It must be weird for the ordinary person around the world to view U.S. politics through the prism of the American MSM lügenpresse.  We’re often left wondering if international observers realize how much deception and fraud exists in media broadcasts of President Trump.
However, that said, a few days ago CTH predicted via twitter that Friday would bring a “breaking news” revelation that President Trump’s administration had been in ongoing negotiations with North Korea.  Today, exactly that happened.

(Via ABC) Despite the bombastic rhetoric exchanged between North Korean and American leaders this week, the Trump administration has been quietly engaged in back-channel diplomacy with North Korea for several months, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.
The ongoing talks, which were first reported by The Associated Press, included discussions about U.S.-North Korean relations and Americans imprisoned in North Korea, the source said.

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Serial fibber Brian Williams leads his interview segment with a moment of honesty.  During his introduction to a panel segment he leads with the set-up: “tonight our job is to scare you”. WATCH:

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Seriously folks, CTH readers, MAGA supporters, and those who travel the deep weeds of politics and have followed Donald Trump can spot the strategy he is deploying.  The strategy is all about economics and leverage.  The media will NEVER discuss it, because they need to act willfully blind to it and use fear as a weapon.
The media is simply taking advantage of “fear” to position yet another anti-Trump narrative. However, all of their hyperbolic analysis of the North Korea situation takes on new understanding when idiots like Williams let it slip that their job is to “scare people to death on this subject.” He makes it clear their goal is to drive down the public’s trust in the President to handle this threat.
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Life is a weird circle at times. Pay close attention to this very familiar picture. If you were stunned to see previous “conservative” allies drop their masks on immigration when Trump announced his run for office, well, let’s just say we haven’t seen anything yet.

When it comes to North Korea and China – Over the course of the next three months we are all about to witness domestic and international leadership, who claimed to be allies of freedom and democracy, ‘out’ themselves as supporters for the tank ideology in this image.
Watch closely and you will see the international-left rise up in defense of totalitarianism.
Because in full measure of international economic freedom and liberty, well, U.S. President Trump is ‘Tank-Man’.
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Zogby Analytics is out with a new survey of 1,300 “Likely Voters” and shows President Trump’s approval numbers are climbing and now around 45%.  However, the interesting aspect of the survey is the groups showing the highest gains in approval.
It won’t surprise you to discover the strongest gains in support for President Trump can be found amid the middle-class and working population of the U.S.  Those who are benefiting the most from Trump’s America-First Main Street economic policy are the constituent group with the largest gains in support.
Highlights:

♦Trump’s approval numbers have moved up slightly, especially among his base and a few other sub-groups not known for their support of the president.

♦When it comes to party, President Trump’s numbers are steady among Republican likely voters; he has a 76% approval/22% disapproval rating among Republicans, which is almost identical from our July poll. Among Independents, Trumps numbers have improved nearly seven points to 40% approval/50% disapproval. The president’s numbers are still down among Independents from a few months ago.

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When candidate Donald Trump first proposed renegotiating NAFTA back in 2015 everyone was stunned. Fixing bad trade deals had never been proposed by any candidate. Candidate Trump also proposed a border wall.  Those two policy initiatives are entirely connected. Almost immediately the government of Mexico realized the potential impact and threatened to use illegal migration if NAFTA was reopened.
Well, Trump won the presidency.  The crony capitalists/lobbyists in DC (U.S. Chamber of Commerce – Tom Donohue) are freaking out. Congress was notified of the intent to renegotiate NAFTA.  Mexico and Canada were notified. Commerce Secretary Ross, U.S.T.R Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin are ready to begin next week (Wed).
President Trump and Secretary Ross have already announced they will try to renegotiate NAFTA on a trilateral basis (U.S., Canada and Mexico). However, if it doesn’t work, they’ll scrap the 3-way NAFTA and go one-on-one with individual bilateral agreements.

Today Mexico’s Economic Minister Ildefonso Guajardo threatens to flood the U.S. with South American illegal aliens, criminals and gang members as leverage to keep exploiting NAFTA.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico could pull back on cooperation in migration and security matters if the United States walks away from talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Mexican economy minister said in a newspaper report published on Thursday.

