After having his annual physical at Walter Reed hospital, President Trump delivers remarks to the assembled press pool aboard Air Force One.

President Trump notes he feels great and has a great heart and good soul. lol  WATCH:

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The absolute #1 tell highlighting this as a nonsense exercise, a delay tactic on behalf of the swamp, is the venue for Tulsi Gabbard’s “new task force” announcement, Sean Hannity.

In order to pass DC approvals for confirmation, Gabbard had to join the ‘FISA is awesome’ club.  Now, she aligns her DNI silo with the foolishness of the Sean Hannity ‘tick-tock’ club.  Sorry, but we’ve seen this performance so many times it is now blood boiling to watch them try and repeat it.

DNI Gabbard claims she is creating a new “transparency task force” to analyze information for potential declassification and public release.  However, the task force will now have to “dig” until they have every document discovered, before they can release it, because releasing information as it is discovered is against the operational mission of the people who control the silo process.  But she swears, if you wait for it, it will come. “Trust the plan.”

Oh, it’s so complicated.

Oh, it’s so big and hard to do.

Oh, the evidence is so hard to find.

This is the same nonsense story from Bill Barr, John Durham, Michael Horowitz and the other previous members of the Sean Hannity ‘tick-tock club,’ including John Solomon (controlled releases) and other “conservatively aligned” tradecraft media.  Barr is now Bondi, Wray is now Kash, Durham is now Bongino, the audience is the same.  It’s nonsense.

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The Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) releases the Consumer Price Index for February [DATA HERE], reflecting a drop in the year-over-year inflation rate to the lowest level in four years.

The rate of inflation dropped significantly due to lower gasoline (-6.3%) and fuel prices, which directly impacts every middle-class worker.  The ripple effects (transportation, warehousing, etc.) from lowered gasoline prices is not yet embedded in the cost of goods, that should start to surface next month.

[BLS Table A]

[…] Consumer prices were up 2.4% in March from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Thursday, cooler than February’s gain of 2.8% and well below the 2.6% rise that economists expected.  

Prices excluding food and energy categories—the so-called core measure economists watch in an effort to better capture inflation’s underlying trend—rose 2.8%, below forecasts for a 3% increase. That was the smallest increase in the core measure since March 2021. (read more)

For those who have travelled the MAGAnomic weeds with us, you will note this is the way overall lower inflation starts to surface under Trump policy.  This is exactly what happened in 2017 and continued throughout late 2019 until COVID-19 hit.  President Trump’s economic policies drop the rate of inflation, and eventually lower prices.

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When President Trump announced the 90-day pause in combination with the increase in tariffs against China, there was a background element missed by many.

At the moment President Trump triggered the public announcement, U.S. Trade Representative Jamison Greer was testifying to congress.

President Trump is not a jerk.  Donald Trump would not put a top executive Greer in that optically vulnerable position if USTR Greer was the tip of the spear, it’s just bad business form.

The timing and background indicate something more substantial.  For what we are calling ‘the BIG UGLY’ Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is the point, Greer is a functionary.  It’s a shift from the Term-1 approach, because the global trade reset is magnitudes bigger and more substantive.

This approach would also explain why Robert Lighthizer was not reenlisted in Term-2.  If Lighthizer was in Greer’s chair in front of congress at the moment of the public announcement, he would have been furious and rightly so.  Lighthizer and Wilbur Ross were the tip of the spear in term-1, Lighthizer facing the region of Asia and Ross facing Europe; but the same strategy is not present in term-2.

In the Term-2 trade reset, the entire globe is being targeted simultaneously.  Enter, the U.S. Treasury Secretary in a bigger, more substantive, and much more prominent role due to the scale of the trade reset.

This trade approach is much bigger, obviously. As the nuclear-level trade detonation takes place, Secretary Bessent is in control of both the financial market response and the core finances of the USA as it relates to the reverberations.

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Full dragon, no panda mask.  Beijing begins using war terminology to discuss the trade conflict with the United States.

Through a series of cumulative trade tariffs, President Trump has now placed Chinese imports into the USA in a position of 104% tariffs.

104%!

In response Beijing has devalued their currency and dumped treasuries, but no amount of subsidy, devaluation or use of their sovereign wealth fund is going to compensate for 104% taxes on Chinese products.  Very soon all purchase orders from the USA for Chinese manufactured products will stop.

The Beijing dragon is looking at the future through a zero-sum position.  Now, they vow to fight to the death.

BEIJING, April 9 (Xinhua) — With firm will and abundant means, China will resolutely take countermeasures and fight till the end if the United States insists on further escalating economic and trade restrictive measures, China’s Ministry of Commerce said Wednesday.

