

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The next six weeks will be very interesting, as the April 19th clock-ticking dynamic leading up to the expiration of the 702-surveillance authority looms louder.  Some voices have said to me that President Trump needs to be careful of the Title-1 surveillance that surrounds him. I completely reject that approach.

There was a specific reason the Lawfare group charged Donald Trump with “national security” violations. Smart people can well understand the benefit to the surveillance state of the U.S. intelligence community, when Jack Smith defines President Trump as a national security threat under the same justification framework used against Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki. The options for the FBI-CoIntel unit assigned to monitor Trump are expanded by the definitions of the DOJ-National Security Division.

Ultimately, sunlight is the best disinfectant, and the best defense against the FBI counterintelligence surveillance is to conduct affairs in a very public way.  This approach, which I fully advocate and endorse, leaves the institutional watchers with gritted teeth as transparency makes it more difficult to create narratives that are contingent upon defining the innocuous as nefarious.

Additionally, if concern over the content of any meeting (think the insufferable Logan Act construct as previously created by Mary McCord) is generated, those approaches -when contrast against the ongoing Lawfare tactics- are made moot and useless to the NSD – and by extension the judicial branch, when President Donald Trump includes his legal counsel in any meeting.  [Hi Mary]

Hungarian Prime Minister Orban is well advised by his counsel as is President Donald Trump. As an outcome of their nationalist ideology, both leaders are targets of the U.S. intelligence community (CIA) and national security state (DoS and USAID).

WASHINGTON DC – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán traveled to Florida on Friday to visit Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, in a meeting blasted by U.S. President Joe Biden.

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Retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor delivers a surprisingly accurate response to the situation created by Joe Biden as espoused in the 2024 State of the Union address.  I cannot emphasize the value of these remarks strongly enough, in part because my own independent research – and that of a global team I have been working with- is in direct alignment with this outline.

Two years ago, I accepted the reality that Western sanctions against Russia were profoundly different from all other sanctions and completely ridiculous in the bigger picture of how the global economy operates.  A sanction regime is familiar and has been used against Cuba, North Korea, Iran and even Venezuela before.  Few were paying attention, but for the first time the U.S sanctions against Russia were not created to target Russia and punish any violator, they were created to remove the tools which would allow violations.  The actual dollar as a trade currency was being weaponized.

What followed was not a surprise.  Given the nature of the relationships in the geopolitical world, it only took a few months for Russia and their allies to create new tools which would render the Western economic sanctions irrelevant.  That’s exactly what happened, and the Russian economy has thrived, while their relationship with two-thirds of the global world has strengthened.

Feeling like the only person who could see through the opaque nature of a narrative that surrounded the Russian sanctions, I quietly set out on a mission to understand what this was all about.  None of it made sense. More on that journey will follow. However, what Macgregor is describing is precisely the outcome that was predictable two years ago.

There is an information war against what Macgregor describes in the beginning of these remarks, and people I know personally have become targets as a result. It might surprise many to discover the nature of this information war does not originate with government or politicians. Our focus has been misplaced and our emphasis has been on the wrong syllable. WATCH:

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The targets within this information war are not people who are criticizing politicians. The core targets within this information war are those who are talking about the entities who are controlling and directing the politicians and government.  The voices who are considered a threat are not, repeat NOT, voices who are critical of government.  The voices who are considered a threat are those who understand the government actors are controlled and intentionally presented as the false source of the problem.

Just as Jack Smith is not the controlling entity organizing the targeting of Donald Trump, so too is Joe Biden (and the administration) not the originating entity who organized the Western sanction regime against Russia.  Jack Smith and Joe Biden are essentially actors, vessels following a design that has been created by outside government entities for the purpose of targeting Donald Trump and/or Russia respectively.  The bigger motives and intents of targeting both are essentially the same.  There are trillions at stake.

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There really isn’t much you can say about what was witnessed last night in the People’s House. Joe Biden shouting at America for an hour while muttering something about snickers bars, snack food and the need to send billions of dollars to Ukraine was essentially the gist.

Following one of the most incoherent teleprompter reads in the history of presidential politics, one can only imagine how Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin were briefed on what took place in Washington DC at 9:00pm. Suffice to say, no sleep was lost amid the global community of leaders who smile as the USA influence collapses.

What was even more goofy, was the pretending amid the corporate media that Joe Biden said stuff that was discernable and/or potentially fitting the office of the executive. The various news agencies each described the color of the emperor’s new coat as if it actually existed. The pretending was/is simply off the charts bizarre, and normal Americans tuned out and went on about doing things normal Americans do.

