President Trump and the trade team have made specific requests of Vietnam in order to negotiate a trade agreement.  Unfortunately, just like Canada, Vietnam’s problem is not an unwillingness to comply, it’s their inability.

CTH was in the manufacturing base of Vietnam in January; their factories are loaded with component parts from China used to produce finished goods sent to the USA (and globally).  President Trump is telling Vietnam they need to reduce their reliance on Chinese imported component goods, but China has spent billions in advanced positioning and contracts, influencing Vietnam.

Vietnam is a very poor country, and their population cannot afford to purchase the products they manufacture.  They do not have a domestic consumption base. They are reliant on exports to more wealthy nations to keep their manufacturing base afloat.  Practically, it is easy to have sympathy for Vietnam due to their economic dependence on both China (for imported raw materials) and the USA (for exported finished goods).

VIETNAM – The US has sent a “long” list of “tough” requests to Vietnam in its tariff negotiations, including demands that could force the country to cut its reliance on Chinese industrial goods imports, two people briefed about the matter told Reuters.

Washington wants Vietnam-based factories to reduce their use of materials and components from China and is asking the country to control more carefully its production and supply chains, one of the people briefed on the talks said, without elaborating on whether quantitative targets were included.

The list is part of an “annex” to a framework text prepared by US negotiators, according to four people familiar with the matter.

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A few datapoints to keep on a post-it note as things progress; starting with a rather significant new release that I think you will find interesting.

Approximately 12.3 million Mexicans live abroad, both legally and illegally, with 97% of them living and working in the United States, according to BBVA Research.  Last year Mexicans living abroad sent $64.75 billion back home in remittances, largely from Texas and California to states in central and western Mexico.

According to data just released, in April of this year remittances back to Mexico dropped 12.1%.  The Mexico central bank said April saw 8.1% fewer transactions than a year earlier, that’s down to 12.4 million transactions. For Mexico this could be a devastating trend.  [Sidenote: Remember, Trump is likely planning a complete overhaul of the USMCA later this year.]

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Remittances sent to Mexico slumped 12.1% in April compared to a year earlier, according to central bank data published on Monday, marking the steepest drop in over a decade as U.S. lawmakers mull a tax on such payments sent abroad.

The world’s second-largest recipient of remittances, Mexico receives these payments chiefly from migrants working in the neighboring United States. In April, Mexicans abroad sent fewer transactions and smaller payments, totaling $4.76 billion.

Analysts said the slump likely resulted from a broad crackdown on migration in the U.S. since President Donald Trump came to power in January, as authorities revoke some Biden-era protections and increase raids across the country.

The latest data marks the steepest year-on-year drop since September 2012, according to central bank data.

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Like I said last night, the Trump team followed their legal due diligence in several aspects of the tariff/trade deficit reset strategy, and it did not appear the New York trade court looked at any of the supportive material from the USTR and the Dept of Commerce.

Today, a full panel of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted a “stay” and paused the lower court ruling pending full appeal outcome and possible Supreme Court intervention.  [Ruling pdf Here]  The President Trump trade tariffs remain in place, and the ridiculous court-ordered refunding of previously collected tariffs is set aside.

[Source pdf]

The court is suspending the lower court decision until the appeals motions are filed and reviewed.  The multinational corporations have until June 5th to file their responses to the appeal, and the Trump administration has until June 9th to file their full appeal brief.

VIA CNBC – A federal appeals court on Thursday granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily pause a lower court ruling that struck down most of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The Trump administration had earlier told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that it would seek “emergency relief” from the Supreme Court as soon as Friday if the tariff ruling was not quickly put on pause.

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I’m sorry, but when I finally got around to review the appearance of King Charles in the Canadian Parliament, I could not get past the optics on display.

My background thoughts are HERE, but boy howdy does this picture encapsulate the dynamic.

[VIDEO IS HERE]

And yes, King Charles waxed eloquently in both French and English about the terrible issue that Canadian sovereignty is facing.

