Maria Bartiromo interviews Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to discuss Gary Cohn’s departure from President Trump’s National Economic Council (NEC).  {Deep Dive Here}  Secretary Mnuchin talks about the larger MAGAnomic objectives, and the transition of the administration into ‘policy phase-2’ with all attention now focused on Main Street.

Great Interview:

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♦Economic Patriotism – ‘America First’:
√ Unleash energy development. Drive down energy costs. Lower cost-of-living.
√ Eliminate regulatory stranglehold. Unleash free market entrepreneurial expansion.
√ Lower corporate tax burden. Position business investment ‘best bet’ domestically.
√ Generate investment expansion. Create: jobs, jobs, jobs.
√ Generate higher labor demand. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs = Higher wages, wages, wages.
√ Lower middle-class tax burden. Combine higher wages with lower taxes. 2x benefits.
==> WE ARE HERE <==
• Structure trade deals to benefit workers/companies inside the U.S.
• Leverage access to U.S. market as incitement for domestic investment.
• Economic Growth + Domestic Manufacturing Expansion =  GDP increases.
• Increased overall tax revenues from expanding economy stabilizes debt and entitlements.

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Very cautious optimism because Red Dragon has history of using the Panda Mask to cloud intents as a strategy.   North Korea is a proxy state to their enabler, China.  DPRK Kim Jong-un is little stompy-feet panda to the big panda/red dragon, Chairman Xi Jinping.

The one constant in an ever-changing universe is the gravity of China; it only goes one-way.  China allows and directs what is in China’s best interests.  Period.

Chinese Chairman-for-life Xi Jinping (all he represents) view smiling panda economics as modern intercontinental nuclear weapons.

Chairman Xi and President Trump have been deep inside a geopolitical smiling contest for over a year.  Xi and Trump are playing grandmaster level geopolitical economics.  Their most consequential moves are well beyond the horizon; far away from the gaze of the crowd; the media is oblivious to them.

•Japan (Shinzo Abe) has stated they have “great confidence” in President Trump’s Asian national security approach. •South Korea (President Moon Jae-in) stated they are “confident there will not be war again on the Korean peninsula“; •and they are willing to send a special envoy to North Korea to begin talks. •In addition, China quietly removed the 71-year-old veteran diplomat, Wu Dawei, from the position of negotiator toward the DPRK, and replaced him with 58-year-old Kong Xuanyou. Kong is a long time Chinese diplomat in charge of Asian affairs and he speaks Korean.

All of this was generally under-reported and took place months before President Trump arrived in Asia last year.  The U.S. media was busy pushing racism and Charlottesville narratives.  More importantly this quiet activity took place while President Trump directed US Trade Rep Robert Lighthizer to begin a section 301 trade investigation (Intellectual Property theft) into China.

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Dear Ambassador Lighthizer, love ya’ but enough already.  After eight months, and seven rounds of negotiations, only six trade chapter agreements -out of 30- have been closed.  It’s an election year in Mexico (July), Canada and the U.S. (November).

Time to cut bait; call the baby ugly; end the nonsense; stop the backslapping; put everyone out of their diplomatic misery, and finally make a formal NAFTA exit announcement in Washington DC.

Today, round #7 ends in Mexico City with no progress. Surprise fail.   Here’s the trilateral presser (sorry, poor audio):

Other than the progressive Canadian ‘princess rainbow-sparkles’ stomping her feet and promising targeted political trade retaliation for U.S. Steel and Aluminum tariffs, there’s nothing newsworthy within the entire public conference.   Below is a transcript of Ambassador Lighthizer’s full remarks as delivered.

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We are nearing the timeline apex for release of the decision/announcement on a U.S. NAFTA exit. Trade adviser Peter Navarro appears on Fox Business to discuss the pending Steel and Aluminum tariff while President Trump tweets concerns about NAFTA renegotiation; which enters Round #7 this week.

The steel tariffs are targeted toward national economic security; the Wall Street financial class are apoplectic because a firm administration stance on Steel and Aluminum tariffs indicates the larger trade perspective on all bilateral trade deals.

New Twitter Thread on the NAFTA Fatal Flaw – HERE

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Ya know, it’s increasingly funny to watch the Wall Street crowd going bananas simply because POTUS Trump does exactly what POTUS Trump said he was going to do.  I mean it’s not like the administration has been hiding the trade policy plans and objectives for the past year; yet, the financial class acts shocked, SHOCKED, when it actually happens.

Cue the audio visual demonstration….. Was anyone paying attention in January at the Davos World Economic Forum when Commerce Secretary Ross said exactly what the administration was going to do in the coming months?  ….Apparently not.