That said, Tucker Carlson watched the naked emperor and livestreamed his thoughts on the insanity of the event, he then gives a reaction. WATCH:

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It’s hard to live in a country where ‘pretending’ is the new normal in politics and media.

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They did it again.   Joe Biden shouts gibberish for over an hour, muttering and shouting incoherent words during the State of the Union.  All that was needed in rebuttal was normalcy.  But no, Mitch McConnell and Mike Johnson had to deliver a “dramatic acting” rebuttal that was even more cringeworthy than Biden’s shouting.

Remember when Casey DeSantis was campaigning in the Melania heels, duck dynasty capris and grizzly mom T-shirt?  This is the SOU rebuttal equivalent. It’s horrible.  WATCH:

I’m so done with the professionally Republican apparatus.

This is super cringe.

The GOPe do this crap on purpose.

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The following NBC article is a little humorous, from the perspective that MSM writes an article about something that is transparently obvious to those who have followed the nature of the 2024 GOP primary.

Essentially, the gist is that Team Biden is confident they will win the vast majority of Nikki Haley supporters in the 2024 general election.  NBC posits that President Trump is not trying to make progress winning those voters, because he’s divisive or something.  However, the core underpinning of the promoted narrative is creating the illusion of something that doesn’t actually exist.

As highlighted by actual results, exit polling and various reviews of the people who voted for Nikki Haley, her bid for the GOP nomination was supported by Democrats, not Republicans.  Democrats in New Hampshire, Washington DC, Virginia and Vermont supported Haley.

It is not coincidental that strategic efforts were made to court Democrats to support her.  Also, the places where she did well were states and municipalities with open primaries, same day registration/voting, and easy election day party switching.  These processes made it simple for Democrats to vote in the Republican primary.

Bottom line, the overwhelming majority of votes for Haley came from Democrats, who were/are going to vote for Biden anyway. So, it’s an exercise in being obtuse not to accept the reality of who exactly represented the Haley voting base.  Then again, professional and intentional ignorance and strategic pretending is a trait of those skilled in gaslighting.

As a consequence of the dynamic, President Trump making any effort to court the Haley vote is an exercise in futility.  Trump is right to just move on, snark at the nonsense that Haley represented, and avoid spending energy on an attempt that will generate nothing substantive in value.  However, for Team Biden saying they will win Haley voters is just an exercise in political narrative engineering the media love to promote.

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NBC is clutching their pearls as Texas AG Ken Paxton celebrates dozens of victories for his endorsed state candidates who primaried Bush-supported Republicans.  Additionally, his endorsements and support for the challengers in Texas has led to an additional ten runoff elections, including the potential removal of Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan who led impeachment proceedings against him.

The media uses terms like “revenge” and “anger,” however, most of the MAGA coalition smile and think of Paxton as the leading candidate to be nominated by President Trump for U.S Attorney General next year.  Yeah, this article is buckets of awesome.

TEXAS – Out of the 70 candidates on the ballot yesterday that Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton endorsed, 33 won their primaries outright, while 10 have advanced to a runoff.

Paxton helped defeat seven Republican state House members who voted to impeach him last year on corruption charges. He also boosted nine other GOP candidates for state House seats.

His endorsed candidates unseated three Republican judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, who had angered Paxton by keeping his office from prosecuting voter fraud, and a handful of other incumbents.

“Texans have spoken loud and clear,” Paxton wrote on X, the platform once known as Twitter. “The victory of Judges David Schenck, Gina Parker, and Lee Finley, endorsed by my office, marks a significant moment in our state’s legal history. It sends a powerful message that Texans demand judges who prioritize the Constitution and uphold the rule of law.”

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Trying to convince people is an endless quest, that’s why it is better to just lay out the truth without agenda, then wait until the predictable pressure builds and it just floats to the surface and people find it.  The truth has no agenda; remember that!

You might remember as you read this that Henry Barbour is Harmeet Dhillon’s RNC compatriot.  Then, suddenly, things from last year in California will start to make sense.

(Via The Hill) – The Republican National Committee (RNC) failed to earn enough support from states to bring a resolution to ban paying former President Trump’s legal bills to a vote.

Henry Barbour, who serves as Mississippi’s national committeeman, confirmed to several news outlets that the resolutions he drafted that would have prohibited the committee from covering the former president’s growing legal bills is dead.

The RNC is meeting Friday in Houston to elect a new chair after former Chair Ronna McDaniel announced she would resign on March 8.

Barbour confirmed to Politico that the resolution is “dead” and won’t be voted on during Friday’s meeting because he only received co-sponsors from eight out of 10 required states to bring the resolution to a vote. (read more)

Can you see it now?

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