Vice President JD Vance appears on Fox News this morning to discuss the trade tariffs and the ongoing MAGAnomic trade reset.
The reciprocal tariffs and global trade rebalance are two components of a much larger MAGAnomic policy. Tax structures to the benefit of the working-class, upward pressure on wages and expanded GDP growth are all elements of increasing the wealth of Main Street and middle-class Americans. WATCH:
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The response from the EU is exactly what we would expect to see from the end of the 80-year-old Marshal Plan.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyden has three big concerns with the new trade/tariff reset. I strongly suggest everyone to read the EU concerns slowly to fully absorb decades of hypocrisy now surfacing:
#1 The EU will not be able to compete for U.S. market share with 20% general tariffs and 25% auto tariffs.
#2 The EU must deploy countermeasures against the risk of losing industrial capacity and manufacturing to the United States.
And #3 The EU must defend itself against China dumping cheap products into the EU now rejected by the USA.
von der Leyen is concerned mostly about the extremely valuable U.S. consumer being leveraged by President Trump, essentially blocking exploitation from EU and Asia. The EU will not tolerate losing access to the most valuable customers in the world, Americans.
♦ United States Trade Representative: 397-page detailed analysis of global trade relationships with the United States. The 2025 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE) is the 40th report in an annual series that highlights significant foreign barriers to U.S. exports, U.S. foreign direct investment, and U.S. electronic commerce. This document is a companion piece to the President’s 2025 Trade Policy Agenda and 2024 Annual Report, published by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on February 28, 2025. SEE REPORT HERE
♦ President Trump Executive Order: Regulating Imports with a Reciprocal Tariff to Rectify Trade Practices that Contribute to Large and Persistent Annual United States Goods Trade Deficits. READ EXECUTIVE ORDER HERE:
♦ ANNEX #1 – Outlining the tariff rate per country as assigned. SEE HERE
[SOURCE]
♦ ANNEX #2: 37-pages outlining the products that are exempted from the globally specified tariffs. The tariffs generally target completed goods, finished durable goods, not necessarily the chemical components or compounds needed if we are to manufacture or build the product in the USA. Therefore Annex 2 provides the list of all products, chemicals, components and compounds that are exempt from the tariff program. [SEE EXEMPTIONS HERE]
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent discusses President Trump’s tariff plans, federal deficit negotiations and the efforts to extend the 2017 tax cuts with Annmarie Hordern on “Balance of Power.”
Bessent walks through a strong, focused and deliberate outline while warning other nations not to assemble any retaliatory effort, or else the tariff ceiling currently outlined is likely to go much higher. WATCH:
SEGMENTS:
00:00- Bessent says of tariffs, “this is the number barring retaliation”
01:20- China tariff rate, potential rate
03:13- Bessent on markets: “A mag seven problem, not a MAGA problem
05:07- Potential timing of reconciliation bill
07:00 – US on Debt ‘Warning Track’ for May or June
07:45 – Bessent on raising revenues through tariffs
09:18 -Bessent discusses US soft data, sentiment
10:25 – Government agenda for the remainder of 2025, Ukraine progress, and Iran
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.
Wall Street, the Bankers, the Hedge Funds, the multinational corporations, K-Street Lobbying firms, Democrats, Republicans, leftists, globalists, and every other segment of the financial media who define themselves through the prism of their bank accounts, need someone else to blame for the Trump tariffs; because Trump doesn’t care.
It looks like the professional political class have decided to focus all financial firepower against Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
With the anticipated reciprocal tariffs announcement tomorrow, Liberty Day as President Trump calls it, the high-finance multinationals and Wall Street crowd are going bananas. Here come the hits against Lutnick.
Last week President Trump announced secondary tariffs of 25% against any nation who purchases oil from Venezuela. The approach was in response to the Venezuelan government refusing repatriation of their criminal gang members and organized narcotraffickers.
India operates the world’s largest oil refining company Reliance Industries, and facing the possibility of 25% tariffs against India, Reliance has cancelled oil purchases from Venezuela.
NEW DELHI, March 26 (Reuters) – India’s Reliance Industries (RELI.NS), opens new tab, operator of the world’s biggest refining complex, will halt Venezuelan oil imports after the United States announced a 25% tariff on nations buying crude from the South American nation, three sources said on Wednesday.
The Indian conglomerate, which last year obtained approval from U.S. authorities to purchase oil from the sanctioned producer, imports an average of 2 million barrels of Venezuelan crude every month, according to LSEG data.
The New York Times published two articles {HERE and HERE} revealing: 1) that U.S. military boots are on the ground in Ukraine. (2) The U.S. military is actively involved in the ongoing targeting of strikes into Russia. (3) The CIA is operating in Ukraine and conducting targeted strikes into the Russian Federation mainland.
New York Times – […] [F]or nearly three years before Mr. Trump’s return to power, the United States and Ukraine were joined in an extraordinary partnership of intelligence, strategy, planning and technology whose evolution and inner workings have been known only to a small circle of American and allied officials.
[…] The idea behind the partnership was that America’s close cooperation with Ukraine would compensate for Russia’s vast advantages in manpower and weaponry. To guide the Ukrainians as they deployed their ever-more-sophisticated arsenal, the Americans created an operation called Task Force Dragon.
The secret center of the partnership was at the U.S. Army garrison in Wiesbaden, Germany. Each morning, U.S. and Ukrainian military officers set targeting priorities — Russian units, pieces of equipment or infrastructure. American and coalition intelligence officers searched satellite imagery, radio emissions and intercepted communications to find Russian positions. Task Force Dragon then gave the Ukrainians the coordinates so they could shoot at them.
President Donald Trump holds an impromptu presser aboard Air Force One en route back to Washington DC. Most of the conversation centers around the upcoming “Liberty Day” tariffs, and the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
According to National Economic Council Chairman Kevin Hassett, our President now has all the assembled data from the full review and analysis of the combined research of the MAGAnomic agencies within the White House. The analysis combines both tariff and non-tariff trade barriers to determine exactly what costs are put upon the U.S. export companies for goods that arrive in various countries.
All of those combined costs, by country, will determine the reciprocal amount of the tariff levied by President Trump. The announcement of tariff rates will likely come this week, with President Trump previously saying April 2nd and April 3rd being the beginning of the implementation dates.
President Trump also puts context on the headline quotes promoted by NBC news and Kirsten Welker about his consideration toward Vladimir Putin. A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CONTEXT! President Trump simply noted that while President Putin doesn’t like Zelenskyy, and factually calls him illegitimate, Trump needs Putin to accept Zelenskyy in order to have the other chair at the peace table filled. That’s it. Pragmatic toward peace! WATCH:
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President Trump notes that after his warning of secondary tariffs against any nation who imports oil from Venezuela, Chinese ships pulled up anchor and left Venezuelan ports empty. Additionally, regarding Zelenskyy, President Trump notes the Ukraine President is going to face “a lot of trouble” if he backs out of the previously agreed minerals deal.
This is one of the examples of narrative engineering that is simply infuriating. NBC has driven dozens of articles, pundit claims and discussion segments from their “transcription” of a recorded phone interview with President Trump. However, no actual audio of the interview is presented.
President Trump weaves through interviews in his answers, providing context, tone, inflection and detail for each point of a conversation he is answering. It is the context that surrounds the “quote” that becomes important when understanding what the president says.
In this segment on NBC Meet the Press, and the follow ups that appear on NBC Nightly News, notice how they do not provide the actual recorded interview, only the quotes, which Kirsten Welker then interprets for the audience. This narrative engineering is the worst form of information manipulation. WATCH:
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