Margaret Brennan is very worried about the penguins of the Heard and McDonald Island being able fill their orders for EU heavy industrial equipment, against the backdrop of President Trump’s 10% tariffs.  Secretary Lutnick points out the issue of transnational shipping, as Brennan sits flummoxed.

That’s just one of the talking points from the ever-insufferable Margaret Brennan in this left-wing narrative engineering under the pretense of an interview.  WATCH:

[TRANSCRIPT] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Mr. Secretary, welcome to “Face the Nation.”

COMMERCE SECRETARY HOWARD LUTNICK: Great to be here.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We see about 60% of Americans have money in the stock market, which mean that retirees could be just as concerned as hedge fund managers this morning. Did you expect this level of shock in the financial markets?

SEC. LUTNICK: Well, you’ve got to realize this is a national security issue. I mean, we don’t make medicine in this country anymore. We don’t make ships. We don’t have enough steel and aluminum to fight a battle, right? All our semiconductors are made overseas. So every button we press when we try to start our car or even use our microwave, these are all semiconductors. They’re all made elsewhere. We’ve got to start to protect ourselves, and we’ve got to stop having all the countries of the world ripping us off. We have a $1.2 trillion trade deficit, and the rest of the world has a surplus with us. They’re earning our money. They’re taking our money, and Donald Trump has seen this, and he’s going to stop it. So it is going to be a big change. Of course, it’s going to be a big change, but the rest of the world has been ripping us off for all these many years. Donald Trump has seen it. He’s spoken about it–

(more…)

According to French media, quoting multiple corporate leaders and company directors throughout France [LINK], the leadership of France’s biggest companies told Macron to ‘get stuffed’ following the French president’s demand to divest their interests from America.

President Macron ordered 50 of the largest companies with positions in the USA to attend an emergency economic meeting at Elysée Palace. As reported by French media, “Some of us fell out of our chairs,” confided one of the 50 or so French business leaders invited.”

“We are not in an administered economy,” thunders the leader of an employers’ movement. And the CEO of a CAC 40 giant bluntly asserts: “I don’t give a damn about what Macron says. We have operations in the United States. There is no question of abandoning them just like that. We must respect our commitments to our employees, our customers and our shareholders. An opinion shared by a manager of a spirits producer: “It is out of the question to stop investing in the United States, especially in the current economic slump.” [link]

This type of reaction should not be surprising at it reflects the transparent disconnect between ideological government officials and generally pragmatic business leaders.  Macron can stomp his reactionary feet, but corporate leaders and company owners are focused on the purpose of their enterprise, profit.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

The de minimis loophole comes from back in the 1930s. The idea back then was, say you went on a vacation to Paris, you shouldn’t have to file customs paperwork or pay taxes if you decided to ship some little Eiffel Tower statues to your friends back home.

Congress in 2015 then raised the de minimis threshold from $200 to $800. However, the e-commerce world exploded, and Chinese companies began using the de minimis loophole to ship cheap goods (ex. Temu and Shein) into the USA direct to consumers without paying any customs duty.

Yesterday as part of the global trade reset and tariff structure, President Trump revoked authorization for Chinese goods to transfer to the USA using the de minimis rule. The de minimis exemption has been cancelled for all products coming out of China. The rule change only targets China and Chinese shippers. No one else.

[See Executive Order Here]

The minimum duty is $25, and the tariff rate is 30% for all products mailed from China into the USA that previously qualified under the de minimis rule.

Beyond tariffs or sector specific countervailing duties, the removal of China to use the $800 de minimis exemption will destroy their economy.  There is no way for manufacturers in China, marketed into the USA, to be able to survive if they are forced to collect and organize the requirements for U.S. custom and import duties. They will simply dissolve.

FACT SHEET – […] “Following the Secretary of Commerce’s notification that adequate systems are in place to collect tariff revenue, President Trump is ending duty-free de minimis treatment for covered goods from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Hong Kong starting May 2, 2025 at 12:01 a.m. EDT.

Imported goods sent through means other than the international postal network that are valued at or under $800 and that would otherwise qualify for the de minimis exemption will be subject to all applicable duties, which shall be paid in accordance with applicable entry and payment procedures.

(more…)

Here are the basic resources you need to dive into President Trump’s global trade and tariff reset.  Topline opinion at the end of the document summaries.

♦ 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]

(more…)

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

(more…)

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.”

.

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.

(more…)

Yesterday President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting: “Immediate Declassification of Materials Related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.” [ORDER TEXT HERE]

Within the XO President Trump informs the Attorney General (Pam Bondi) the Director of National Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard), and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (John Ratcliffe), “I have determined that all of the materials referenced in the Presidential Memorandum of January 19, 2021 (Declassification of Certain Materials Related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation), are no longer classified.”

However, there’s an important set of qualifiers.

“I have further determined that the material proposed for redaction by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a cover letter dated January 17, 2021, remains classified.

My decision to declassify the materials described above does not extend to materials that must be protected from disclosure pursuant to orders of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and does not require the disclosure of certain personally identifiable information or any other materials that must be protected from disclosure under applicable law.” (link)

Caution is warranted.  Yes, there may be a few new items, perhaps a few redactions removed on previously released items, but essentially this is likely be a rehash of assembled component parts we have already discussed at length.  In essence, this sounds like the Mar-a-Lago ten-inch binder content the FBI was previously trying to get back.

There is also a possibility the FISA Court has ordered some materials related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, sealed by the FISC.  President Trump does not extend his order to these materials.

There is a certain likelihood the CIA holds foreign intelligence equities that tangentially supports the origin of the Crossfire Hurricane targeting.  We already know officials and intelligence operations from the U.K, Australia, Italy and Israel were involved in the 2016 operation against Trump.  President Trump does not extend his order to these materials, because the equity ownership of the classified material rests in the foreign intelligence services.

(more…)

President Trump has given remarks supporting National Security Advisor Mike Waltz during an interview with NBC.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump stood by his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, after The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was accidentally added to a private, high-level chat on the messaging app Signal where military plans were being discussed.

“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump said Tuesday in a phone interview with NBC News.

When asked what he was told about how Goldberg came to be added to the Signal chat, Trump said, “It was one of Michael’s people on the phone. A staffer had his number on there.”

Trump said Goldberg’s presence in the chat had “no impact at all” on the military operation.

The president expressed confidence in his team, saying he was not frustrated by the events leading up to The Atlantic’s story. The situation, Trump said, was “the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one.” (more)

The rest of the DC setup is transparently clear.  (1) Goldberg held the story until the day before a long-scheduled Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. (2) The SSCI then used the hearing to blast the heads of the Trump administration intelligence silos on the issue of “classified” information in the text messages.

(more…)

Judge James Boasberg issues a three-page order [SEE HERE] demanding the Trump administration deliver cabinet level details about their criminal alien deportation operation.

Boasberg claims the information provided to him so far is “woefully inadequate,” and lacks the citations of what cabinet-level officials were involved in deporting criminal illegal aliens and Tren de Aragua gang members protected by a leftist immigration organization employing Judge Boasberg’s daughter.

Judge Boasberg appears to be focused on generating a contempt order against the Trump administration.  Presumably, this would give Boasberg’s allied Democrats in congress a foothold for their needed 2018 election effort and another impeachment attempt.

(more…)