Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appeared on Fox Business with Lou Dobbs earlier tonight for a discussion of Steel and Aluminum tariffs and ongoing U.S. trade initiatives.
I think we’ve figured out why President Trump is doing the Steel and Aluminum tariffs ahead of the NAFTA withdrawal. Perhaps, the wolverine administration is using Steel and Aluminum to draw attention to the NAFTA fatal flaw.
Earlier today Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland stated:
“Should restrictions be imposed on Canadian steel and aluminum products, Canada will take responsive measures to defend its trade interests and workers,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement, calling any trade restrictions“absolutely unacceptable.” (link)
The key word in that statement from Freeland is “products”. Why? because Canada doesn’t make more than a boutique amount of raw Steel. (Top 40 List) The Canadians, like the Mexicans, import the vast majority of their raw steel from China. Canada then fabricates products from the Chinese steel. This nuanced point is almost always lost on people who discuss trade. This point of origination is also the fatal flaw within NAFTA.
In essence Canada is a brokerage for Chinese manufactured material, and NAFTA is the access trade-door exploited by China for entry into the U.S. market. More on that in a moment. First watch Justin from Canada explain his country’s position. (prompted, just hit play):
If the U.S. were to exit NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), the price you pay for most foodstuff at the grocery store would drop 10% in the first quarter and likely drop 20% or more by the end of the first year. Here’s why:
Approximately a decade ago the U.S. Dept of Agriculture stopped using U.S. consumer food prices within the reported measures of inflation. The food sector joined the ranks of fuel and energy prices in no longer being measured to track core inflation and backdrop Fed monetary policy. Not coincidentally this was simultaneous to U.S. consumers seeing massive inflation in the same highly consumable sector.
There are massive international corporate and financial interests who are inherently at risk from President Trump’s “America-First” economic and trade platform. Believe it or not, President Trump is up against an entire world economic establishment.
When you understand how trade works in the modern era you will understand why the agents within the system are so adamantly opposed to U.S. President Trump.
The biggest lie in modern economics, willingly spread and maintained by corporate media, is that a system of global markets still exists.
It doesn’t.
U.S. Steel and Aluminum tariffs are just one component of a larger economic issue. Bringing back U.S. production on those sectors is vital to the infrastructure of a manufacturing and production economy. Modern Wall Street is centered on multinational interests within economic globalism. Weaken the trade grip of the multinational corporations and their financial manipulation upon the U.S. economy, and Wall Street will drop… this is not difficult to predict. This is also necessary.
Last week President Trump spoke candidly with the White House assembly of U.S. Governors about the critical need to re-evaluate their position(s) on trade. President Trump’s remarks were direct, but also nuanced toward the audience. A few hours later the White House announced President Trump had promoted his economic guru, Peter Navarro to be Assistant to The President.
Mr. Navarro’s job is to counter the false narrative from the GOPe, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street crowd. Cue the audio visual demonstration (two video segments):
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Segment #2 below:
The professional financial class are going bananas at the steel and aluminum tariffs being implemented by the Trump administration. As expected, most of the apoplectic drum-beating is coming from the Wall Street crowd. This same Wall Street crowd conveniently overlooks that last year the EU imposed even HIGHER tariffs on steel and aluminum than the Trump administration is proposing now.
Laughably this group of talking heads is pitching the trade and economic position of Canada and the EU in their talking points. However, the hypocrisy is off the charts.
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If you think the professional financial class are over-the-top now, just wait until the administration pulls out of NAFTA. These are the battles that matter. The administration is directly over the target. The multinational corporate crowd, including their corporately owned media, are pushing a fundamentally false set of talking points; their economic dishonesty reflects their desperation.
When Main Street economic principles are applied Wall Street will initially lose. There’s no way for this not to happen. Most of Wall Street is built on the Multinational platform of economic globalism. Weaken the grip of the multinational corporations and financial interests on the U.S. economy and Wall Street will drop… this is not difficult to predict. This is also necessary.