“I want to emphasize that there is no winner in a trade war, and China does not want a trade war, but the Chinese government will by no means sit by when the legitimate rights and interests of its people are being hurt and deprived,” said an official with the ministry.

The official made the remarks when responding to media questions regarding a white paper released Wednesday by the State Council Information Office on China’s position on some issues concerning China-U.S. economic and trade relations.

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President Donald Trump attended the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) dinner in Washington DC.

The main topic of President Trump’s remarks is the global trade reset, which includes a cumulative 104% tariff on China, as Beijing attempts to devalue currency and retain economic status.  President Trump is in full wolverine mode on the issue of trade.  There is no other issue that commands this level of intensity and deliberate effort.

MAGAnomics, American Main Street and economic security as national security priority, is the core issue to define President Trump’s doctrine. He is bringing the thunder, which we have referenced as “The Big Ugly.”  WATCH:

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President Trump is scheduled to hold a media availability at 3:00pm along with an executive order signing on energy development in the oval office.

UPDATE: Video Added

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Many pundits and apoplectic Lawfare leftists are noting a set of four recent Supreme Court rulings favorable to the Trump administration.

The most recent ruling [pdf here] said nonprofit groups lacked legal standing to bring lawsuits challenging the firings of probationary workers at the departments of Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs.  As a consequence, the accompanying Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) is defeated.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court also ruled -generally favorable- to the Trump administration [pdf here] on the issue of Venezuelans in the United States labeled by President Donald Trump as “alien enemies.”  The justices ruled (5-4) to vacate a lower judge’s order that imposed a block on all deportations under Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.

However, the court ruled to remove the TRO under auspices of the wrong venue for challenge; saying the deportees must challenge their status in the district court where jurisdiction of detainment takes place.

That split court ruling follows on the heels of Chief Justice John Roberts issuing an administrative order indefinitely lifting a lower court injunction [pdf here] that demanded the return of previously deported Abrego Garcia set by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis.

In short, the Supreme Court, at least a narrow majority therein, appears to be knocking down the process of federal judge shopping to issue nationwide restraining orders against the Trump administration.  Twitter account Unseen1 has a solid and brief outline of what the court appears to be doing:

“The big win for Trump in the scotus today was not the resumption of deportations under the AEA (alien enemies act) (but that was big also). The major win was the court narrowing the federal district judges’ jurisdiction They once again narrowed the ability of the APA (administrative procedure act) which is the main law the vast majority of these unconditional judicial rulings have been made under.

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President Donald J Trump announcing the end of the 80-year-old Marshall Plan (aka The European Recovery Program) of one-way tariffs against American imports has triggered a very predictable response from the European Union.

While saying the EU is prepared to enter negations toward a zero-tariff trade reciprocity, Comrade Ursula von der Leyen simultaneously announced that Brussels is prepared to launch countermeasures against The United States, in an effort to retain economic control and access to a U.S. consumer market they must exploit for their economic survival.

Speaking in very deliberate terms, the EU Komisar states the U.S. decision to demand reciprocity, and fairness will deliver “immense” and “dire consequences” for the New World Order and “global trading system.”  von der Leyen proclaims that global citizens will be impacted with higher grocery bills, shortages of medication and increased costs for transportation.

The leader of the world’s largest bureaucracy stunningly proclaims President Trump’s tariffs will increase the “burdens of bureaucracy.” The one-sided benefits and “interests of the European Union” will be protected at all costs.   WATCH:

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Regarding “countermeasures.” Again, we repeat the predicable response.  Together with their unelected ally in Canada controlling the North American response, watch for the EU to target Big USA Tech companies and financial service sectors.

The goal of the EU will be to assemble a tariff countermeasure response that will deliver political pain, not economic consequences.  That’s just how they roll.  The EU will leverage disgruntled Wall Street, banking and Technocracy sectors in order to put political pressure on Donald Trump to back down.

Optically this is the worst possible type of pontificating EU spokesperson to generate internal American opposition.  Frankly comrade Ursula, MAGA don’t give a damn. [Pinky Finger Salute]

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White House Senior Advisor for Trade and Manufacturing Peter Navarro discusses the trade reset and tariff impact as it works through the process.

As visible and stated by the Trump team, the broad-based tariff approach was designed to save time and create the environment where foreign countries, including those with bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) would come to President Trump in an effort to retain their interests.  From there, new trade agreements would be structured.

Navarro rightly notes that both tariff and non-tariff barriers are designed to create a structural trade imbalance in their favor. The trade reset strategy is designed to confront these issues.  Navarro also notes how Vietnam operates as case-study in the use of non-tariff barriers and simultaneously operates as a transnational shipping point for Chinese products. WATCH:

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