The sense that this is not good expands when you consider the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the current conflict between the United States and China.  Two Chinese researchers in Michigan have been charged with smuggling into the U.S. a fungus that devastates agricultural crops.

Was this an ‘agroterrorism’ operation intended to unleash a serious problem in the U.S. farming system?  That intent cannot be dismissed easily.

MICHIGAN – Two Chinese nationals have been charged with allegedly smuggling into the U.S. a fungus called “Fusarium graminearum, which scientific literature classifies as a potential agroterrorism weapon,” the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, citizens of the People’s Republic of China, were allegedly receiving Chinese government funding for their research, some of it at the University of Michigan, officials said.

“The complaint also alleges that Jian’s electronics contain information describing her membership in and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party,” a DOJ press release said.

“It is further alleged that Jian’s boyfriend, Liu, works at a Chinese university where he conducts research on the same pathogen and that he first lied but then admitted to smuggling Fusarium graminearum into America — through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport — so that he could conduct research on it at the laboratory at the University of Michigan where his girlfriend, Jian, worked,” according to the press release.

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President Trump signed executive orders today targeting nuclear energy.  President Trump announced a host of regulatory reforms within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) aiming to generate new investment and new nuclear plants being built.  The supportive Energy Department officials are particularly focused on developing small modular reactors as opposed to large-scale legacy reactors.

In addition to calling for a bureaucratic overhaul at the NRC, the executive orders also encourage the departments of Energy and Defense to build reactors on federal land to power data centers and military bases, speed up the process for testing new reactor technology and boost domestic supply chains for nuclear fuels.  This directive comes after Congress passed legislation directing the NRC to modernize its operations and speed up the licensing process.

The Question-and-Answer session begins at 15:12 of the video. WATCH:

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Executive Orders HERE – HERE – HERE

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Ahead of the upcoming election, Tucker Carlson interviews Canadian government official, Maxime Bernier.

In the background of the conversation the leading candidates for Prime Minister, Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre both hold similar trade and tariff views, both support a new alignment with the EU, and both support cultural Marxism.  Canada has their own version of the UniParty.  WATCH:

Chapters:

0:00 Who Was Justin Trudeau Really Working For?
7:53 the Invasion of Canada
9:19 Pierre Poilievre Is a Fraud
13:25 The Attempts to Destroy Christian Countries
15:51 The Trade War Between Canada and the US
20:03 The Canadian Government’s Ridiculous Climate Change Agenda
21:59 China’s Control Over Canada

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr provides an update on the latest scientific study of the growth in Autism cases within the U.S and a new HHS initiative to find the root causes.

As noted by RFK Jr, there is no longer any valid scientific debate about the rate of growth in Autism, specifically around young boys.  Something environmental is causing the trigger that generally occurs after the age of two-years-old.  The scientific research on the scale of the problem is jaw-dropping as outlined in the secretary’s remarks.  WATCH: 

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President Trump delivers a speech at the White House outlining a global trade reset established on the principle of trade and tariff reciprocity.  [Primary Executive Order Here]  – [Executive Order Here]

“The post-war international economic system was based upon three incorrect assumptions: first, that if the United States led the world in liberalizing tariff and non-tariff barriers the rest of the world would follow; second, that such liberalization would ultimately result in more economic convergence and increased domestic consumption among U.S. trading partners converging towards the share in the United States; and third, that as a result, the United States would not accrue large and persistent goods trade deficits.”

“Put simply, while World Trade Organization (WTO) Members agreed to bind their tariff rates on a most-favored-nation (MFN) basis and thereby provide their best tariff rates to all WTO Members, they did not agree to bind their tariff rates at similarly low levels or to apply tariff rates on a reciprocal basis.  Consequently, according to the WTO, the United States has among the lowest simple average MFN tariff rates in the world at 3.3 percent, while many of our key trading partners like Brazil (11.2 percent), China (7.5 percent), the European Union (EU) (5 percent), India (17 percent), and Vietnam (9.4 percent) have simple average MFN tariff rates that are significantly higher.”

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Country-specific ad valorem rates of duty as specified in Annex I to the main Executive Order.

The tariffs generally target completed goods, not the imported chemical or component materials needed to by industry to manufacture the products domestically.  Annex II are the exemptions to the Executive Order.

I have been going through the details and will have much more soon.

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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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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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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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I enjoy Kevin ‘Sid‘ Hassett very much.  He was awesome in Trump’s first term as an economic advisor, and he’s even better in term two as the Director of the National Economic Council (NEC).

When the people who controlled Joe Biden lost the 2024 election, they were angry.  They wanted to leave President Trump with as big a mess as possible and all actions were taken to create chaos that Trump would have to deal with.  Intellectually honest people noticed.

Part of their chaos operation was to drive up the cost of food, intentionally create inflation that Trump would have to handle.  The “bird flu” issue was part of the plan.  After the 2020 election the U.S. Dept of Agriculture ordered millions of chickens to be killed.  Simple quarantine process was dismissed in favor of a ridiculous slaughter.

During a CBS interview today, Margaret Brennan asked Kevin Hassett what the Trump administration was going to do about food inflation, and specifically the astronomical cost of eggs.  Hassett outlined the plan by first reminding Brennan that regarding spread, chickens don’t fly; ducks and geese do.  I almost spit out my coffee.  I enjoy Kevin Hassett.  Video and Transcript Below:

“Sid“

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We want to turn now to the economy and inflation, which, compared to last January, ticked up about 3% last week. Kevin Hassett is the director of the National Economic Council, and he joins us now. Good morning to you, Director.

KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Good morning, Margaret, good morning.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, I don’t have to tell you, but the rest of the country saw their egg prices at the grocery store go up. We’re now at a record high due to that bird flu outbreak, but also labor costs, and that’s contributing to food costs overall. When will the administration get that outbreak under control?

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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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