Earlier today President Trump spoke at the Three Seas Initiative Summit in Warsaw Poland. Energy use via gas pipelines from Russia is a strong factor in the Baltic states political relationship.

President Trump presented the opportunity to create economic and political breathing room by affirming the U.S. willingness to export LNG (liquified natural gas) to the region.

“Let me be clear about one crucial point. The United States will never use energy to coerce your nations, and we cannot allow others to do so,” President Trump said at a press conference flanked by European leaders. “You don’t want to have a monopoly or a monopolistic situation.”  (NBC article link)

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Exactly as predicted.  President Trump is aboard AF1 headed to the EU.  After discussions with the President this morning, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley delivers prepared remarks  at the United Nations on the topic of North Korea’s continued military escalation.

Her full remarks are below.   Note she discusses speaking with President Trump this morning about trade with China.  Specifically note her comments about trade:

[02:59] “We have other methods of addressing those who threaten us, and of addressing those who supply the threats; we have great capabilities in the area of trade.  President Trump has spoken repeatedly about this, I spoke with him at length about it this morning.”

“There are countries that are allowing, even encouraging, trade with North Korea, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.  Such countries would also like to continue their trade arrangements with the United States, that’s not gonna happen.  Our attitude on trade changes when countries do not take international security threats seriously.”

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For those who cannot see the multi-dimensional strategy here, an approach assembled for years in the aggregate and fine-tuned in the last several weeks, President Trump is reinforcing our prior analysis of his strategy:

A day before he meets face-to-face with Xi Jinping, President Trump is highlighting the enabler to North Korea.  President Trump is smartly setting up a spotlight for the entire world to see who is creating the problem, China.

President Trump will never start a military war because it’s antithetical to his entire constitution.  However, within the field of economic combat – watch out.  Not only will Trump engage in economic warfare, he’s built an armory for decades, he’s positioned to win against any opponent.  As such, the long-term adversary in this equation is not North Korea, it’s China.

To understand the longer and larger strategy, we must first remember the underpinning of all leverage, economics.  Every single aspect of national wealth and national security boils down to economics.  The true economic adversary to the United States is China.

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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issues a formal statement in response to the ICBM missile test conducted by North Korea:

The United States strongly condemns North Korea’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Testing an ICBM represents a new escalation of the threat to the United States, our allies and partners, the region, and the world.

Global action is required to stop a global threat. Any country that hosts North Korean guest workers, provides any economic or military benefits, or fails to fully implement UN Security Council resolutions is aiding and abetting a dangerous regime.

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President Trump is drawing attention to something many people are overlooking.  Smart tweet to draw attention to gas prices.  Good strategy to highlight “Winning”.

Trump Energy Plan Expanded HERE

March Executive Order HERE – $20 Billion for Eleven New Refineries Announced HERE

Do you plan on driving this Independence Day?

President Obama July 4th 2012 -vs- President Trump July 4th 2017

“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

Steven Chu [2008], Barack Obama’s Secretary of Energy

“Drill baby, drill.”

Rick Perry [2017],  Donald Trump’s Energy Secretary

Check your local area gas prices HERE

President Trump and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke at length today in advance of the upcoming G20 summit in Hamburg Germany and they set up a pre-summit meeting for Thursday.   President Trump leaves for Europe this Wednesday 7/5/17.

President Trump is expected to promote U.S. natural gas exports (LNG) during a scheduled enthusiastic visit to Poland.  Fraulein Merkel is not happy; not one little bit.  Merkel wants EU to buy LNG from Russia.

There’s a massive amount of irony in the narrative that Merkel is the savior of global leftist ideology yet she wants to be even more cozy with Russia for energy.  Meanwhile, regarding President Trump, the Merkel supporting left is on an anti-Russia crusade.  Go figure.

(Via Reuters)  […] Europeans will be watching to see whether Trump clarifies his administration’s position on a new pipeline to pump Russian gas to Germany, known as Nord Stream 2.

The U.S. Senate in June passed a package of sanctions on Russia, including provisions to penalize Western firms involved in the pipeline. The new sanctions have stalled in the House of Representatives.

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Continuing to look at the new economy through the prism of the new dimension, CTH notes the manufacturing landscape is shaping itself as predicted.  However, the disclaimer should also be noted that most economic observers are stuck in old economic paradigms.

[…]  The Institute for Supply Management said Monday that its manufacturing index rose to 57.8 last month from 54.9 in May. Anything above 50 signals that factory activity is increasing. The measure now stands at its highest level since August 2014, pointing to solid economic growth. (link)

Overall the trend-line is very positive for a resurgence in U.S. manufacturing.  According to the report fifteen of the eighteen manufacturing industries surveyed posted growth in June.  Those gains included: furniture, machinery, fabricated metals, petroleum and coal sectors. One transportation equipment firm surveyed for the report said “demand is up 5 to 7 percent.”

The manufacturing base is responding (via investing) to predictable market patterns.  However, the rate of response (production investment) will increase in direct proportion to the upcoming (late summer) trade negotiations.  Please keep that in mind.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered some rather strongly worded remarks in advance of the upcoming G20 summit in Hamburg Germany.  Reuters frames the Merkel statements as a warning to U.S. President Donald Trump.

(Reuters) German Chancellor Angela Merkel promised to fight for free trade and press on with multilateral efforts to combat climate change at the G20 summit next week, challenging the “America First” policies of U.S. President Donald Trump.

In a defiant speech to parliament a week before she will host a summit of the world’s top economic powers in Hamburg, the northern port city where she was born, Merkel did not mention Trump by name but said global problems could not be solved with protectionism and isolation. (read more)

However, seeking control is a reaction to fear.  Ms. Merkel, the EU, and the larger multinational global interests therein, fear Trump… and for good reason, he’s winning.

President Trump has put a jaw-dropping U.S. energy platform solidly into place.  You can learn more about them HERE and HERE.  The announcements last week are tectonic in consequence though seemingly lost amid the chafe of media reporting over twitter spats.

Everything President Trump’s team does is connected to a bigger, much bigger, picture than most people are paying attention to.  However, those who control the levers of multinational power are paying very close attention.

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For the past three days we’ve been assembling a great deal of research on visible back-channel communication amid numerous nations and their economic teams.  There are tectonic plates shifting just below the Geo-political surface, and we will be outlining many of them, along with the predictable economic outcomes (bigly), in the next few days.

In the interim, it’s useful to review the latest information from NatSec McMaster and NEC Cohen as it relates to the upcoming objectives from the next segment of foreign travel.

National Security Advisor General H.R. McMaster and Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn pre-brief the media on President Trump’s upcoming trip to Poland and Germany for the G20 Summit.  An important read:

[Transcript] 1:21 P.M. EDT – AIDE: Hi. Just want to restate the ground rules. Today’s briefing is off camera, on the record, and the audio is not for broadcast. It is embargoed until the end of the briefing.

And with that, I will turn the podium over to —

Q Can you make this on — can you make the audio available? Because it puts radio at a disadvantage.

AIDE: It is off camera, not for broadcast. Those are the ground rules.

And now I’m going to turn it over to General H.R. McMaster and Gary Cohn. Thank you.

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