White House trade adviser Peter Navarro outlines some of the ongoing supply chain initiatives to meet ongoing demands of the corovirus effort. Navarro highlights the cooperation between US government and private enterprise. WATCH:
White House trade and manufacturing advisor Peter Navarro discusses the administration effort, a possible executive order, to shift U.S. dependency for critical health sector and pharmaceutical products back to domestic production. [Important Discussion]
Canada completes the North American cycle with their ratification of the USMCA to replace NAFTA. Mexico and the U.S. ratified the new trade agreement last year and January respectively. The Canadian parliament did so yesterday.
CANADA – Canada on Friday formally approved the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), taking the last legislative step to implementation of the deal to replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The trade deal, ratified by the Mexican legislature last June and by Congress in January, was formally ratified by the Canadian Senate Friday, and shortly thereafter received royal assent, the Canadian governor general’s approval.
The deal was passed through the legislature before Parliament shut down for five weeks in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The level of media opposition and snark against President Trump is simply so ridiculous at this point there’s a desperation to it. So let us consider…
From the outset of Donald Trump’s entry into the world of politics he espoused a series of key tenets around what he called his “America-First” objectives:
Donald Trump was alone on these issues. No-one else was raising them; no-one else was so urgently pushing that discussion. In 2015, 2016 and even 2017, no-one other than Trump was talking about how close we were to the dependence point of no return.
Given the status of very consequential issues stemming from the Chinese Coronavirus threat; and the myriad of serious issues with critical supply chain dependencies; wasn’t President Trump correct in his warnings and proposals?
In early 2017 President Trump and his administration coined the phrase: “economic security is national security”, and the economic team set about starting a very complex process to ensure the past three decades of trade policy was reversed.
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The White House provides some background material on the purposes of the working dinner tonight between President Trump and President Bolsonaro of Brazil.
[White House Transcript] – […] SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you so much. So let me put this working dinner, which is what it’s going to be tonight, in context. Obviously, President Trump will welcome President Jair Bolsonaro to Mar-a-Lago for a working dinner, along with a group of advisors in this dinner.
To put it in kind of a greater context, you know, last year, we welcomed — President Trump welcomed President Bolsonaro to the White House for a working lunch at that time. And there’s a historic list of deliverables that was announced at that time, many of which have now been followed up upon in this new historic relationship that the United States has with Brazil and the historic relationship, frankly, that President Trump and President Bolsonaro have.
Most people are aware the Wuhan coronavirus has become an economic contagion within China. However, the scale of the contraction is only now being quantified and the data doesn’t match the visible reality.
When evaluating the data showing drops in exports from China is worthwhile to consider the lack of visible supply-chain disruption formerly predicted by global economic “analysts”. According to Reuters; to the extent data can be gathered from within a closed communist system; total exports from China dropped 17.2% in January and February.
The lack of factory production has cut the estimated growth rate within China by half. However, is that a cause? – or – Is that a cover? For decades corporations have moved to a supply chain process known as Just-In-Time (JIT) inventory.
If Chinese component manufactured goods were part of a critical corporate supply chain, and with more than 30-days of source disruption quantified, there would be impacts by now. Where are the crippled customers? There are no measurable, demonstrable, citations for missing component parts making downstream finished goods impossible. There are lots of anticipatory declarations, but no shortage has materialized.
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7:30pm – THE PRESIDENT participates in a working dinner with the President of the Federative Republic of Brazil
White House – President Donald J. Trump will meet President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, March 7, 2020. President Trump and President Bolsonaro will discuss opportunities to build a more prosperous, secure, and democratic world.
As leaders of the Hemisphere’s two largest economies, they will also discuss opportunities for restoring democracy in Venezuela, bringing peace to the Middle East, implementing pro-growth trade policies, and investing in infrastructure. The President will use this meeting as an opportunity to thank Brazil for its strong alliance with the United States. (link)
This afternoon National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow discusses the jobs report, coronavirus fears, the Federal Reserve, and the steps the Trump administration is taking to address the illness. Two background issues should be noted:
First, the Wall Street multinationals are starting to propose that the federal government should be considering ‘bailing them out’. The Coronavirus is hurting business operations overseas, and the corporations who left the U.S. to exploit overseas profits are now asking for a “bailout”. No way, no how, it should never be considered.
Secondly, there are politically manipulative localized regions, under the control of Democrats, that are cancelling public events under the auspices of Coronavirus containment. In many cases these control agents appear to be making efforts to disrupt localized economies; and create a wider, weaponized, economic impact. Watch which areas cancel which events and you will see a pattern of left-wing control of the area (ex. Miami-Dade FL, Austin TX, Chicago IL, Seattle WA, etc.)
The administration needs to be smart and wise to the underlying efforts. Shut up and listen to Trump; he’s got this. Here’s Kudlow:
Jumpin’ ju-ju bones. The Bureau of Labor Statistics highlights an excellent jobs report for February with 273,000 new jobs added; and an upward revision of 85,000 job gains in December and January. Total new jobs with revisions 358,000; that’s exceptional.
Main Street USA is very strong, exceptionally strong; and the fundamentals of the U.S. economy show balance and overall strength. Keep in mind, while all of this growth is happening the full impacts of the renegotiated trade deals have yet to kick in.
Highlighting the strength in the overall economy the construction sector added 42,000 jobs in February, following a similar gain in January (+49,000). In 2019, construction job gains averaged 13,000 per month. In February, employment gains occurred in specialty trade contractors (+26,000) and residential building (+10,000). This specific metric is important because it highlights economic expansion from U.S. workers and households having financial strength for home purchasing.
(BLS DATA) Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 273,000 in February, and the unemployment rate remains at 3.5 percent. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.0 percent.
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for December was revised up by 37,000 from +147,000 to +184,000, and the change for January was revised up by 48,000 from +225,000 to +273,000. With these revisions, employment gains in December and January combined were 85,000 higher than previously reported. (link)
In August of last year federal authorities raided the homes of United Auto Workers (UAW) President Gary Jones who was under investigation in a nationwide corruption sweep. Today an indictment was unsealed charging Jones with embezzling more than $1 million in union funds. His former deputy was arrested in September.
DETROIT (Reuters) – Former United Auto Workers (UAW) President Gary Jones was charged on Thursday with embezzling more than $1 million of union funds amid a U.S. corruption probe that has raised the specter of a federal government takeover of the union.
Jones, 62, of Canton, Michigan, was charged in an information, a court document typically used when the government has reached a plea deal with a defendant. J. Bruce Maffeo, a lawyer for Jones, declined to comment. The documents were filed previously and unsealed on Thursday.