Finland is slightly smaller than Montana and wedged between Sweden and Russia. Finland, a nation of approximately 5 million people, has a security outlook shaped by its geography, a strategic position within the new NATO/Arctic strategy.

President Trump holds a bilateral discussion with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, as the two leaders complete terms for eleven icebreaker ships valued at $6.1 billion. Under terms of the deal, three of the ships will be built by Davie in Galveston, Texas, and four by Bollinger Shipyards in Houma, Louisiana.

Finland is the world leader in icebreaker ship building, and will help teach U.S. ship building companies the latest advances in the technology. WATCH:

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Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney travels to the U.S. for a White House meeting with President Trump.  The two leaders hold a press availability prior to entering negotiations.  WATCH:

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the current status of the government shutdown.  As noted by Senator Thune, he will bring the Continuing Resolution bill to the Senate floor again on Monday, and see what happens.

Four times the radical wing of the Democrat party have refused to extend the short-term budget gap CR unless the Trump administration agrees to fund healthcare for illegal aliens and other Democrat priorities.  Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is reportedly worried about getting a leftist primary challenge and cannot permit the government to open.  WATCH:

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In addition to the Japanese election victory of Sanae Takaichi, now positioned to be the first female Prime Minister of Japan, both the Czech Republic and nation state of Georgia held elections yesterday.

♦ In the Czech Republic, billionaire businessman Andrej Babis won parliamentary elections, with his populist ANO party receiving around 35% of the vote. This gains ANO 80 seats in the 200-seat lower house – up from 72 seats four years ago.

Andrej Babis will now likely enter a coalition with anti-Green Deal “Motorists for Themselves,” (lol) and the anti-illegal immigrant Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party, led by the Czech-Japanese entrepreneur Tomio Okamura. While this coalition will likely not exit the EU, this coalition will strongly push-back against the efforts of Brussels bureaucrats to control the national decisions of independent nations.

The biggest loser in the Czech election is Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who has relied upon a sketchy assembly of Czech arms dealers to provide him weapons via highly corrupt NATO/EU payment systems. As noted by the BBC, Babis “has already vowed to scrap the successful Czech ammunition initiative – which has delivered 3.5 million shells to Ukraine since 2022.

“Babis claims it lacks transparency, but Czech government officials who created the scheme say it works precisely because it is not transparent. Under the initiative, Czech arms dealers use their international contacts to procure shells for Ukraine on the global market, with the bulk of the money coming from EU and NATO partners. Some of the producers are in countries that have relationships with Russia but as the deal is arranged with Czech dealers their involvement remains private.”

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on CNBC to discuss the second full day of the government shutdown and the potential ramifications therein.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought is meeting with President Trump today to discuss the facets of the government that will be closed and for the duration therein.  Secretary Bessent is asked if the furloughs will be a long-term feature of the backfire created by the Democrat strategy.

Bessent reemphasizes he personally joined the Trump administration to shrink the scale of government spending, and the administration is not going to flinch on any CR agreement that backtracks on existing spending reductions.  WATCH:

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The Democrats are threatening to refuse to support a stopgap spending measure to extend federal spending. President Trump is calling them out and refusing to meet with them until they get serious about it.

After passing a clean CR in the House, Republicans in the Senate are pushing a “clean” seven-week continuing resolution, which they say will buy time for more negotiations on full-year spending bills and possibly an extension of expiring health insurance subsidies. Democrats, meanwhile, wrote an alternative four-week punt that tacks on a laundry list of other demands, including a permanent extension of the insurance subsidies.

Should the government shut down, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought will determine which elements and agencies of the government are considered essential and which will be shuttered until the budget is extended.

President Donald Trump – “After reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats in return for their Votes to keep our thriving Country open, I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive.

They are threatening to shut down the Government of the United States unless they can have over $1 Trillion Dollars in new spending to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens (A monumental cost!), force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors, have dead people on the Medicaid roles, allow Illegal Alien Criminals to steal Billions of Dollars in American Taxpayer Benefits, try to force our Country to again open our Borders to Criminals and to the World, allow men to play in women’s sports, and essentially create Transgender operations for everybody.”

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In a brutally honest Truth Social post today, President Trump calls out the EU/NATO nations to stop buying Russian energy products if they want him to lead the imposition of stronger sanctions against Russia.

The “coalition of the willing” has been openly and privately applying public pressure upon President Trump to push stronger sanctions against Russia.  However, at the same time the EU/NATO are making these demands, they are also purchasing Russian energy products as delivered through third parties.

So today, President Trump posts this:

[SOURCE]

A non-diplomatic way of saying, ‘put up or shut up.’

Those of you who understand business terms can well understand “making the monkey jump.”  President Trump is not taking their monkey.

This is a direct response to the public statements being made by EU/NATO leadership, who are -by design- trying to put the responsibility onto President Trump, and defer all their own culpability in the process.

This is similar to the approach President Trump took in 2018 when he very publicly called out German Chancellor Angela Merkel for continuing the Nordstream II Pipeline deal with Russia while simultaneously expecting President Trump to fortify NATO against Russia.

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The financial punditry are verklempt, puzzled and perplexed as the wholesale inflation rate calculated by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics Producer Price Index [DATA HERE] shows a drop in PPI of -0.1% for August.

Despite the pundits claiming the Trump tariffs were going to drive up prices, the data shows the manufacturers of products are absorbing the majority of the tariff costs, the importers are absorbing the remnants and the consumer prices are not reflecting the tariff.  Go figure!

[DATA HERE]

Exactly as expected, the wholesale price of tariffs are being offset by production cost reductions by the export dependent manufacturing companies overseas.  This is exactly what took place in the first term, and the situation is duplicating even with higher tariff rates.

Export dependent nations are squeezing their own productivity, their governments are subsidizing the critical industries and the tariffs are being absorbed before they even leave the docks.   This is the USA “rust belt” in reverse.  The same scenario played out in the USA for decades as domestic manufacturers tried to retain U.S. industry.  Now the foreign countries are experiencing their own economic squeeze.

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noted, when you add the previous Biden revision of -577,000 to the current revision of -911,000 the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) had overreported Biden’s job growth by almost 1.5 million jobs.

The BLS reports today [SEE DATA HERE] an annual revision of 911,000 fewer jobs that previously reported.  These further puts President Trump’s decision to fire the head of the BLS into context.

[SOURCE]

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Have you watched Director Kevin Hassett deliver media remarks before?  Have you a generally good idea of his disposition and general commentary as delivered?   If so, watch this interview and note how muted, monotoned and vanilla Hassett’s general elocution is as he cuts through the narrated questions.

Whenever someone is given the tap on the shoulder for a senior executive promotion, this exact change happens.  I suspect Hassett is the next Federal Reserve Chair appointment.  Just a hunch, but this is not the typical Hassett.  WATCH:

[TRANSCRIPT] MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning, and welcome to Face The Nation. We begin this morning with the Director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett. Good morning and thank you for being here.

KEVIN HASSETT: Good morning. It’s great to be here.

MARGARET BRENNAN: In person.

KEVIN HASSETT: Yes.

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