Tariffs simply work. This is no longer a debatable issue, and decades of Wall Street gaslighting collapses as the outcomes of tariffs generate visible economic benefits for all Americans.

South Korea-based Hyundai and President Donald Trump announced a $20 billion investment in US on-shoring on Monday, which includes a $5 billion steel plant in Louisiana,

The $5.8 billion Louisiana facility will be the car manufacturers’ first steel manufacturing facility in the US and will produce more than 2.7 million metric tons of steel a year and create more than 1,400 jobs. It will supply steel to auto plants in Alabama and Georgia, Trump said in remarks at the White House.

The announcement at the White House included President Trump, Hyundai Chairman Euisun Chung and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry. WATCH:

The Hyundai announcement comes as the highly anticipated April 2nd “reciprocity tariffs” are scheduled to begin against all nations.  For the EU this means an end to the 80-year-old Marshal plan of economic benefit.

Effective April 2, 2025, the U.S. will begin a process of reciprocal tariffs on imports from all nations with tariffs against U.S. products.

If a nation charges a 20% tariff on a U.S. good, in combination with a 20% non-tariff trade barrier, President Trump will calculate the financial impact and then reciprocate with a 40% tariff put on that nation’s goods being imported to the USA.

Globally, all nations are calculating how to deal with this issue.  Hyundai’s best position calculations end up with this announcement.

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President Trump makes an announcement of secondary tariffs targeting Venezuela by triggering a 25% tariff against any nation who purchases Venezuelan oil or gas.

China is the largest purchaser of Venezuelan oil, followed by the USA after Joe Biden changed the sanctions regime.

The tariff timeline is set to trigger on April 2nd, the same date as the reciprocal tariffs against all nations.

Truth Social – “President Donald J. Trump announced today that the United States of America will be putting what is known as a Secondary Tariff on the Country of Venezuela, for numerous reasons, including the fact that Venezuela has purposefully and deceitfully sent to the United States, undercover, tens of thousands of high level, and other, criminals, many of whom are murderers and people of a very violent nature.

Among the gangs they sent to the United States, is Tren de Aragua, which has been given the designation of “Foreign Terrorist Organization.” We are in the process of returning them to Venezuela — It is a big task! In addition, Venezuela has been very hostile to the United States and the Freedoms which we espouse.

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Interim installed Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has confirmed the snap election for Canada is scheduled for April 28, 2025.

Given that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre generally sealed his fate with criticism of President Trump while aligning himself with a surging patriotic-leftist movement, it is now expected that Mark Carney will win the election.

Politico has an article about the dynamic underway, and the following quotes are noteworthy:

CANADA – […] Trump has even taken credit for turning the Liberals’ fortunes around.

“Before I got involved and totally changed the election — which I don’t care about, probably, it’s our advantage, actually — but the Conservative was leading against, I call him Governor Trudeau. The conservative was leading by 35 points,” he said Friday, while exaggerating the polls.

“I think Canada is a place, like a lot of other places, if you have a good candidate, the candidate is going to work,” Trump said.

[…] Canadians have responded to Trump’s intimidation tactics with an outburst of patriotism. They are canceling spring break plans, buying made-in-Canada products, damaging Teslas and booing “The Star Spangled Banner” at professional sporting events.

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If you are concerned about the economics of American life, the first step is to understand the financial influences that were put into place by President Obama, then again with Obama’s team using the auspices of Joe Biden.

President Trump is rapidly untangling the tentacles of Obama’s “share the wealth” exfiltration policy, and he will achieve success on a scale most economic analysts cannot fathom.  Traditional financial media, including those who follow the influences of Wall Street are constrained by their need to retain pretenses.  However, President Trump and his economic team are very clear-eyed and focused.

We are already seeing major drops in core energy prices including gasoline.  These decreases will have downstream impacts on all consumer goods, and we will notice a significant drop in food prices in two steps.

The first will be moderate and the result of harvest one cost decreases. The second price drop will be even greater and will come as a result in major farm costs for the second harvest sequence. By Thanksgiving 2025, lowered energy prices in combination with ‘food prepared at home’ price drops will be the leading cause of a major decline in inflation.

In the background of this domestic outcome, the April 2nd tariffs will start to ripple through durable goods.  Initially, there will be waves and fluctuations as some durable goods prices increase and other durable goods prices decrease.  The more the components of the product are domestically manufactured, the more the price of the end product will drop in price.

As a result, the aggregate downward pressure (higher domestic content) will exceed the upward pressure (higher import content component goods) and overall prices for durable goods will decline.  This deflationary pressure point will increase over time as the end of the Marshal Plan starts to return dollars to the United States.

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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appears on CBS News to outline how the MAGAnomic tariff program immediately creates positive outcomes when President Trump identifies the specific targets.

As Lutnick appropriately notes, the EU has received one-way tariff benefit since the creation of the Marshal Plan in 1945.  President Trump is on track to finally end this exfiltration of American wealth.  Lutnick cuts through the nonsense and delivers a very non-pretending reality as he outlines how Canada doesn’t stop fentanyl, and Mexico doesn’t stop migration caravans.

This is an excellent explanatory outline of how President Trump paints the target, then Commerce Secretary Lutnick supports the targeting, and how foreign nations immediately respond to change their approach. WATCH:

As we notice today, for the first time since last year the Consumer Price Index now shows inflation slowing rapidly [CPI DATA HERE] as basic essential prices on energy and gasoline are dropping quickly and all downstream products start dropping in sequence.

Here is our current status after one month: – mortgage rates are down – egg prices are down – gas prices are down – overall inflation dropping – illegal immigration stopped at the border – wages going up – foreign aid shut down – woke initiatives being removed – massive manufacturing investments ongoing.

