White House senior policy advisor for Manufacturing and Trade, Peter Navarro, appears on CNBC television for an almost 20-minute long debate of Wall Street vs Main Street.
Navarro represents MAGAnomic nationalism, the rest of the CNBC panel represent the interests of Wall Street and their friends and neighbors who manage hedge funds and connected financial instruments. Navarro held his own. WATCH:
President Trump smartly remained quiet after delivering the economic thunder-shock with his national security tariffs and new global trade expectations. Now President Trump takes questions from the media about the initial reactions to the seismic event he created.
“China needs to solve the problem of the trade deficit with have with them,” is codespeak for China needs to open their markets to U.S. companies that have already established a footprint, AND China needs to purchase U.S. goods. Despite the size of China, President Trump knows Beijing will never comply in earnest, so he gives the Panda a few words, but doesn’t give it too much time until the Dragon comes out from behind the mask.
President Trump notes he has “spoken to a lot of leaders from Europe and Asia” this weekend. However, now is that powerful moment in any negotiation when the principal has clearly outlined his position, then remain silent as the opposition responds. The “tariffs are instituted, they are not going away,” Trump said.
When questioned about having a “threshold” of “pain he is willing to tolerate,” President Trump notes the “question is stupid.” We are responding to opposition who are playing a zero-sum game, there is no level of pain too intolerable when ultimately your survival as a nation is at stake. Either we do, and win – or, we do not and die, that is our current status.
When questioned about having a zero-tariff agreement with Europe, President Trump references the scale of the imbalance. “There’s no talk possible” with the EU unless they acquiesce. Every country wants to make a deal, but “this is not sustainable” President Trump repeats.
When questioned about Tik Tok, President Trump notes there was a likely deal with China, but then Beijing responded to the tariffs and said the deal around the social media platform ownership was no longer possible. Trump doesn’t care, he wants a TikTok deal; but ultimately, the tariffs are more important.
President Trump then weaves through the Russia conflict, bombs are still bad, and the Middle east conflict, Gaza is still full of terrorists, and moves directly into domestic national security.
President Trump then reaffirms he has not agreed to reduce, soften or smooth any tariffs against any nation. The tariffs are in place, they will remain in place, and the global trade reset will continue until America wins. Period.
The remarks were ‘Full force Big Ugly‘ and the winnamins were flying off the shelves for 15 straight minutes. I could not be more proud of our president.
White House Senior Advisor for Trade and Manufacturing Peter Navarro discusses the trade reset and tariff impact as it works through the process.
As visible and stated by the Trump team, the broad-based tariff approach was designed to save time and create the environment where foreign countries, including those with bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) would come to President Trump in an effort to retain their interests. From there, new trade agreements would be structured.
Navarro rightly notes that both tariff and non-tariff barriers are designed to create a structural trade imbalance in their favor. The trade reset strategy is designed to confront these issues. Navarro also notes how Vietnam operates as case-study in the use of non-tariff barriers and simultaneously operates as a transnational shipping point for Chinese products. WATCH:
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on NBC to discuss the current MAGAnomic tariff program and global trade reset. Bessent outlines how the history of President Trump’s tariff approach toward China (’17-’19) did not result in higher consumer prices for goods from China.
Secretary Bessent, like the rest of the MAGAnomic team, cuts through the talking points with direct evidence and analysis that destroys the preferred media narrative. Video and Transcript Below:
[Transcript] – KRISTEN WELKER: And joining me now is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Secretary Bessent, welcome back to Meet the Press.
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Kristen, good to see you.
KRISTEN WELKER: It’s great to have you back after a very big week. Let’s start with the market reaction to President Trump’s announcement of his tariffs. As I just laid out at the top of the program, the markets lost more than $6 trillion in value. Was this disruption always part of the plan, Mr. Secretary?
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–
Rick Santelli has been known to call the baby ugly when needed. During an epic panel discussion around the motives and intentions of President Trump’s trade reset, Santelli gets passionate when describing the valid reasons for Trump’s tariffs.
The CNBC panel, mainly Steve Liesman, tries to downplay decades of the working-class being diminished by economic panel, and Santelli was having none of it. Video prompted, WATCH:
White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller appears on Fox News to discuss the importance of the tariff policy and reestablishing American industry via the global trade reset.
Miller outlines the U.S market reaction to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and China’s 34% countervailing tariff response on U.S. products. As Miller notes, the tariff program is simply one part within the rebalancing of trade to protect American industry. WATCH (prompted):
On March 27th, CTH shared the following: “Wealthy nations will attempt to maintain exports against President Trump tariffs by subsidizing their industries. Corporations have deeper pockets, and the politicians are used to the bribes, we call it “lobbying.” Therefore, the government responds by subsidizing the corporations [ie. the WEF business model].
How does the politics of opposition surface? …”Canada will subsidize their export industries, Germany will subsidize their auto industry, the EU will provide subsidies to their manufacturing powerhouses, and China will once again start subsidizing their manufacturing industry. Each of these nations will in turn, eventually, devalue their currency.
However, poorer nations will be faster to lower import tariffs on USA goods because they have lower lobbying (bribe) income from corporations to govt. That’s what we should expect to see.” [LINK]
With the tariffs now triggered, it begins exactly as anticipated:
The economics of the thing is now colliding with the politics and the ideology, of the thing. Globalists are being confronted. The proverbial West will cleave according to their financial self-interest.
The World Economic Forum (Build Back Better) model no longer views the USA as an ally. The MAGAnomic “Big Ugly” is underway. Countries will thrash and gnash their teeth; then surge in opposition, fail, then attempt to refoot and realign, then surge again and fail again.
Tucker Carlson interviews the fulcrum between Wall Street and Main Street in the MAGAnomic policy world, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Secretary Bessent notes the goal of the tariff plan, and the accompanying economic policy is to give the working middle-class a boost in wealth and simultaneous relief from bad policy that has exclusively benefited the investment class. WATCH:
Chapters:
0:00 Trump’s Tariff Plan
5:42 The Current State of the Stock Market
8:22 Will Americans See Substantial Tax Cuts Because of Tariffs?
13:16 How Much Money Will America Make Through Tariffs?
14:33 Bringing Manufacturing Back to the US
20:14 Tariff Pushback From Foreign Countries
During one of the 2016 Republican debates, the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Stassel challenged Donald Trump on the projected revenue from his proposed tax plan. In essence Stassel claimed some economists doubted the growth factor Mr. Trump projects in his tax proposal.
What was highlighted within the question was one of the larger hurdles Trump faced as he needs to re-educate an entire generation on a fundamentally new vision of the U.S. economy. A return to a goods-based manufacturing and industry driven economic model.
President Trump’s MAGAnomic trade and foreign policy agenda is jaw-dropping in scale, scope and consequence. There are multiple simultaneous aspects to each policy objective; they have been outlined for a long time.
Interestingly, many people have forgotten a 1991 (35 years old) video of Donald Trump testifying before congress – as evidence of him being tuned in to the economic consequences of political activity.
The entire video is well worth watching, because it gives us insight into a very specific moment in time as they discuss the ‘Reagan era’ 1986 tax reform act.
However, for the sake of this discussion post, I would like to draw your attention to a very specific exchange between Donald Trump and Representative Helen Delich Bently (R-MD).
