POTUS direct confrontation is not reserved for domestic political enemies, it also applies to external nations threatening the U.S.  However, notice with each example there is an almost identical pattern: ♦An honest attempt at an open handed diplomacy; ♦a rebuke from the opposition in favor of the status quo; ♦a sincere appeal to reconsider; ♦time for reflection, contemplation and planning; ♦a final request not to engage in combat (today); ♦and then the hammer.
The sequence is always the same.

“foolish past leaders” … “We will no longer allow”..

China, the Big Panda, chose the Red Dragon approach and is positioned to feel the big hurt if they don’t take action…

(more…)

Speaker of The House Paul Ryan was interviewed by Maria Bartiromo on the current framework for the proposed Tax Reform legislation currently under construction in congressional committees.
Many of Ryan’s responses range the gambit from willful blindness (ex. how to fill the budgetary hole created by expanding medicaid; can’t see how to achieve 3% GDP growth, etc.) to outright opaque misinformation, claims congress decided to eliminate B.A.T. (they didn’t, Trump, Mnuchin, Ross did), on revenue.
It is always important to remember that Ryan’s points of advocacy all stem from the Wall Street’s lobbying complex on K-Street.  The epicenter of those interests is the crony capitalistic U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Tom Donohue).   Watch:

.
CTH remains cautiously optimistic that Trump, Mnuchin, Cohn and Ross can defeat Ryan Inc on the larger tax reform issues.  However, CTH is not naive to the scope of the UniParty confrontation that will stem as an outcome.  You can hear it within Ryan’s words.
America voted for Trump’s agenda, not Ryan’s Corporate “Better Way” bulls**t !!
(more…)

Arriving at Joint Base Andrews President Trump gives brief remarks on the firing of Reince Priebus and the replacement with John Kelly as Chief-of-Staff.

(more…)

The U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the value of all goods and services generated within the U.S. economy over a designated period of time. In the second quarter (April, May, June) the GDP grew at a rate of 2.6%. That’s more than double the first quarters 1.2% growth rate.

President Trump set a goal of 3% GDP growth for the first year of his administration. Reaching 2.6% in the second quarter is significant progress toward the attainment of a goal all economists said was unattainable. Those same nay-sayers are also focused on wage rate growth which they claim is not moving with the economy. They are disconnected.
Again, CTH draws attention to the new modern era in economics. Most analysts and punditry have no historic reference points for a new dimension in U.S. economics; where 30 years of fiscal policy to the benefit of Wall Street has how shifted to the benefit of Main Street. We are now in the space between these two economic engines. Traditional economic review no longer applies.
(more…)

Interestingly at the same time as a massive natural gas investment by Petronas collapses in Canada due to energy policy and economic conditions surrounding weak LNG prices, the U.S. Energy Information Administration highlights that U.S. coal exports are roaring back.  Yes, elections have real economic consequences.
U.S. EIA data shows a gain of 60.3% so far this year in exports of both steam coal (used to generate electricity) and coking coal (metallurgical coal used for steel manufacturing) as a direct consequence of President Trump’s common sense energy policy.

Interestingly, the largest destinations for the growth in American coal export are the U.K. (+175%) and a doubling of tonnage to both France (+100%), and Asia (+100%).  High transport costs to ship coal to the EU are being offset by U.S. coal manufacturing efficiencies and improvements in mining productivity.
Additionally, while the actual end user for coal shipments to the EU are difficult to track, it is reasonably anticipated that some European countries are preparing to offset their reliance on Russian energy with storage of steam coal for next winters high demand season.
(more…)

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.
(more…)

David Mamet famously said (paraphrased): ‘when questioned on policy and consequence, in order to avoid the conflict within their ideological message, modern liberals will always pretend not to know things.’
In today’s audio/visual example we find top national democrat leadership pretending not to know their rebranding message, “A Better Deal“, is nothing short of an almost identical policy platform created by the current President, Donald Trump. A policy platform they are committed to blocking.
You just can’t make this stuff up folks.

“We Haz Plans“

Seriously, it took months of carefully poll tested review of each specific point to create the agenda that Democrats hope will help them win election in 2018. However, if you look at the substance of their “Better Deal” proposals a person cannot help but find themselves feeling deja vu, all over again.
The platform includes: •a $15 minimum wage (economically inadvisable and already having devastating consequences in local areas of enactment), •a $1 trillion infrastructure plan (hey, isn’t that Trump’s idea?), •new trade laws more beneficial to American workers (wait, what, yup, Trump again?), •and a plan to engage in job training and national apprenticeship initiatives (yup, more Trump). Heck, if they throw in a modern Glass-Stegall they can just call it “Trump’s Better Deal 2.0”, or something.
What makes the entire exercise intensely ludicrous is the amount of energy, effort and execution they put into the roll-out:
(more…)

The U.S. building industry is a manufacturing sector made up of individual smaller material sectors.  Steel rebar is one such sub-sector.
WILBUR ROSS – U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross today announced the affirmative final determination in this antidumping duty (AD) investigation, finding that steel concrete reinforcing bar from Taiwan is being sold in the U.S. market at unfair prices.
The Commerce Department determined that exporters from Taiwan have sold steel concrete reinforcing bar in the United States at 3.50 percent to 32.01 percent at less than fair value based on factual evidence provided by the interested parties.
The Commerce Department will instruct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to collect cash deposits from importers of steel concrete reinforcing bar from Taiwan based on these final rates.
“The United States can no longer sit back and watch as its essential industries like steel are destroyed by foreign companies unfairly selling their products in the U.S. markets,” said Secretary Ross. “We will continue to take action on behalf of U.S. industry to defend American businesses, their workers, and our communities adversely impacted by unfair imports.”
(more…)

If you alert your family not to schedule anything important on round-one NAFTA days, well, you might just be a trade and economics nerd.  LOL  Seriously, this is one of the biggest economic processes that falls almost exclusively outside of the reach of lobbyists.
And within this entire NAFTA trade construct there is little to zero downside to walking away. If Team Trump don’t get what they want from a completely reworked trilateral agreement, they can always just eliminate NAFTA and work on bilateral agreements with Mexico and Canada as individual trade partners. Team USA hold all the leverage.  

USTR is anticipating seven rounds of talks which will take place at three week intervals.
The first round is scheduled for August 16th through 20th in Washington DC.

Washington, D.C. – United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer today announced arrangements for the first round of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The first round of the negotiations between the United States, Canada and Mexico will take place in Washington, D.C. from August 16 – 20, 2017.
The negotiations immediately follows the 90-day consultation period with Congress and the public initiated on May 18, 2017. On that day, Ambassador Lighthizer notified Congress of President Trump’s intent to renegotiate NAFTA to get a better deal for America’s workers, farmers, businesses and manufacturers.

(more…)

Those who have followed the MAGAnomic trade and economic policy closely were aware a tonal shift had taken place in the last several weeks.
Specifically because of their weak position, and faced with the first U.S. President in their modern economic history who intends to stop the erosion of American wealth, China intentionally used North Korean aggression in order to create trade leverage with the U.S.
Today, at the U.S./China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue in Washington DC Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross left no room to doubt the approach President Trump and the U.S. trade team are going to take in the upcoming trade standoff.
At opening remarks between the two sides, Ross outlined the U.S. trade gap with China in unusually blunt terms. While U.S. exports to China have grown in recent years, imports have expanded even faster, leading to a $309 billion trade deficit.

“If this were just the natural product of free-market forces, we could understand it, but it’s not,” Ross said, as Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang looked on. “So it’s time to rebalance in our trade and investment relationship in a more fair, equitable and reciprocal manner.”  (video below)

(more…)