White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has been a core member of the U.S. trade team providing a brutally honest perspective toward how specific trade engagements can directly benefit the U.S. economy and U.S. worker.
Navarro has gained a reputation as a trade hawk, specifically as it relates to confronting the one-sided trade schemes of China.  However, that encapsulation doesn’t accurately reflect Mr. Navarro’s value.
The Big Club hates him.  Yes, Navarro is hated and opposed by all the right people.  He might be rough around the edges, but he fights… for ‘America First‘.
Navarro is unapologetic in openly calling attention to the process where Wall Street, the multinationals (corporations and banks) have gained power and influence over politicians in Washington DC.  Wall Street funnels hundreds-of-millions to Tom Dohohue, President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  Donohue controls an army of K-Street lobbyists who purchase politicians and sell their CoC created legislation.
Specifically because he calls attention to the brutal truth of a corrupt process, he has become the target of attacks from Wall Street’s beneficiaries, the big club and Decepticon senators who take massive campaign bribes from Tom Donohue.
In a recent Op-ed, Peter Navarro highlights how the Trump economic team is delivering on a promise for structural global trade reform that directly benefits the U.S. economy, U.S. workers, and Main Street USA.
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U.S. Trade Rep Robert Lighthizer’s work on the U.S-China trade negotiations is easily the most technically challenging and legally complex trade deal in the history of U.S. Commerce.
Lighthizer is not focused on selling more U.S. product, he is focused on bigger issues and enforcement therein.
Think about it.  This is a deal between a U.S. open market economy and a communist controlled closed market economy in China.  No nation has a comprehensive trade deal with China on anything except individual business sectors.
Despite China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, no nation has ever achieved anything close to an aggregate FTA (Free Trade Agreement) with China.  This deal would be the first comprehensive deal, and as such Lighthizer is essentially mapping out an agreement that all other nations could follow….  This is big-league.
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The Canadian government shocked the professional financial and economic media with their latest fourth quarter GDP release showing the economy has essentially come to a grinding halt at 0.1% growth.  [Compare to U.S. GDP growth of 3%]
The Canadian Q4 GDP growth isn’t one percent, it’s one-tenth of one percent: 0.1%, essentially halted; but everyone discussing this is missing something very important.
First, The Financial Post headline:

[FP] Canada’s economy practically came to a halt in the final three months of 2018, in a much deeper-than-expected slowdown that brings the underlying strength of the expansion into doubt.
The country’s economy grew by just 0.1 per cent in the fourth quarter, for an annualized pace of 0.4 per cent, Statistics Canada said Friday from Ottawa. That’s the worst quarterly performance in two and a half years, down from annualized 2 per cent in the third quarter and well below economist expectations for a 1 per cent annualized increase.

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Okay, now USTR Robert Lighthizer’s cautiously worded enforcement testimony starts to take on a fuller context.  When Ambassador Lighthizer was testifying before the mostly decepticon House Ways and Means Committee, he started to outline his newly designed trade enforcement mechanism… but he stopped; he didn’t want to reveal too much.
Now listen to Larry Kudlow describe “enforcement”.  WATCH:

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If you watched the USTR testimony you would have seen how the “enforcement” mechanism within the U.S-China trade negotiations was the priority for Lighthizer’s focus; and he specifically mentioned “layered” enforcement triggers, specific to each sector, and issue.
CTH has never seen a U.S. Trade Representative so structurally willing to clear-cut the entire bamboo forest if needed. Lighthizer is intensely focused on enforcement.
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National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow appears on CNBC to discuss the latest releases of economic stats and the on-going trade talks between the U.S. and China.  Kudlow notes the U.S. and China are making progress specifically due to USTR Robert Lighthizer.  Interesting interview.

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Nuance and team subtlety are important here. Larry Kudlow is a loyal soldier, no question, but his economic leaning is toward trade outcomes that benefit Wall Street… Robert Lighthizer is a fierce battle-hardened trade expert, with an outlook that is multi-generational toward Main Street.
Listen to Lighthizer talk about the economic future for his grandkids in his congressional testimony yesterday and you’ll see what I mean. NO COMPROMISE with China.  Lighthizer is prepared to fight all of Main Street’s enemies, including congress.
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The Bureau of Economic Analysis, BEA, finally released the fourth quarter growth rate estimate for 2018.  The 4th quarter growth result at 2.6% exceeded expectations, and shows the U.S. economy is growing stronger than almost all economic forecasts.

