Taking a very significant step to be in alignment with President Trump’s North American trade bloc construct, Mexico has passed a sweeping set of tariffs against Chinese imports.

The motive for the move by President Claudia Sheinbaum and her political party, Morena, which controls both legislative chambers is clear.  Mexico is moving into direct alignment with President Trump as the likelihood for the end of the current USMCA trade agreement looms.

President Trump has sent clear signals expressing his intent to dissolve the USMCA trade agreement in favor of two bilateral agreements, one with Mexico and one with Canada.

The Mexican government led by Sheinbaum have made moves throughout the year to stay in alignment with a favorable trade agreement, while the Canadian government led by Mark Carney has been more antagonistic toward any change.

The Mexican trade leadership seem to have long expected the change to the USMCA, and now there are indications Canada realizes what is about to happen, albeit reluctantly.

As a consequence of their proactive position, Mexico has now passed up to 50% tariffs against a host of imports, mostly textiles, shoes, appliances, cars and automobile parts.  The tariffs will apply to any imports that are not part of a previously organized free trade agreement, which has the practical outcome of hitting mostly imports from China. That approach aligns directly with the tariff rate applied by President Trump toward Beijing.

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The premise of this interlocutory exchange is beyond bizarre when you think about it.

President Trump’s negotiation team worked with Ukraine officials and Russian officials to establish the parameters for a ceasefire proposal. Representatives from the U.S, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, working as moderators for a cessation of hostilities, held multiple meetings with high level Ukraine and Russian officials, including Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

As a consequence, President Trump’s team (Rubio, Witkoff and Kushner) have spent hundreds of hours, including nine entire days over the last two weeks, in detailed face-to-face discussions with Ukraine officials.

Zelenskyy then goes to Paris, London, Brussels and Rome, to consult with European leaders, and then has the audacity to say he will present a counterproposal from the Europeans to President Trump.

PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY – “Today, we already discussed with our negotiating team the results of yesterday’s work in London, which was conducted at the level of the National Security Advisors of our European partners. This was agreed upon yesterday at the leadersʼ level.

We are working very actively on all components of potential steps toward ending the war. The Ukrainian and European components are now more developed, and we are ready to present them to our partners in the U.S. Together with the American side, we expect to swiftly make the potential steps as doable as possible.

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Returning to Washington DC from Pennsylvania, President Trump delivered some brief impromptu remarks to the traveling press pool.

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Against an organized effort by leftists and media allies to blame President Trump for the ¹affordability crisis, President Donald Trump delivers remarks on the economy and his policies to reverse the Biden price problem.  WATCH:

Joe Biden economic, monetary and energy policies created two years of massive inflation.  That inflation skyrocketed the cost for goods and services.  Those high prices were then handed to the entering Trump administration, under the narrative of the “affordability crisis.”

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President Trump sat down for an extensive interview with Dasha Burns of Politico.  Despite the ideological outlook of Politico, the interview itself was remarkably absent of combative antagonism. The result is a good review of the current positions of President Trump as they relate to the rest of the world.

The Ukraine-Russia conflict is the immediate issue that is discussed within the interview.  President Trump answers some direct questions about who is currently most responsible for continuing the conflict and is asked his opinion directly on Ukraine not holding elections.

President Trump notes Russian President Vladimir Putin is in the strongest position within the conflict and carries the strongest leverage into any ceasefire negotiations.  Trump also frames the need for the bloodshed to end with a much greater sense of urgency than any of the EU leaders or Zelenskyy.  Additionally sharing the opinion that Ukraine needs to have an election to showcase the will of the Ukrainian people in the leadership of Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  WATCH:

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Yesterday, Ukraine President Volodymr Zelenskyy traveled to London to meet with British PM Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron.

As expected, part of the Zelenskyy meeting with the “coalition of the willing” included a briefing by Ukraine negotiator Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, who held detailed consultations for three days last week in Miami with Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

President Zelenskyy then departed London traveling with his media entourage to Brussels for the next round of discussions with the European Union stakeholders, financiers and politicians. During the trip Zelenskyy told his media stenographers, “Under our laws, under international law — and under moral law — we have no right to give anything away. That is what we are fighting for.”

The U.K, France and Germany support Zelenskyy’s position that he is not going to concede any territory to the Russian Federation, specifically the 30% of the Donbas area in Eastern Ukraine currently at the heart of the physical conflict.

The 30% issue surrounds the Donetsk region in Ukraine, which includes the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Russia is currently pushing deep into fortified Ukraine resistance in this region with a population of around 100,000. Zelenskyy claims losing this area would allow Putin to invade the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions.

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President Trump holds a roundtable discussion with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and various farm state senators as he outlines $12 billion in support and subsidy for American farmers.

With energy prices lowered, the costs for natural gas, fertilizer, diesel and gasoline prices have fallen; however, food costs have remained high.  President Trump announced with Brooke Rollins an initiative to help support American farmers with the intended objective to lower production costs from the field that will hopefully transfer to the fork.

Secretary Rollins and President Trump announce a $12 billion bridge subsidy to assist farmers with proactive planning for the 2026 planting season.  The money is coming from revenue generated by tariffs, and row crop farming will be the first subsidies delivered.  WATCH (media questions begin at 31:40):

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The House Armed Services Committee has released the full text of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2026 [SEE TEXT HERE]. The massive bill consists of 3,086 pages, making the fiscal year 2026 NDAA longer than the manuscript of War and Peace. Most people will never read it, so a 24-page Summary Version is Here.

The FY 2026 NDAA authorizes $892.6B for defense, which includes $153B for procurement, $142B for Research and Development, and $235B for military personnel. The legislation: Codifies 15 Trump EOs on military reform, border security, and DEI elimination. Boosts shipbuilding, aircraft, munitions, funds Taiwan aid and Israel programs, reforms acquisitions, enhances border support including $900M for counter-narcotic operations and includes a 3.8% pay raise and quality-of-life improvements.

There is a $400 million authorization for Ukraine support, however, the amount is ‘authorized’ not ‘appropriated’ – which would have to come in a separate spending bill.

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Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent appears on CBS’s Face the Nation for an inflation and affordability debate with narrative engineer Margaret Brennan.

The primary narrative can be seen in Brennan’s emphasis of the new democrat catch phrase “affordability.”  Having gaslit the American electorate over the issues of Joe Biden’s economic/energy policy which created record inflation, the same media who ran cover for Joe Biden have switched during the Trump administration to calling the subsequent high costs an “affordability” crisis.

In essence, Biden’s economic, energy and monetary policies drove 2021/2022 inflation to record levels, this made all prices rise massively.  Those high prices are now the “affordability problem.”  WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning and welcome to ‘Face The Nation.’ We have a lot of news to get to, and we begin with the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent. Good to have you here.

TREASURY SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Morning, Margaret.

SEC. BESSENT: Mr. Secretary, a lot of people are out there holiday shopping. Here is how the President described back in April, what to expect from this season.

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President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump attend the Kennedy Center Honors.  During the arrival ceremony President Trump answered questions on the red carpet from the assembled press pool.

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Sylvester Stallone is one of the honorees and gave some strong remarks about his relationship to President Trump. Below:

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