Tomorrow, September 29th, the U.S. ban on most Canadian alcohol imports begins. [XO Link]

Last year most Canadian provinces banned U.S. alcohol imports as part of the “Elbow-up” program triggered by Prime Minister Mark Carney in response to U.S. baseline tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos.  In early September of this year, the White House and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer responded with an import ban on Canadian alcohol that begins tomorrow.

The Crown Royal brand of Canadian Whiskey will not be impacted as it is shipped in bulk raw liquid to the U.S. where it is bottled, packaged and distributed.  Diageo Inc proactively saw something coming in 2025 and shifted its supply chain to avoid the conflict.  However, most Canadian brands of alcohol are not as fortunate.  [SEE BAN SECTOR LIST]

The Supreme Court ruled last year that while tariffs against products can -under certain conditions- be subjected to congressional approval, but when it comes to trade friction – bans of products outright are legally within the power of the President.  This ban on Canadian alcohol will impact approximately $854 million (usd) in imports. (SEE STORY).

It will be interesting to see if any last-minute intervention takes place.

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Bumped, because I knew the media were going to use this NYT article today:

Bottom line, we are in an expanded information war. I’ll explain.

Several years ago, in explaining some of the site challenges CTH informed people of Google’s latest information control operation that was simply called “a spider crawl.”  The spider crawl was an automated instruction to search the internet and find information that was beyond the parameters of their “trust and safety” guidelines.  The automated search would crawl through the websites and comment sections, and report violations based on key words in the search parameter.

Spider crawling is essentially AI.  A technology tool to search databases and identify results based on parameters established by the individual who launched the search.  However, now in order to push a scare narrative around the hot topic of “AI” the spider crawling is much more in depth and advanced.

Now, instead of just searching the internet, advanced AI can find information and answer questions based on lengthy attributes described by the AI user.  AI can now go into proprietary databases and retrieve information to answer complex and complicated question (instructions).

If the AI launch, now called an “AI bot”, hits a gate, like a password access point, advanced AI can find workarounds to enter the database, extract the information and return the result to the AI user.  If you understand that process, then this headline has context.

[SOURCE]

The entire article is nothing more than taking something that is easily understood and adding jargon to make it sound complicated. The word “meddling” is used to describe the AI process of trying to get passed the gate.  When there were individual people doing this, we called it “hacking” now the process is automated via instructions to the software search.

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on Sunday Morning Futures now hosted by Larry Kudlow who has replaced Maria Bartiromo.  The primary topic of the conversation is the current state of the economy.

Secretary Bessent notes we have entered the phase of prior policy implementation where the economy now accelerates growth based on former policy changes including, targeted tax reductions, capital investment prioritization and expensing, regulatory changes and direct investment.  GDP growth now looks to achieve 5% or more.  WATCH:

Oil prices are the underlying friction within the economy creating higher gasoline and diesel prices.  However, when you take the energy sector out of the inflation calculation, the current rate of wage growth is exceeding inflation.

Bessent also notes, currently the only oil not coming through the Strait of Hormuz is Iranian oil.  Other than those supplies, oil flows through the Strait are at normal levels.

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The state visit by Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping in combination with USTR Jamieson Greer’s responsibilities within the U.S-China trade program, meant that Greer had to defer a visit to Mexico to work on the USMCA replacement.  However, bilateral trade agreement discussions at a technical level remained on track and progressing during Xi’s visit.

The U.S. and Mexico delegations have now expanded the bilateral topics from 54 sections to 90 sections.  This indicates significant agreement on the major components of the framework and now the smaller overlapping topics that enmesh with the bigger topics are brought in.

Greer shifted focus toward the Chinese trade aspects due to the timing of the Xi-Trump summit.  USTR Jamieson Greer is expected to be returning to the Mexico trade talks in about a week.

For the interests of the Mexican side, the main focus is seeking favorable reductions in the section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles.  However, the digital platform section and intellectual property is also a priority being negotiated by team USA.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 23 (Reuters) – The fourth round of trade talks between Mexico and the United States will not take place next week and could instead be held in October, a senior Mexican official said on Wednesday, as the two countries juggle a shifting diplomatic calendar.

Luis Rosendo Gutierrez, Mexico’s deputy economy minister for foreign trade, said the delay was due to scheduling conflicts, including Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States and the upcoming G20 summit. Despite the pause in formal rounds, Gutierrez said technical coordination with the US Trade Representative’s Office (USTR) remains a “daily” occurrence.

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Promethean Action’s Susan Kokinda gives a good recap of Chinese Chairman Xi’s state visit, including the nuanced respect and policy alignment visible between President Trump and Chairman Xi.

In essence, the comments by Marco Rubio about putting USA sovereign policy ahead of prior USA multilateral global policy, are a baseline for Chairman Xi to pivot his own interpretations of Trump’s policy objective.  With U.S policy focused on America’s interests and Beijing policy focused on China’s interests, there is no room for conflict, only terms.

This episode argues that media outrage over a White House “autopen” joke and criticism of Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping obscures a deeper shift: Trump is dismantling a 50-year geopolitical framework associated with Henry Kissinger. It contrasts Chatham House’s “China Rising, America in Decline?” panel and its Thucydides Trap framing—linked to Graham Allison—with Xi’s evolution from posing the trap as an open question to asserting it “can be overcome” after Trump’s UN speech and claimed actions in Iran, Venezuela, the Shield of America, and the Greenland Treaty, alongside a push for reindustrialization.

The script also highlights a UN Board of Peace session on Gaza focused on reconstruction led by Gazans and a new security structure involving Muslim-country troops, presenting it as ending “outside forces” control. It notes Rubio’s permanent dual role as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor and frames his stance as reversing Kissinger’s legacy.  WATCH:

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Terms of Greenland Deal Here

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U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer appears on CNBC to discuss the trade aspect of the U.S-China negotiations against the backdrop of the official state visit by Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping.