WASHINGTON DC – In the fourth-quarter, U.S. gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 2.6%, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Thursday’s report beat expectations, with consensus economists polled by Bloomberg looking for growth to slow to 2.2% during the final three months of the year. The domestic economy grew at a pace of 3.4% in the third quarter and 4.2% in the second quarter.

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You might want to bookmark this congressional testimony from U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to the House Ways and Means Committee for specific purposes…
There are many people who are understandably worried that any U.S. trade agreement between the U.S. and China might not have the most ferocious teeth behind a binding enforcement provision.  If you listen to Ambassador Lighthizer he makes clear that President Donald Trump, and the negotiating team, will not accept any agreement that does not have the strongest enforcement mechanisms at every level.

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In his testimony Lighthizer walks through the basic outline of what a U.S. successful agreement would look like.  While increased Chinese purchases to lower the deficit are a part of the goal, they are a VERY SMALL part of the goal.
The protection of U.S. intellectual property; the removal of non-tariff trade barriers; the confrontation of currency manipulation and the sector by sector enforcement provisions are the primary objective.
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President Trump has been executing a foreign policy, a clear doctrine of sorts, where national security is achieved by leveraging U.S. economic power. It is a fundamental shift in approaching both allies and adversaries; summarized within the oft repeated phrase: “economic security is national security.”
The Trump Doctrine of using economics to achieve national security objectives is a fundamental paradigm shift.  Modern U.S. history provides no easy reference.

“Peace is the prize” ~ President Donald Trump

The nature of the Trump foreign policy doctrine, as it has become visible, is to hold manipulative influence agents accountable for regional impact(s); and simultaneously work to stop any corrupted influence from oppressing free expression of national values held by the subservient, dis-empowered, people within the nation being influenced.
There have been clear examples of this doctrine at work. When President Trump first visited the Middle-East he confronted the international audience with a message about dealing with extremist influence agents. President Trump simply said: “drive them out.”
Toward that end, as Qatar was identified as a financier of extremist ideology, President Trump placed the goal of confrontation upon the Gulf Cooperation Council, not the U.S.
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We are living in historic times.
It was not coincidental that North Korea’s Chairman Kim Jong-un took the long train out of the DPRK yesterday while U.S.T.R Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He were still engaged in the extended U.S-China trade negotiations.  Quite simply Kim’s early exit from Pyongyang meant Chairman Xi’s geopolitical trade leverage was diminished.
If you’ve listened to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo describing Team USA and Team DPRK delegations, both holding discussions in Hanoi all last week, the early exit of Chairman Kim takes on an enlightened context.  Meanwhile, the U.S. media is oblivious.

Since mid 2017 the long-game plan of the Trump Doctrine toward China (on trade) and their proxy province of North Korea (nuclear hostilities) has been clear. However, being able to see it unfold means accepting President Trump held a strategy.  Fortunately for us we have a front row seat.
President Trump has been engaged in a two-year long hostage rescue mission.  We are now entering the final stages of carefully designed hostage negotiations.
The Chinese trade delegation, led by Vice-Premier Liu He, could not leave Washington DC without some structural progress in U.S-China trade discussions that would avoid the looming March 1st 25 percent tariff on over $200 billion worth of Chinese imported products.  With a summit between President Trump and DPRK Chairman Kim Jong-un on the calendar, Vice-Premier Liu stayed in Washington DC for an extra two days.
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Today in presidential history is a day when the import of consequence doesn’t surface until historians apply hindsight.  However, those who carry the longest-lens are enjoying these moments in history…. We make with our support of Trump such a sound as all history from these days forward are forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.  And when we are gone, our beneficiaries will sing of these deeds in forbidden songs while tending the flickering flame of liberty; for we few lived in the era of Trump.

[Transcript] Oval Office – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. It’s a great honor to be with the Vice Premier of China, a very highly respected man in China. And we’re negotiating trade and the trade agreement. And we have many representatives from China and — as you’d know, and most of you know who they are — many representatives from the United States.
I think we’re getting along very well. Ultimately, I think the biggest decisions and some even smaller decisions will be made by President Xi and myself. And we expect to have a meeting sometime in the not-too-distant future.
And I can only say talks are going along well, but we’re going to have to see what happens. I think there’ll be some points that this group won’t agree on because maybe they’re not supposed to agree on, allowed to agree on. And I think President Xi and I will work out the final points, perhaps. And perhaps not.
So I just want to say, Mr. Vice Premier, it’s a great honor to have you.
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