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The PPI is the Producer Price Index.  The CPI is the Consumer Price Index.  The PPI reflects the price product producers are getting for their goods and services.  The CPI reflects the price consumers are paying for their goods and services.  They generally run together as lower production prices usually mean lower consumer prices.
Here again today, the fed is perplexed.  With a growing economy, and with labor market tightening, the people who control the monetary policy have continued to anticipate inflation, rises in the PPI and CPI.  However, as we have outlined, it’s not happening.
It’s a little wonky, but basically prices are NOT going up.  The Fed is perplexed.  We predicted this:

[…] The Labor Department said its producer price index for final demand slipped 0.1 percent last month, weighed by decreasing costs for services. That was the largest decline since August 2016 and reversed June’s 0.1 percent gain.
In the 12 months through July, the PPI increased 1.9 percent after rising 2.0 percent in the year through June. Economists had forecast the PPI to tick up 0.1 percent last month and 2.2 percent from a year ago. (read more)

Neither the PPI nor the CPI measure changes in food or energy costs.  Those high consumption sectors have always been removed from Fed measures.
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Today Secretary of State Rex Tillerson highlighted events over the past six months.  T-Rex takes another stroll around the globe discussing regional policy, specific state policy, and ongoing challenges.  Secretary Tillerson then takes questions from the media at the conclusion of his remarks.
Very informative. Very well worth watching (T-Rex Begins at 03:40):

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[*Note* We’ll capture and share transcript as soon as possible.]
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Well, the headline attention on Venezuela’s collapsing democracy provides the tripwire trigger to go deeper into the South America crisis and how it is not rising up organically without geopolitical and ideological connection.  Always remember, in the battle for U.S. sovereignty, there are multiple facets connected to larger and more consequential issues.

Washington – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro Moros, pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13692, which authorizes sanctions against current or former officials of the Government of Venezuela and others undermining democracy in Venezuela. (more)

♦Venezuela’s democracy is collapsing. ♦Argentina and other South American nations have been engaged by the Trump administration for over six months. ♦President Trump signed pro-active executive orders. ♦Mexico’s economy and political apparatus is infected with corruption. ♦NAFTA is on the cusp of renegotiation. ♦Candidate, now President Trump, proposed a Southern security “Wall”. ♦Believe me, these things are not disconnected, and they are not NEW concerns.

To really absorb some of these geopolitical issues we must analyze specific 2014 events through the reality of prior, more consequential, events.  We must look into the way-back machine. To that end we have read the entirety of:
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Finally today we see a significant loss for the “Big Club”. Speaker Paul Ryan, the GOPe professional business class, Wall Street and the U.S. CoC accept the Border Adjustment Tax is not going to be a part of any larger tax reform agenda under the Trump administration.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and President Trump win the policy argument with the removal of the B.A.T.
In a joint statement outlining the forward plans for tax reform the “Big Six” tax negotiators (Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady), announce the consumer punishing BAT will not be included.

[…] “While we have debated the pro-growth benefits of border adjustability, we appreciate that there are many unknowns associated with it and have decided to set this policy aside in order to advance tax reform.” (more)

The B.A.T was to revenue collection on imported products and impact on consumers – what the Obamacare mandate was to revenue collection on healthcare and impact on consumers.
The B.A.T  was simply a scheme to embed the cost of renegotiated trade import tariffs, directly onto the consumer, isolated away from any responsibility on the corporation to reduce their own internal efficiencies as a method to keep the price down. It was a dubious and manipulative effort.
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Earlier today USTR Robert Lighthizer released President Trump’s NAFTA Objectives outline to congress and the American people.  The NAFTA renegotiations are scheduled to begin in August.
The bilateral trade negotiations with the EU (European Union), S.E.A.N. (Southeast Asian Nations), China, U.K. and all other nations will follow -individually- after the NAFTA process is complete.

It cannot be overstated how critical this is.  Please, please, understand.  There are trillions of dollars at stake.   All political opposition to President Donald Trump will increase in exponential severity as the dates of these renegotiated trade deals draws closer.  There are trillions of dollars at stake.   The entities outlined below will throw everything at the current administration in an effort to secure a better financial outcome for their interests.
Multinational Corporations, Wall Street interests and Multinational Financial stakeholders (mostly banks and foreign governments), have lobbied DC politicians for decades to create trade outcomes favorable to them.  It is, at its core, the financial and policy cancer that has distributed America’s physical and financial wealth globally. Additionally, multinational corporate media are part of this entire process and are stakeholders in the outcomes.
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