Hey, it’s winning folks, and it has only just begun.  Lutnick is absolutely correct.

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For many of us who walk the deep weeds of honest economic analysis, this is the moment we have been waiting for.

Second only to the elimination of the U.S-Marshal Plan, which is scheduled to end April 2, 2025, the structural implementation of North American tariffs against Mexico and Canada provides the most significant opportunity for GDP expansion, jobs, wage increases and massive economic gains in the United States.

Simultaneous to the tariffs scheduled to go into effect tomorrow, President Trump notes U.S. food prices are positioned for major supply-demand changes that will benefit all American consumers.  What President Trump notes in the Truth Social message below, is a reality we experienced in 2018/2019 as the result of national agriculture supply.

[Source]

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told CNBC on Monday that the inflationary impact from any tariffs would be “second-order small, so I don’t see the president wavering on any of this, because he knows in order to get to a world in which America is strong and prosperous, with real wages going up and (more) factory jobs. This is the path that he’s chosen.” (more)

CTH outlined the prediction for ’18/’19 back in 2016 when we discussed what happens when the American food supply equation is modified to focus on domestic production to the benefit of domestic consumers.   The food supply chain will shift, slowly at first and then ultimately by around Thanksgiving of this year (fall harvest) we will see major price drops in the American food basket.

There are going to be major opposition forces, notably related to decades of Big Ag exfiltration, screaming that U.S. consumers will see higher prices.  However, as previously experienced/outlined these claims are entirely false. We will see major drops in food prices as a result of a more balanced U.S production-import/export dynamic.

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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is at the operational center of the MAGAnomic policy hub.  Secretary Lutnick is the pivot point to the technical systems that will pay down the deficit and balance the USA budget. {Direct Rumble Link Here}

In this lengthy interview with Bret Baier, Secretary Lutnick talks about some of the policy proposals, direct actions of the government and economic systems that he and President Trump are putting into place that will grow Main Street and fuel the golden era in American economic growth.  Well worth watching: 

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April 2nd, 2025, begins the reciprocal tariff program for all nations.

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Together with cabinet members from Commerce, the EPA and Energy, President Trump signed two executive orders today and holds yet another lengthy impromptu press conference.

The first XO was an order to remove federal COVID-19 mandates in education. No more COVID vaccines are federally mandated for school attendance.  The second XO is targeting the energy sector to unleash American energy independence [SEE HERE]. The Energy XO encompasses the revitalization of energy infrastructure and creating access to federal energy resources.

Additionally, keeping with a new process of holding impromptu press availabilities, President Trump took several questions from the media about ongoing current events including the meetings taking place in Europe around the Russia -v- Ukraine conflict.  WATCH:

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The press availability allows President Trump to speak directly to events as they unfold. It is remarkable transparency that cuts through the ability of the media to frame current issues.  A very smart communication strategy.

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Today, President Donald J Trump signed an executive order triggering the first ever system of “reciprocal trade tariffs,” a seismic change in U.S. trade policy that will also consider the respective nation’s VAT (Value Added Tax) tariff.

Within the executive order [as outlined], the Secretary of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative will consider foreign industry subsidies, and non-monetary tariff barriers as part of the determination of the tariff levied.  This is a stunning shift in U.S trade agreements that will cut through all the angles being deployed to avoid U.S. tariffs and block U.S exports into their country.

The policy will pressure foreign nations to lower their trade barriers to U.S. goods and eliminate disparity in foreign trade agreements.  One big example will be the impact on the EU through the continuing Marshall Plan.  The EU will now face reciprocal tariffs and no longer benefit from one-way tariff acceptance. There are obviously no tariffs on products made inside the USA.

With “reciprocal tariffs” the Commerce Dept and USTR will now determine the trade imbalances with each individual country and will evaluate each FTA (Free Trade Agreement), one-by-one to deconflict the trade imbalance.  Direct tariffs, subsidies, regulatory hurdles, non-monetary trade barriers and hidden export subsidies will be addressed as part of the reciprocity evaluation.  This is a completely new dynamic in the era of modern global trade and economics.

During the executive order signing event, President Trump took questions from the media. WATCH:

Between now and April 1st, each individual trade agreement will be evaluated with consideration for all facets of the cost for American companies to export to the evaluated nation.  Direct tariffs, Value Added Taxes (VAT), state subsidies and non-monetary regulatory tariff barriers, will be determined for each nation.  That nation will then be made aware of the tariff against each sector within their export system to the United States.

Effective April 2, 2025, President Trump will then have the tariff data provided by the USTR and Secretary of Commerce. President Trump will determine when the reciprocal tariff will be triggered and will likely engage in discussions with the leaders of the foreign nations.

These fireside chat-style impromptu pressers during executive order signings are awesome.  The revolutionary change in government transparency and communication is, well, quite literally historic and stunning.  The media can ask questions in real-time as the specific policy is implemented and explained, while simultaneously the ability of the media to shape an anti-Trump policy narrative is removed.

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If you have followed the arc of Tech, Peter Thiel recruiting JD Vance, the creation of Palantir, the funding of Vance’s senatorial run, and eventually the roadmap to connect Vance to Trump, this is a video speech you absolutely must not miss. JD Vance was sent to the AI Summit for a reason.

JD Vance talks at the AI summit in Paris, France, about his core mission, his core purpose inside current political influence. This is the very origin of his legacy, unfolding in real time. Vice-President JD Vance talks about Artificial Intelligence, the future and the Trump administration position.

Vice President JD Vance warned European leaders against heavily regulating U.S. tech companies and said excessive efforts by the European Union to regulate artificial intelligence could stymie its growth, during an AI summit in Paris Tuesday that marks his first foreign trip since taking office. WATCH:

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Do you feel more or less confident about the future, having watched these remarks?

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