USTR Greer notes the tariffs against China remain in place and extended for several months as the U.S. reviews Beijing compliance with pre-existing agreements.  This builds on what Greer previously said about ultimately the U.S. and China are in a managed situation, where the U.S. doesn’t put any focus on what China says, we are looking at what China does.

Stunningly, at 4:25 of the video CNBC pundit Kelly Evans chimes in with a weird talking point about the U.S-China trade deficit not changing. Ambassador Greer quickly corrects Ms Evans, noting her baseline is entirely false. The trade disparity between the U.S and China has reduced by 40% over the past year, in part because the U.S. is leveraging tariffs as enforcement mechanisms to previous purchase agreements.  WATCH:

In typical leftist fashion, Ms Kelly Evans says “if true” to the United States Trade Representative.  Who else, other than the USTR, would know the specifics of accuracy for the data Ms Evans is mis-citing.  Quite silly.

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Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney left the United Nations General Assembly and went directly to the New York Times for a pre-scheduled interview with fellow leftist travelers intent on influencing the U.S midterm election.

Carney having previously appointed Clinton/Obama Democratic operative Maia Johnson as his Chief Operating Officer within his office, obviously had one agenda in mind as he strolled into the Times office for his pre-planned operation.

Within the hour-long conversation, the Canadian Prime Minister had several key points of emphasis in his objective. The top-line hook to draw in the audience was his first statement about having prepared for military combat operations against the United States.  [ARTICLE HERE] Key points below:

(1) Carney developed contingency plans to use military combat operations against the United States.  Yes, it is transparently obvious this is a political statement.  His mentioning of this is meant to create the traditional leftist victimhood position used in all psychological operations.  Carney follows this outlandish statement by saying these military plans are no longer needed because he now feels he has “a good relationship” with President Trump.

[…] “Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said that he had prepared over the past year for the “extreme tail risk” that President Trump might order military action against Canada but disclosed that the two men have spoken “frequently,” even since trade talks collapsed last month, describing a tense, evolving relationship.

Mr. Carney suggested that he had carefully examined the possibility of U.S.-led military action, but declined to discuss in detail what that involved. “I think you have a responsibility in these roles to look at extreme tail risk,” said Mr. Carney, a former central banker for Britain and Canada. … “That’s just risk management. That’s not a base case, but it would be irresponsible not to” prepare.”

(2) Carney outlines how he intends to build a closer economic relationship with China as a hedge against Canadian dependency on the United States.  Given the statements made by Carney in Beijing, this does not come as a surprise; however, it is the expressed open intent to further attach Canada to China that should raise eyebrows.

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Speaking to a forum hosted by the Economist in New York, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright explained that banning the export of diesel fuel will do nothing to impact the price of diesel fuel and would, eventually, raise the price.

The reasoning is simple.

“The blunt tool ​of banning diesel exports definitely doesn’t work,” Wright said. “If you can’t ⁠export the diesel that comes out of our refineries, you run out of places to store it, and you have to reduce US refining, which would ​put upward pressure on gasoline prices and jet fuel prices,” Wright said.

The part that Wright didn’t say is the component of price that is entirely detached from supply/demand.  The pump price is determined by market speculators, commodity traders and multinational financial interests.  That “market price” has nothing to do with the amount of diesel in the inventory.

Restricting exports, a process that ends with restricting production, only gives the speculators and traders a justification to project higher prices.   The USA ends up swimming in diesel fuel as the pump price climbs to $15/gal.

If you want to end the disconnection of supply to price, you have to do what Russia does. Sell outside the “market price” at the production cost + profit margin.

In the “west” it’s a rigged game; but be careful. The DSA crowd wants to change the game’s outcome by changing the referees who can then ban/control the players.

Trump’s MAGAnomic approach changes the rulebook of the game completely and is more in line with Putin (BRICS).

George Carlin previously explained it.

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Take heart, we only need to wait approximately 60-days until we see a major price decline in diesel and gasoline prices in the USA.  Once the midterm election is over, prices will begin their retreat with the finished collapse mid-January.

The non-pretending reality exists within a generally non-western perspective that current “market prices” are not driven by oil supplies, refining capacity or the other various justifications used by the speculators, traders and various regional spot-market control systems.  The prices are being controlled in order to influence political outcomes.

Once those political influence operations are concluded, the stakeholders in the market price approach will moderate their justifications accordingly, and prices will plummet.  Sound nuts?  Well, let me explain who agrees.

On my side of the argument is Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, who does happen to operate the world’s largest gasoline station – at least, according to the professional republicans. Others on my side include Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salmon, Qatari Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Turkish President Recep Erdogan and Venezuelan interim President Delcy Eloína Rodríguez Gómez.

Others who accept the reality of this position, albeit with various political limits to their ability to speak openly about such matters, include President Donald J Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Unfortunately for this aligned group they are stuck inside the largest western political system who controls global finance and world economic outcomes.

What all of these aforementioned names understand is that “market prices” are entirely detached from the archaic terminology behind supply and demand; a quaint concept that stopped applying years ago – but pretenses must be maintained or else the masses may find their pitchforks, see: DSA pitchfork suppliers.

A second subset of allies who unintentionally support this perspective, includes those who use the terms “sold at a discount” where “sold at a discount” in reality means sold outside the western market pricing approach.

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President Trump holds a meeting with the Middle East Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) an assembly of mid-east allies for President Trump and the overall effort to bring peace and stability to the region.  Obviously, the number one concern of the assembly is the ongoing Iran conflict.

Leaders from Lebanon, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey, Syria, Kuwait and Egypt were in attendance for the meeting.

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