Against the backdrop of current financial and corporate media running around like blindfolded zombies with forks in their eyes – hysterically bumping into walls, it might be worthwhile to revisit Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s purposeful remarks at Davos:

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Twitter Thread HERE to Expand Full Dynamic

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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appears on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to talk trade and tariffs amid the apoplectic drum-beating from the Wall Street crowd and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Secretary Ross explains the use of Trade Section 232 for national security. The U.S. capability to produce steel and aluminum is a vital interest to national security. The World Trade Organization (WTO), a collective enterprise of multinational corporations, is angered by the use of section 232 because it works around their ability to file complaints.

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The essential point to drive home is that for the past 30+ years U.S. trade policy has been driven by Wall Street and financial corporate benefactors to the detriment of the U.S. middle class and a manufacturing economy.  It is not necessary to argue the outcome, we can all clearly see it.  The Trump objective is to restore a balanced U.S. economy, stop the exploitative export of American wealth, and stabilize our own middle-class.

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Boy howdy, you can judge how close you are to the treasury center of the swamp by the scale of the defenses surrounding the policy.   As we have continued to explain, it’s always about the money.  All aversion to President Trump is about the economic interests of people who have established their affluence and influence from 30+ years of exploitation.

Chris Wallace is the media guardian of corporate Wall Street, the GOPe, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the financial controlling interests at the intersection of Wall Street and corporate media.  In this interview with President Trump’s Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, Peter Navarro, Wallace goes bananas to protect those interests.

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The exploitation of the U.S. economic market through export of American wealth is a UniParty policy. Almost all Republicans and almost all Democrats are aligned in common cause to do the bidding of their corporate benefactors on trade, finance and economic policy. There are trillions at stake, and President Trump is an existential threat to their decades-long constructs.

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I think we’ve figured out why President Trump is doing the Steel and Aluminum tariffs ahead of the NAFTA withdrawal.  Perhaps, the wolverine administration is using Steel and Aluminum to draw attention to the NAFTA fatal flaw.

Earlier today Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland stated:

“Should restrictions be imposed on Canadian steel and aluminum products, Canada will take responsive measures to defend its trade interests and workers,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement, calling any trade restrictions“absolutely unacceptable.”  (link)

The key word in that statement from Freeland is “products”. Why? because Canada doesn’t make more than a boutique amount of raw Steel.  (Top 40 List)  The Canadians, like the Mexicans, import the vast majority of their raw steel from China.  Canada then fabricates products from the Chinese steel.  This nuanced point is almost always lost on people who discuss trade.  This point of origination is also the fatal flaw within NAFTA.

In essence Canada is a brokerage for Chinese manufactured material, and NAFTA is the access trade-door exploited by China for entry into the U.S. market.  More on that in a moment.  First watch Justin from Canada explain his country’s position. (prompted, just hit play):

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For those who follow closely the strongest argument against the U.S. trade and economic policies of the past 30 years has been the outcome. We don’t need to guess what the pro’s and con’s of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce position is, we are living them. We don’t need to guess what the Wall Street economy delivers, we are living through them.

For the past 30 years the U.S. has lost jobs, wages have been depressed, and the middle-class has suffered through the implementation of economic trade policy that destroyed the U.S. manufacturing base. None of this is in question – the results stare us in the face – yet the Wall Street and multinational corporate club(s) [U.S. CoC chief among them] now demand a continuance of the same.

The economic and trade policies of the Trump administration are adverse to those interests. As we have shared for several years, candidate Trump, now President Trump is an existential threat to the multinational program.

All opposition to President Trump is about the underlying financial and economic policy of America-First. There are trillions at stake.

Those who have read here will note the media are generally oblivious to America-First economic policies; this includes the financial media.

As an example today they are trying to figure out how Steel/Aluminum tariffs would work. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross stated clearly exactly how the Steel and Aluminum policy would be carried out; yet for the financial media they claim to be clueless. The level of intellectual dishonesty is off-the-charts.

The truth is, well, two points: •Point #1 – the media don’t want to know; they are committed to selling the prior policy. •Point #2 – there’s almost no-one within the professional economic punditry class who have ever given thought to what happens during the space between two fundamentally different economic policies as executed.

What happens in the space between taking the U.S. economy off the path of ‘service-driven-globalism’, and reasserting the economy back to a balanced ‘production-based national economy’? None of the key participants within the larger discussion have ever contemplated this dynamic.

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As U.S. Trade Officials meet with auto executives surrounding ongoing NAFTA sector negotiations, U.S.T.R. Ambassador Robert Lighthizer appears on Fox News to discuss ongoing trade initiatives with Laura Ingraham.

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It’s challenging to discuss the basic ‘fatal flaw’ within a modern NAFTA in a short discussion segment; however, Ambassador Lighthizer, Secretary Ross and the newly positioned Peter Navarro have a strong position for withdrawal.

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