NAFTA negotiations enter day #4 today.  The final Round 1 summary day is tomorrow, Sunday.   Information as to specifics is hard to find.  Much of the ongoing negotiation is clouded in secrecy.
However, that said, one of CTH mouses (with wolverine teeth) shares a negotiation aspect that drew a great deal of conseternation from the Mexico and Canada side.
The issue revolves around government contracts, specifically U.S. federal contracts for goods and services.  President Trump has initiated a “Buy American, Hire American” policy for government contracts; meaning if the U.S. government has to spend money for a product or service, it should be spent on acquisition of American products made by American workers.
Mexico and Canada want access to these lucrative contracts.  President Trump’s “America First” procurement process is against their interest.  Canada is especially upset about this dynamic.  Canada wants to be able to bid on U.S. Federal Government contracts; and Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland referred to the buy-local rules as “poor public policy.”
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This is one of those paradigm shift CTH predictions that many people scoffed at back in 2015/2016 when we discussed a Trump federal budget, and how Washington DC politicians would respond to a president who actually planned to cut spending.  Back in February we warned:

[…] The UniParty is going to fight hard, very hard, to retain their spending. Don’t be surprised to see GOPe “conservatives” demanding President Trump spend more money. We have been repeating this warning since he announced his bid for the presidency in 2015. (link)

Today’s headline reads “Fears Grow That Trump Could Ignore Congress on Spending“. Traditional thinking, at first glance of the headline, would be the President might ignore budgetary levels and spend more than he should. However, in reality, the paradigm shift is the exact opposite.  DC is worried that President Trump won’t spend enough money.
Let that sink in for a minute.
THAT’S a prime example of: A.) evidence of the DC UniParty; and, B.) how ridiculously dysfunctional and broken the federal budgetary and spending process has become.  DC lawmakers are now consulting attorneys and planning to sue the President and force him to spend money.

WASHINGTON – Lawmakers and activists are preparing for the possibility that President Donald Trump’s administration, in its zeal to slash the federal budget, will take the rare step of deliberately not spending all the money Congress gives it — a move sure to trigger legal and political battles.

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(Via Fox News) Imran Awan, a former IT aide for Democratic Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was indicted Thursday on four counts including bank fraud and making false statements. The indictment also includes his wife Hina Alvi.

The grand jury decision in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia comes roughly a month after Awan was arrested at Dulles airport in Virginia trying to board a plane to Pakistan, where his family is from.
Awan and other IT aides for House Democrats have been on investigators’ radar for months over concerns of possible double-billing, alleged equipment theft, and access to sensitive computer systems. Most lawmakers fired Awan in February, but Schultz had kept him on until his arrest in July.
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The ‘big ugly’ is inevitable. We all know it.  The only thing yet to be determined is the timing.  My spidey hunch tells me there are multiple possible detonation moments depending on sequencing.
Today, President Trump violates Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer’s golden rule regarding incumbent Senators.  President Trump tweeted support for a challenger:

Think about it.  President Trump has quietly placed triggering policy around the base of several UniParty issues:

♦China Trade Imbalance and North Korea Denuclearization; ♦the ongoing NAFTA renegotiations and future trade deals; ♦the fiscal year 2018 budget and associated MAGAnomic policy; ♦the southern border wall and immigration enforcement; ♦infrastructure and prioritization of spending; ♦no more stupid wars; ♦the repeal of ObamaCare and tax reform to benefit the middle-class workforce. 

These are not Bannonisms, these are core and central issues important to President Trump on an inherently personal and intrinsic level.
With some nuanced adjustments to reflect the current international challenges (ie. adding DPRK to the China objectives), these are essentially the fundamental reasons why candidate Trump came down the escalator in 2015.
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Forget the social chaff and political countermeasures being promoted in the media. It is all manufactured distraction.  It’s MONEY that matters to the powerful interests in the upper suites of the corporate media apparatus.

Everything, e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g, every story, is circling the upcoming economic and financial trade confrontations.  There are trillions at stake and President Donald Trump is facing off against the international “BIG CLUB”.  The purchased multinational political entities who operate within the massive and institutional multinational corporate and financial networks behind the World Bank and World Trade Organization.
NAFTA re-negotiations are set to begin in Washington DC this coming Wednesday. President Trump is meeting with Trade Team U.S.A tonight.

