President Trump has moved into Phase II of the U.S./China confrontation.  Part of that confrontation is to use the inherent weakness of the Chinese economy against them.  To understand the weakness is to understand the China ‘One-Belt / ‘One-World‘ economic trade strategy.  Here’s an outline of the economic battle-space we are witnessing.
People often talk about the ‘strength’ of China’s economic model; and indeed within a specific part of their economy –manufacturing– they do have economic strength.
However, the underlying critical architecture of the Chinese economic model is structurally flawed and President Trump with his current economic team understand the weakness better than all international adversaries.
Lets take a stroll and discuss.
China is a central planning economy. Meaning it never was an outcropping of natural economic conditions. China was/is controlled as a communist style central-planning government; As such, it is important to reference the basic structural reality that China’s economy was created from the top down.
This construct of government creation is a key big picture distinction that sets the backdrop to understand how weak the economy really is.
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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appears on Fox News this morning to discuss Phase II in the economic confrontation with China.  The hurt will increase until behavior changes.
Phase II is direct, deliberate and fully confrontational trade engagement with extreme prejudice to financially hurt the Chinese economy and present the communist regime with examples of what will lie ahead if they do not concede to U.S. terms.
The first objective in Phase II is to convince the Chinese the war is real.  Beijing cannot yet fathom the United States is not going to allow the import of low cost manufactured goods…. they believe, wrongly, against a history with all previous administrations, that President Trump is bluffing.

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As POTUS Trump and the U.S. trade team target ever increasing tariff pressure upon Beijing to change their behavior, keep a close eye on North Korea. Given the zero-sum approach of the Chinese; and their history of weaponizing the DPRK; we could expect to see Beijing roll out nuclear antagonism again in an overt effort to gain concessions.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross discusses the need to hit China with even more economic pressure. WATCH:

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Main Street U.S.A., the American worker and the American farmer know what is at stake. The globalist Wall Street financial class, and their financial media, can gripe and moan, but that is not going to deter President Trump from this critical trade reset.  When Secretary Ross says: “we’re going to win this“, he speaks with knowledge of who controls the maximum leverage…. it ain’t Chairman Xi.
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In June and July last year it became obvious President Trump was going to initiate a full-frontal geopolitical confrontation with China based on their ambitions for economic conquest.  We labeled the confrontation: Eagle -vs- Red Dragon.
Specifically around: intellectual property theft; massive U.S. trade imbalances; imposed tariffs, and ridiculous non-tariff barriers put in place by China, we anticipated the conflict would eventually force Beijing to drop the Panda mask and expose their economic intentions.  Additionally there was clarity within President Trump’s approach for any observer who was willing to accept the history of Mr. Trump’s views on the larger issues. In short, POTUS Trump will not back down.
In March of 2018 U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer completed a section 301 review of China’s trade practices.  [SEE HERE] Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 authorizes the President to take all appropriate action, including retaliation, to obtain the removal of any act, policy, or practice of a foreign government that violates an international trade agreement or is unjustified, unreasonable, or discriminatory, and that burdens or restricts U.S. commerce.  However, as talks with China progressed, President Trump shelved the 301 action to see where negotiations would end-up.
Due to the severity of communist ideology, and the intransigence of China to make any modification to their global economic plans, Chairman Xi Jinping made the strategic decision to elevate the confrontation in full Red Dragon mode.  The May and June, 2018, negotiations between the U.S. and China provided no progress.  The 301 review of China is now pulled back off the shelf, and President Trump assembles his trade-war strategy:
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The ADP national employment report is a monthly measure of the change in total U.S. nonfarm private employment derived from actual, anonymous payroll data of companies served by ADP. The report measures approximately 24 million U.S. workers along with employment trends in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics.

For July 2018, ADP has calculated payroll increases of 219,000 new jobs including 23,000 more manufacturing jobs created as an outcome of a resurgence in manufacturing and goods-producing industries. In the last 19 months, the U.S. has added 836,000 manufacturing jobs.  [For contrast: in the 19 month period preceding President Trump’s MAGA-Magic-manufacturing growth, only 26,000 manufacturing jobs were created.]

(Via CNBC) Private payrolls in the U.S. increased by more than expected last month as companies get a boost from lower corporate taxes, ADP and Moody’s Analytics said Wednesday.
Jobs in the U.S. increased by 219,000 in July, while economists polled by Reuters expected a gain of 185,000. July’s job gains were the best since February, when 241,000 jobs were added. Jobs growth for the previous month was also revised up to 181,000 from 177,000.

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Today, prior to a MAGA Rally in Tampa Florida, President Trump will sign his administration’s first major Education Policy bill at Tampa Bay Technical High School and deliver remarks on the ongoing vocational/technical workforce development program.
The bill received bipartisan support in Congress and will allot $1B in grants to students receiving vocational and technical skills training to aid workforce development in the U.S. Anticipated start time 6:10pm EST
UPDATE: Video Added

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For more than three decades all U.S. economic policy was elevating Wall Street and diminishing Main Street. As a result the middle America blue-collar workers have not had wage gains keeping up with inflation for over 30 years…. Then came the era of Trump.

– “Walking in a Winner Wonderland” –

More than two years ago CTH began discussing the ramifications to a new emphasis on the economy outlined as a possibility of candidate Donald Trump’s economic policy outlook. Within the overall discussion we walked through the anticipated changes possible if A.) Trump won the election, and B.) Trump began instituting Main Street economic policy ahead of Wall Street policy (the past 30+ years).
We discussed the new dimension that would occur between two economic engines (Main Street -vs- Wall Street) as three decades of policy shifted. CTH outlined statistical and measurable KPIs that would become visible in the space between the policy shifts.
Part of those discussions focused on energy costs, product costs (we explained how inflation would be weird), and importantly, wage rates. It takes several months of policy emphasis (actual outcomes), before the labor market wage rates would grow. We anticipated seeing that impact in Q2 of 2018, which is April-June 2018.  Well:
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President Trump sets the 2018 Mid-Term priority. Excellent. “I don’t care what the political ramifications are.” … “Border Security is National Security, and National Security is the long-term viability of our Country.” Yes, indeed, yes it is.

(Tweet LINK)

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Several days ago I noticed a well-connected Canadian business analyst, Manny Montenegrino, had a considerable assembly of facts, examples, data-points and details to support his proposition that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was intentionally collapsing his own economy.
After going through the evidence, weighing it against our own research, and looking closely at the political network of like-minded followers associating with PM Trudeau (mostly avowed Marxists), Montenegrino’s theory appears very solid:

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Apparently our CTH suspicions were correct; this is interesting.  Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland is scheduled to leave Canada on Tuesday for a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Singapore…. Meanwhile U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and a high-level Mexican team -consisting of both incoming AMLO and exiting Nieto delegations- will be meeting again to determine the details of a bilateral trade deal.

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo is from the outgoing Pena Nieto administration and was part of the crew supporting the Canadian position; ie. the plan to continue exploiting the NAFTA loophole.  However, Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has selected Jesus Seade as his lead person for trade negotiations and appears more willing to engage in a bilateral trade deal with the U.S.
AMLO’s Jesus Seade, Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and Ambassador Robert Lighthizer are meeting again this Thursday to put the outline of a deal together; while Canada is sidelined from the discussion.
Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association in Canada, said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Americans and the Mexicans came to some resolution on that piece (autos) and then the Americans flip it back to Canada and say ‘Take it or leave it’.”  That is exactly what CTH anticipated was going to happen.
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