PHASE II – President Trump tweeted earlier today about the ongoing geopolitical contest that is priority #1 in defending U.S. interests and retaining our economic strength.
Do not be surprised if North Korea launches another provocative missile test soon. Watch China, not N.Korea. It’s Chairman Xi’s people in the DPRK who are taking action. Kim Jong-Un is an expendable proxy regime. The war is the U.S. -vs- China trade and economic confrontation. North Korea is the Potemkin backdrop for the Beijing puppeteer.

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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.
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Larry Kudlow has fully immersed himself in MAGA.  The evolution from supporter to believer likely comes from the increase in proximity to President Trump and the resolve therein.   Good stuff.
In this segment the Chairman of the National Economic Council discusses the background of the U.S. -v- China trade reset and the long-term goal of open global markets with Zero tariffs, Zero non-trade barriers and Zero subsidies.

National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow discusses the July jobs report with Fox News host Stuart “Grumbles” Varney.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the July 2018 employment report today (full pdf with tables below) highlighting continued growth in jobs.  Overall private employment gained 170,000 jobs, while government employment decreased 13,000 jobs for a net gain of 156,000 new jobs.   The BLS unemployment rate dropped to 3.9%.
[*Note this footnote:  “The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for May was revised up to +268,000, and the change for June was revised up to +248,000. With these revisions, employment gains in May and June combined were 59,000 more than previously reported.”]  Huh, funny that…. some revision eh?
July’s labor participation is holding steady at 62.9%, with 155,965,000 employed within the U.S. workforce. (Table A-1)
Blue and White-collar Main Street jobs continue to lead the MAGAnomic resurgence. (table B-1) Construction jobs increased 19,000 jobs; manufacturing gained 37,000 jobs; and trade/transportation and utilities gaining 15,000.
With extra cash in their pockets, the U.S. worker/consumer continued to spend and retail employment added 7,100 new workers in July.   (Table B1) Interestingly, and reinforcing a long-ago CTH prediction, the consumer spending growth (leading to increases in employment) is specifically in the consumable goods sector (food, clothing, etc.).   This is connected to the increase in work-time (table B2); an oft overlooked aspect to the economy.
Truck transportation gained 4,400 jobs in July (everyone needs truckers), which is in line with the high wage growth (3.4%) within this sub-set of the transportation industry.

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Tonight President Donald Trump is holding another MAGA campaign style rally at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre, PA.  The anticipated start time is 7:00pm EST with pre-rally festivities ongoing:
UPDATE: Video Added

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.

When I first saw this late last night, the severity of the vulgar racism expressed within the details made me pause… it couldn’t possibly be real.  Alas, it is real.
Stunningly, it is real.
Sarah Jeong is a writer of some sort who was hired by the New York Times to become an editor for their publication.   However, apparently someone on Twitter had encountered Ms. Jeong’s expressed ideology, and shared the content of the new editor’s twitter feed.
To say Ms. Jeong is a severe racist would be an understatement.  The level of racial anger, racial bitterness, race-based vulgarity, and expressed racial hatred is so over-the-top it seems the New York Times must be intent on creating some form of publicity from their decision to hire.
There is no-way a business could/would ever ACCIDENTALLY hire a person who has expressed such vitriolic hatred when their role and responsibility within the organization would be to promote the editorial perspective of the New York Times.  Meaning the New York Times supports and condones this type of overt racism.
A small sample of Ms. Sarah Joeng’s racial perspective is below.
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President Donald Trump surprised radio host Rush Limbaugh by calling in to congratulate him on his 30 year anniversary in broadcasting.
After a few moments of expressing congratulations President Trump and Mr. Limbaugh began discussing ongoing events and the politics of Washington DC.   WATCH:

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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