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King Charles is arriving in Canada today in advance of an opening speech he will deliver to the Canadian Parliament.   Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney invited King Charles to attend, and while the media portray the visit as mostly symbolic there is no doubt the substantive issue for Canada is the economic dependency on the USA and how the U.K can bolster the position of Canada against that threat.

Everything is always about the money of the thing, this dynamic between the U.K and Canada is no different.  What we would call the ‘western’ global financial system is contingent upon all U.S. allies retaining the United States as their consumer base and stable currency center.  President Trump has exposed the vulnerability of Canada as he confronts the parasitic relationship {GO DEEP}.

In advance of the U.K positioning itself as the skirt behind which Canada can hide from the horrible Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer extended an invitation for President Trump to attend a state visit in his honor later this year.  The effusive praise from Starmer during the White House meeting was keenly strategic, so too was their urgency in creating the first new-era free trade agreement with the USA.

Perhaps President Trump’s embrace of Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia should be viewed through this financial prism where the EU, U.K and Canada will ultimately go to war (together) against the efforts of President Trump.  Within the partnership of the UK, EU and Canada, the Snow Mexicans are the weakest link, the most vulnerable to collapse from Trump’s economic policy.

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I have watched it so many times and each time I have to pause it to stop laughing.  When you consider everything in the lead up to this event, this really is the best press availability ever.

At 29:37 of the video below, President Trump is asked:

MEDIA: “Is there anything the Prime Minister can say to you today to change your mind on tariffing Canada?” … “Is there anything he can say to you, in the course of your meeting today, that could get you to lift tariffs on Canada?”

TRUMP: “No.”

MEDIA: “Why not?”

TRUMP: “Just the way it is.”

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The last five minutes are so funny, so brutally honest, so genuinely instructive of the baseline from which all of the future trade aspects will take place, that it just makes you laugh at the simplicity of the problem that Canada faces. “We don’t really want cars from Canada,” in reality we don’t want anything from Canada…  lolol.

“Look, this is all friendly.” Carney is just sitting there, like a doofus.

Best President Ever!

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I don’t want to say ‘I toldya so’, but….  Listen carefully to the answer to the first question at (05:00 minute mark) as President Trump responds to the question about the USMCA with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney next to him.  The USMCA is “effective, and it’s still effective, but people have to follow it,” inferring the issues of Canada as a tool to avoid China tariffs, President Trump said.

Then comes the part everyone will overlook as President Trump notes, “as you know it terminates fairly shortly. It gets renegotiated fairly shortly.” Then comes the biggest statement, “this was a transitional deal, and we’ll see what happens, we’re going to start renegotiating that”… “I don’t know if it serves a purpose anymore.”  …. “And the biggest purpose it served was, we got rid of NAFTA.”  This presents the future of the USMCA and specifically the U.S-Canada aspect to the trade deal exactly as we anticipated.

President Trump is going to exit the trilateral USMCA in favor of two distinctly different bilateral trade agreements between the U.S and Mexico; and the U.S and Canada.  The only consideration now is the timing.  President Trump is 100% focused on the BIG ECONOMIC PICTURE; it’s not about the politics, it’s all about the economics. [Also pay attention to USTR Jamieson Greer]  WATCH:

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Prime Minister Mark Carney knows what is coming. His response about stepping up their military spending to meet NATO obligations is part of that dynamic.

The 51st state remarks were all about getting Canada into a position where Trump is about to open up two distinctly different bilateral trade agreements.  The relationship that Canada has with China is a major risk to Carney’s position.  Canada doesn’t stand a chance.  In essence, at the end of this journey of economics North American trade is going to be entirely different.

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According to the people present, when former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet with President-elect Donald Trump, his primary objective was to inform President Trump his public demands for U.S. trade reciprocity with Canada were unachievable.

Trudeau was not lying.  In this outline we will explain a dynamic that is certain to surface this summer.

President Trump has deferred all North American trade negotiations with Canada and Mexico until later in the year, after the priority trade deals with other large trade partners are completed.  The USMCA trade pact is due for review and renegotiation this year [BACK STORY]. We should expect an entirely different trade pact as an outcome, quite possibly the ending of the trilateral nature of the current agreement.

