Hungarian Prime Minister Vikor Orban is one of the few pragmatic EU leaders who understands the dynamics of globalism, nationalism and the conflict therein.  Within the EU collective, Orban is one of the national leaders that are not liked by Brussels.

Additionally, Orban holds a contrary view toward Russia than is held by the majority inside the EU bureaucracy.  Orban has called for a negotiated settlement to end the Ukraine-Russia conflict and restoration of EU relations with the Russian Federation.  Eventually, his anti-globalist worldview is what led former USAID Director Samantha Power to arrive in Hungary and begin the CIA groundwork for Orban’s removal.

Today Prime Minister Viktor Orban and President Trump gave remarks during a White House visit and answered media questions. WATCH:

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Senate Republicans are not going to sit on their hands and watch President Trump and Secretary Pete Hegseth think they control the United States military.

Recent troop movements away from Senate approved military bases in Romania, combined with the Trump administration not pushing advanced weapons into the battlefield of Ukraine, have Senate Republicans planning to take immediate action to control military operations.

Somewhere in the evolution of Presidential authority, the Senate now affirms they alone have the authority to control the organization, priorities, spending intentions and troop deployments from their chambers in Washington DC.

War must be had according to the upper branch of the legislature. The Senate is not going to accept any effort to work around their foreign policy objectives, regardless of these insufferable ‘peace’ initiatives of the White House.

WASHINGTON DC – […] Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said he’s seen an “unsettling trend” of Pentagon moves that he argues undermine Trump’s stated commitments to NATO and other international efforts — and he singled out Colby’s office in particular. It’s a distinction the Mississippi Republican often makes when criticizing administration policies — President Donald Trump has the right idea, but officials lower down in the administration or Pentagon are going about it the wrong way.

For example, he cited a decision last week to remove a rotational Army brigade from Romania, which Wicker criticized at the time.

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For those who have followed along with the U.S-Canada trade positioning, the current status of conflict between the Trump administration and the government of Canada is not surprising.  {GO DEEP} Going all the way back to the replacement of NAFTA, with the USMCA, President Trump always said he did not favor multilateral trade deals with multiple countries; instead, he preferred bilateral free trade agreements.

Some people have construed the bilateral preference of President Trump to be the elimination of globalism in favor of nationalism in trade agreements.

While the outcome of the Trump approach indeed aligns with that theme, it is not specifically the objective of President Trump to eliminate global trade, but rather to focus on specific interests in trade that benefit the unique nature of each party involved.

As a result, the USMCA -or CUSMA as said in Canada- is not in alignment with a bilateral free trade agreement, and the conflicted differences between trade with Mexico and trade with Canada are an outcome of this dynamic.  The solution is simply to eliminate the multilateral in favor of the bilateral approach.  This is the objective of President Trump as expressed.

That said, the USMCA covers approximately 60% of U.S-Canada trade, and the remaining 40% is being debated and argued.  President Trump would prefer to just deal with 100% of the trade sectors in one free trade agreement; hence, his ambivalence until the USMCA is dissolved.

Canada, on the other hand, continues to demand that all trade conflicts be resolved without opening up the entire USMCA. Again, another conflict. Canada is like the dependent spouse in a divorce arguing for child support payments when the “children” are in their twenties.

The current status is President Trump pulling back completely from discussions with Canada, while the various provincial Premiers and Prime Minister Mark Carney antagonize over the issue.

At a certain point, when the entire national economic plan of Canada is based on “Donald Trump bad”, and all political messaging internally is to proclaim they have no alternative policy positions, the Canadians might not realize it, but they are confirming complete and total dependency on the nation Donald Trump represents.

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Wharton Professor and noted economist Mohamed El-Erian appeared on Fox News to discuss the jaw-dropping success President Trump is having with his global trade reset.

As noted by El-Erian no one, including El-Erian himself, expected President Trump to be able to navigate a global trade and economic reset with such stunning success.  The entire economic policy is being driven by the personal influence of President Trump as he leverages tariffs and policy incentives to the benefit of the USA economy exclusively.

The scale of Trump’s agenda is difficult to overstate, and China is now positioned to feel incredible pressure to align Beijing policy with the requests of President Trump.  “We thought there would be a massive retaliation against the US, there hasn’t been” El-Erian noted.  “We’re collecting $800 Billion of tariff revenue” and “inflation has waned,” he said.  This is a remarkable situation that few economists could accurately predict.  WATCH:

WOW — Economist/Wharton Professor says TARIFFS achieved something economists DIDN’T think possible!

“We thought there would be a massive retaliation against the US, there hasn’t been…we’re collecting $800 Billion of tariff revenue…inflation waned.”

INCREDIBLE, @POTUS !! 👏 pic.twitter.com/OaNtWqyTcf

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 27, 2025

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This is not a surprise to readers here as we have discussed the Trump trade agenda with clear, non-pretending eyes.  The ASEAN trip by President Trump is a masterclass in leveraging trade relationships and creating isolation for China.  The downstream consequences for Canada continue to build as the Carney administration doubles down on their entrenched and futile opposition.

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United States Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer is a very solid member of the Trump trade team.  Having learned at the knee of former USTR Robert Lighthizer, you can see the stability of thought in the consistency of approach.

USTR Greer outlines the ongoing discussions between the U.S. and China on the framework of a stable trade relationship.  Against a myriad of geopolitical chess moves on the economic and trade front, Greer and Treasury Secretary Bessent play key roles in executing the Trump Doctrine.

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In the background of the President Trump and Chairman Xi meeting, we can see the broad contours of President Trump’s strategy toward both the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the China-Canada trade relationship.