♦ Last week Mexico’s Economic Minister Ildefonso Guajardo threatened to flood the U.S. with illegal aliens, South American gangs and massive illegal drugs shipments if the U.S. doesn’t keep favor with Mexico in the trilateral trade deal. –LINK–

♦ Now today, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland states that Canada will walk away from re-negotiated NAFTA if Chapter 19 trade dispute resolutions are not retained. –LINK–

What Canada seeks to keep is a dispute mechanism that specifically politicizes the NAFTA trade resolution process.  Chapter 19 establishes a bi-national panel who make binding decisions on complaints about illegal subsidies, dumping, manipulation of trade and possible countervailing duties.
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President Trump uses economic leverage as a national security policy; and to understand who opposes President Trump specifically because of the economic leverage he creates, it becomes important to understand the objectives of the global and financial elite who run and operate the institutions.  The Big Club.
Understanding how trillions of trade dollars influence geopolitical policy we begin to understand the three-decade global financial construct they seek to protect.
That is: global financial exploitation of national markets:

♦Multinational corporations purchase controlling interests in various national elements of developed industrial western nations.
♦The Multinational Corporations making the purchases are underwritten by massive global financial institutions, multinational banks.

♦The Multinational Banks and the Multinational Corporations then utilize lobbying interests to manipulate the internal political policy of the targeted nation state(s).
♦With control over the targeted national industry or interest, the multinationals then leverage export of the national asset (exfiltration) through trade agreements structured to the benefit of lesser developed nation states – where they have previously established a proactive financial footprint.

Against the backdrop of President Trump confronting China (tomorrow), and against the backdrop of NAFTA being renegotiated starting Wednesday, revisiting the economic influences within the import/export dynamic will help conceptualize the issues at the heart of the matter.  There are a myriad of interests within each trade sector that make specific explanation very challenging; however, here’s the basic outline.
For three decades economic “globalism” has advanced, quickly. Everyone accepts this statement, yet few actually stop to ask who and what are behind this – and why?
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The right-side of the DC UniParty are exploiting the opportunity to undermine President Trump through heavy use of the “weak Charlottesville response” attack narrative.
Against the background of NAFTA renegotiation (beginning Wednesday), and with a trade confrontation with China imminent (Tomorrow), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is seizing on this opportunity to dispatch all of their paid operatives to destroy the threat to multinational corporatism and globalist economic expansion, U.S. President Trump.
It’s the perfect anti-Trump storm formation, with a motive oblivious to the U.S electorate because the media have not discussed any of the trade aspects to President Trump’s economic national security agenda.  The big business lobby, Tom Donohue, multinational corporations and their paid advocates have free reign to attack Trump.
Enter Karl Rove:

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President Trump and Veteran Affairs Secretary David Shulkin announce the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act.
BEDMINSTER, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump has signed an emergency spending bill that will pump more than $2 billion into a program that allows veterans to receive private medical care at government expense.
Trump, who made improving veterans care a central campaign promise, signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act while at his New Jersey golf club on Saturday. The bill, which addresses a budget shortfall at the Department of Veteran Affairs that threatened medical care for thousands of veterans, provides $2.1 billion to continue funding the Veterans Choice Program, which allows veterans to seek private care.
Another $1.8 billion will go to core VA health programs, including 28 leases for new VA medical facilities. (read more)

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There have been multiple media reports in the last six hours that President Trump is going to announce trade investigation/sanctions against China during a press conference scheduled for Monday.
It makes sense the previously postponed 301 trade investigation against China for violations of intellectual property rights might be announced.

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 provides the United States with the authority to enforce trade agreements, resolve trade disputes, and open foreign markets to U.S. goods and services. It is the principal statutory authority under which the United States may impose trade sanctions on foreign countries that either violate trade agreements or engage in other unfair trade practices. When negotiations to remove the offending trade practice fail, the United States may take action to raise import duties on the foreign country’s products as a means to rebalance lost concessions. (LINK)

However, a note of caution. Substantive trade negotiations, the kind which involve economics and national security, are always fluid and subject to pause, postponement or changes in direction based on compliance – or expressions of a willingness to comply.
Remember, this is Trump.  Looking out for U.S. economic interests is the baseline for trade “leverage”, a tactic and skill uniquely evident in this administration’s trade team.  Section 301 is a tool, actually a massive atomic sledgehammer, to force compliance.
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Speaking from Bedminster New Jersey, President Trump answers questions from media surrounding the ongoing issue with North Korea, and the intransigent republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his inability to move legislation.

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It’s always about the economic folks.  President Trump is the first U.S. president to fully appreciate, and utilize, economic leverage to achieve U.S. national security objectives.

…”If China helps us with North Korea I will feel a little differently about trade”…

~President Donald Trump

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