A few days ago, Politico noted that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had a reprieve from his prior campaign points about confronting President Trump on tariffs immediately.  PM Carney is currently trying to align allies for what will likely be a major confrontation that he cannot win.

♦ BACKGROUND – Following the 2024 presidential election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau traveled to Mar-a-Lago and said if President Trump was to make the Canadian government face reciprocal tariffs, open the USMCA trade agreements to force reciprocity, and/or balance economic relations on non-tariff issues, then Canada would collapse upon itself economically and cease to exist.  In essence, in addition to the NATO defense shortfall, Canada cannot survive as a free and independent north American nation, without receiving all the one-way benefits from the U.S. economy.

To wit, President Trump then said, if Canada cannot survive in a balanced rules environment, including putting together their own military and defenses and meeting their NATO obligations, then Canada should become the 51st U.S state.  It was following this meeting that President Trump started emphasizing this point and shocking everyone in the process.  However, in the emotional reaction to Trump’s statements, no-one looked at the core issues outlined by Trudeau that framed President Trump’s opinion.

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After spending three months riding his bicycle in slow circles at the bottom of the White House driveway while staring in the windows, it was reported this morning that a frustrated Jeff Bezos would announce his Amazon company would start to label the tariff impact on all products sold by the company.

However, in the angered reaction to President Trump’s tariffs against the majority of his suppliers, what Jeff Bezos likely didn’t realize is the tariff label acts as a “Country of Origin Label” (COOL).

All of the products sold on Amazon that would have tariff cost labeling, are not made in the USA. All of the products without tariff labels would be made in the USA.

Given the nature of American preference toward higher quality products, the “Tariff Label” becomes a DeFacto blacklist. Purchase reviews would proceed accordingly.

WASHINGTON – [T]he e-commerce giant will soon show how much Trump’s tariffs are adding to the price of each product, according to a person familiar with the plan. The shopping site will display how much of an item’s cost is derived from tariffs – right next to the product’s total listed price. (source)

How Amazon could possibly calculate this ‘cost’ given the complex nature and changing dynamics of total cost of production, currency evaluations, subsidies, and countervailing duty offsets, was an unknown.  However, as would be predicted, shares of Amazon stock started to plummet, which led to Amazon quickly denying the report.

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Only President Trump could get the Canadians to vote for an exit to the USMCA, and he did it brilliantly.

To understand President Trump’s position on Canada, you have to go back to the 2016 election and President Trump’s position on the NAFTA renegotiation.  If you did not follow the subsequent USMCA process, this might be the ah-ha moment you need to understand Trump’s strategy.

During the 2016 election President Trump repeatedly said he wanted to renegotiate NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.  Both Canada and Mexico were reluctant to open the trade agreement to revision, but ultimately President Trump had the authority and support from an election victory to do exactly that.

In order to understand the issue, you must remember President Trump, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer each agreed the NAFTA agreement was fraught with problems and was best addressed by scrapping it and creating two seperate bilateral trade agreements. One between the USA and Mexico, and one between the USA and Canada.

In the decades that preceded the 2017 push to redo the trade pact, Canada had restructured their economy to: (1) align with progressive climate change; and (2) take advantage of the NAFTA loophole.  The Canadian government did not want to reengage in a new trade agreement.

Canada has deindustrialized much of their manufacturing base to support the ‘environmental’ aspirations of their progressive politicians.  Instead, Canada became an importer of component goods where companies then assembled those imports into finished products to enter the U.S. market without tariffs.  Working with Chinese manufacturing companies, Canada exploited the NAFTA loophole.

Justin Trudeau was strongly against renegotiating NAFTA, and stated he and Chrystia Freeland would not support reopening the trade agreement.  President Trump didn’t care about the position of Canada and was going forward.  Trudeau said he would not support it.  Trump focused on the first bilateral trade agreement with Mexico.

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