If President Trump can formulate a strong, actionable and enforceable free trade agreement with Chairman Xi, it will undercut the ability of Canada to assemble cheap component goods not available in the U.S. manufacturing equation for total cost of goods.  This puts Trump in an even stronger position heading into the 2026 USMCA (CUSMA) dissolution phase.

Additionally, despite the mainstream thoughts to the contrary, putting distance between Russia and China is not averse to the interests of Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, who would strategically prefer to do business with the ‘West’ over Beijing.  However, China does not want to see their Biden-created tentacle weakened in Russia.

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White House Chair of the National Economic Council (NEC), Kevin Hassett, walked out to the press pool to discuss the latest excellent inflation figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics today {BLS REPORT HERE}.  However, the insufferable press pool wanted to talk about other things.

I’ll get to the BLS data below – with a gold nugget just for you, don’t share it.  But first, NEC Director Hassett also let something slip in his responsive comments that most will miss.

When asked about Trump’s decision to terminate all trade negotiations with Canada, Hasset noted the discussions were frustrating, and “The Canadians were very difficult to negotiate with.” Then comes the key point (03:28), “The fact that we are now negotiating with Mexico, separately, reveals that it’s not just one add, there’s frustration that has built up.”

What Hassett just confirmed again, as if we needed more evidence, is that the trilateral trade agreement -the USMCA- is not going to exist once Trump opens it up for renegotiation.  The USA team is already working on a separate bilateral trade agreement between the USA and Mexico, proactively.  The USMCA is dead – we just have not made it official yet.  WATCH (prompted):

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On the inflation data, the September inflation rate was 0.3 percent, much lower than all economists and pundits predicted.  The tariffs are having no impact on the rise of consumer prices.  In fact, the sectors with the most imported goods are the sectors with the lowest inflation.

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Having provided deliberate advice and counsel quietly on these matters, it is important to continue watching the developments as they unfold.  There are trillions at stake.

President Trump’s global trade and economic reset is well underway. It is not an overstatement to say the western world economic structures within trade, banking and finance are in opposition to his efforts.  Alas, as we have outlined extensively, part of the larger phase of this reset will come in the likely dissolution of the U.S. Mexico, Canada trade agreement (USMCA).

Canada is taking actions to replace their U.S. trade relationship by aligning more with the EU and China.  This is a very dangerous approach for the Canadian people, because in the short-term there may be benefits; however, in the longer term the downsides are quite severe. Remember, Xi Jinping wanted Mark Carney to win the parliamentary election.

[SOURCE] – Canadian Foreign Minister’s visit to China promotes the warming of relations and new opportunities for educational cooperation! This is the most high-level contact between the two countries since 2018.

Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand paid an official visit to Beijing and held important talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

The visit not only commemorates the 55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Canada and China, but also marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the strategic partnership between the two countries. During the meeting, the two sides discussed issues such as trade, energy, environment and public health, laying the foundation for the “normalization” of Canada-China relations.

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Let’s put the events of the last 72 hours into context.

On Monday and Tuesday, Russian oil refineries in NATO countries Hungary and Romania suddenly, and simultaneously, have mysterious explosions and catastrophic fires {citation}}. On Wednesday, NATO head Mark Rutte comes to visit President Trump in the White House, and at the end of the day, the same Russian company, Lukoil, whose refinery exploded in Romania, suddenly becomes sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury {citation}. These events are not disconnected.

President Trump then disputes a Wall Street Journal report {citation}, further saying he did not give approval, nor does he know where NATO long-range missiles are coming from that were launched from Ukraine into Russia {citation}.

Alarmingly, both the Wall Street Journal and President Trump are seemingly correct.

President Trump did not give authorization; however, he did cede authority to NATO to make independent decisions about long-range missiles. The U.K. provided the British storm shadow missiles, and Ukraine launched them with NATO support for targeting deep into Russia.

President Trump saying, “wherever they may come from,” is alarming in itself.  We all know that British PM Starmer, French President Macron, German Chancellor Merz and NATO Secretary Mark Rutte are all in alignment to push NATO into a direct conflict with Russia using the non-NATO state of Ukraine to do it.

The frustrating part is not the obtuse deflection by President Trump – perhaps he really doesn’t know – but rather the alarming issue of questioning whether President Trump is getting accurate information from the U.S. intelligence apparatus to make sound decisions.  President Trump has abdicated the conflict decision-making to the NATO “coalition of the willing”, while the USA remains in NATO as a sideline observer.

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NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte visits President Trump while Trump and Secretary Bessent increase sanctions against Russian energy companies.

Check the body language.  Secretary of State/Nat Sec Advisor Marco Rubio does not seem to be in alignment with the conversation today.

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Put this in the ‘beyond ridiculous’ file that explains the current situation of a contracting European economy; specifically, in the auto sector.

Europe has fines associated with the production of gasoline powered engines if the auto company doesn’t hit targets for sales of electric vehicles.  The fines triggered this year.  In order to avoid paying the European fines the auto makers are forming alliances with Chinese EV makers to purchase carbon credit offsets.

In essence, EU car companies buy Chinese car company carbon credits, to avoid the EU fines.  The Chinese car companies can then use the carbon credit revenue to subsidize lower priced Chinese EVs to the European car market, thereby undercutting the European EV car companies.  BRILLIANT!

MILAN, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Automakers have formed alliances to help them avoid hefty European Union fines on carbon emissions by purchasing credits from electric vehicle companies. Several legacy automakers face potential fines as the transition to EVs in Europe has proved slower than expected in recent years.

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