White House Director of the Trade Counsel and Economic Policy Adviser, Peter Navarro, appears on Fox News with Tucker Carlson to discuss likely import tariffs on Steel and Aluminum.
MAGAnomics baby!! Throw dem ju-ju bones out the windows and hold on to your britches… The U.S. Dept of Labor is reporting unemployment claims have dropped to 210,000. That’s the lowest jobless number since December 6th, 1969.
You know what this means right?
…wait for it.
…wait for it.
That’s right. We better grab chin straps for the hard hats, because pay raises and wage rate increases are thundering toward the middle-class like an unstoppable herd of buffalo. Exactly on schedule. Cha-ching & Ka-pow.
For those who follow closely the strongest argument against the U.S. trade and economic policies of the past 30 years has been the outcome. We don’t need to guess what the pro’s and con’s of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce position is, we are living them. We don’t need to guess what the Wall Street economy delivers, we are living through them.
For the past 30 years the U.S. has lost jobs, wages have been depressed, and the middle-class has suffered through the implementation of economic trade policy that destroyed the U.S. manufacturing base. None of this is in question – the results stare us in the face – yet the Wall Street and multinational corporate club(s) [U.S. CoC chief among them] now demand a continuance of the same.
The economic and trade policies of the Trump administration are adverse to those interests. As we have shared for several years, candidate Trump, now President Trump is an existential threat to the multinational program.
All opposition to President Trump is about the underlying financial and economic policy of America-First. There are trillions at stake.
Those who have read here will note the media are generally oblivious to America-First economic policies; this includes the financial media.
As an example today they are trying to figure out how Steel/Aluminum tariffs would work. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross stated clearly exactly how the Steel and Aluminum policy would be carried out; yet for the financial media they claim to be clueless. The level of intellectual dishonesty is off-the-charts.
The truth is, well, two points: •Point #1 – the media don’t want to know; they are committed to selling the prior policy. •Point #2 – there’s almost no-one within the professional economic punditry class who have ever given thought to what happens during the space between two fundamentally different economic policies as executed.
What happens in the space between taking the U.S. economy off the path of ‘service-driven-globalism’, and reasserting the economy back to a balanced ‘production-based national economy’? None of the key participants within the larger discussion have ever contemplated this dynamic.
President Trump announces he is like to impose global tariffs on imported steel and aluminum – in a broad effort to ensure U.S. national security and manufacturing capacity within a very important industrial sector.
Earlier today President Trump appeared to be accepting Commerce Secretary Ross proposals for 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and 10 percent for aluminum. It is likely the tariffs will apply globally to all imports because targeted national tariffs have not worked. China ships their manufactured steel to another nation first in order to avoid the tariff. As Secretary Ross has previously stated we end up with a whack-a-mole policy. So likely the tariff will apply globally regardless of the nation shipping the product.
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The usual, the corporate GOPe and Chamber of Commerce politicians will go bananas.
Earlier today President Trump spoke candidly with the White House assembly of U.S. Governors about the critical need to re-evaluate their position(s) on trade. President Trump’s remarks were direct, but also remarkably nuanced toward the audience. However, if you follow Trump’s process, you’ll note the familiar indications.
Next, far less subtle and yet following along the same predictable process, the Wall Street Journal is reporting President Trump now promoting his economic guru Peter Navarro to be Assistant to The President. Navarro is a brilliant and strategic trade hawk who has a long track record of supporting the same trade principles as Donald Trump.
A NAFTA decision/announcement looms. ♦ As expected and predicted, a recent phone call by Mexican President Pena Nieto to POTUS Trump didn’t end well. ♦ USTR Lighthizer blasted Canada at the end of round six NAFTA renegotiation. ♦ Placing Pete Navarro inside the circle puts him directly in the right place to speak on behalf of President Trump for an upcoming announcement. All of these NAFTA exit indicators are great news.
Our wolverine team is growing. Now we have Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Asst. To POTUS Peter Navarro, all assembled.