With President Trump announcing an additional ten percent tariff on $300 billion of Chinese products, the Chamber of Commerce worm, Tom Donohue, comes out to oppose.
An interesting juxtaposition between two interviews.  The first with National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, and the counter point by CoC President Dohohue:

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In the next interview Donohue surfaces… he has no choice.  Tom Donohue is paid tens of millions by the Wall Street multinationals to retain the current exploitative system of global trade.  Donohue has no influence over President Trump.
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Chopper pressers are the best pressers.  Earlier today President Trump was departing the White House for Bedminister, NJ, when he stopped to talk to the assembled press pool about a variety of topics.  [Video and Transcript below]

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[Transcript] Q Mr. President, why did you throw the towel in on Ratcliffe? Why didn’t you want to wait a little bit longer and see how that process went?
THE PRESIDENT: Which process are you talking about?
Q The confirmation process. The confirmation process with Congressman Ratcliffe.
THE PRESIDENT: Because I felt that Congressman Ratcliffe was being treated very unfairly. I was reading the press. And I think I am a student of the press. And I could see that the press was treating him, I thought, very unfairly. He’s an outstanding man.
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Earlier today President Trump and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announced a new U.S. trade deal with Europe for the duty-free export of U.S. beef.
Joining President Trump and U.S.T.R. Lighthizer is Stavros Lambrinidis, the EU ambassador to the US, and Jani Raappana, deputy head of mission for the Finnish presidency of the Council of the EU.  [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much everybody. We appreciate it. A wonderful day, and a wonderful deal for a lot of people. Today, we’re signing a breakthrough agreement that will make it easier to export American beef into the European Union. We’ve been under negotiation for quite a while. And our beef farmers, we didn’t think were being treated fair, but the European Union stepped up and we appreciate it. And we have great representatives here with us today.
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National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow on trade negotiations with China, and how the EU is positioning to off-set global economic contraction.  Additionally, Kudlow discusses the aspects of the July jobs report overlooked by Wall Street pundits.

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Do not overlook or underestimate the importance of the bigger picture behind the global economic forecasts and the collective alignment against U.S. President Donald Trump.  The ‘America First’ program is against their interests. There are trillions at stake.
Asia, primarily China, and the EU rely on common alignment with the multinationals who control Wall Street and have influenced U.S. trade and economic policy for 35 years.
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases the jobs data for July.  Overall employment rose by 164,000 new jobs; that’s great.  Average hourly wages grew by 8 cents to $27.98, a year-over-year growth of 3.2 percent; again great.  163.4 million people working is the highest number of people working in history; more good news. [Data release link]
However, there’s an even better result in a very important data-point.  363,000 people moved from part-time to full-time employment.   The move from PT to FT employment is a key indicator of a very strong economy and workers are benefiting in benefits, wages, and total compensation which now exceeds 5.5 percent growth.

[CNBC NEWS] Economists had expected the unemployment rate to drop to 3.6%, which would have tied a 50-year low, but an influx of 370,000 new workers to the labor force brought the participation rate up to 63%, its highest since March. The total labor force of 163.4 million set a record high.
The report “illustrates that, for all the concern over weak global growth and trade policy, the domestic economy is still holding up reasonably well,” said Andrew Hunter, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics. (read more)

Chopper pressers are the best pressers.  As President Trump departs the White House traveling to Cincinnati, Ohio, for a MAGA rally, the high energy POTUS stops to answer questions from the press pool.  [Video Below – Transcript ADDED]

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[Transcript]  THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q Mr. President, why the tariffs against China now? And are you concerned about the nosedive the Dow took today as a result?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I’m not concerned about that at all. I expected that a little bit because people don’t understand quite yet about what’s happened.
We’ve taxed China on 300 billion dollars’ worth of goods and products being sold into our country. And China eats it because they have to pay it. Because what they do is they devalue their currency and they push money out.
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US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin returned from two days of talks in Shanghai on Thursday.  After debriefing President Trump on the results the president announced a decision to apply a 10 percent tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese products.

This announcement would answer the question of whether the Chinese were willing to restart discussions from the previous point of contention.  Obviously they are not.
The Wall Street financial/investment class will go bananas.  U.S. based multinationals who have invested massively in Chinese manufacturing are apoplectic.  The ‘Wall Street’ -vs- Main Street battle now enters a new phase of confrontation and adversarialism.
As we have discussed, President Trump consistently implied he did not see how any deal with China is possible unless they were willing to fundamentally restructure their trade position. It has been clear -validated by the G20 outcome- that President Trump is not going to accept anything less than a full and complete structural change in the U.S. trade position with China. Lighthizer’s severe compliance and enforcement clauses, specific to each unique trade sector, are non-negotiable.
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An excellent discussion between White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo about the current state of President Trump’s Main Street policy and economy.  The second half of the interview is the best part. Navarro outlines the background of the second quarter GDP result, and he hits the nail on the head. Hi Pete.
As CTH previously highlighted, the two primary drags on the Q2 release are also the most volatile: Export/Import contributions (-.65%), and Inventory contributions (-.86%) [table 2]. However, consumer spending was much stronger than anticipated (+4.3%) showing the internal strength of the U.S. labor market and the impact of wage growth which now exceeds 5.5 percent.  The rebound in Q3 is going to be very, very good.

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Note to Mr. Navarro: Enjoy the winning. Relax, you’re solid. Despite the financial punditry class consistently trying to downbeat the good news; you don’t have to carry the burden of adversarialism. You’re a good warrior; we know.  You don’t have to prove your salt. The American people can see the results, and the entire MAGAnomic team, including you, have our full support. Have some fun.
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We previously outlined Mr. Zhongtian Liu [HERE] as part of the early 2018 explanation for how China was exploiting the NAFTA loophole as an end-run around tariffs.  Today the Central District of California U.S. Attorney announces his indictment.

LOS ANGELES– A federal grand jury indictment unsealed late Tuesday alleges a complex financial fraud scheme in which a Chinese company exported to the United States huge amounts of aluminum – disguised as “pallets” to avoid customs duties of up to 400 percent – and “sold” the purported pallets to related entities to fraudulently inflate the company’s revenues and deceive investors around the world.
The 53-page indictment alleges that China Zhongwang Holdings Limited, Asia’s largest aluminum extrusion company; Zhongtian Liu, the company’s former president and chairman; and several individual and corporate co-defendants lied to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to avoid paying the United States $1.8 billion in anti-dumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD) that were imposed in 2011 on certain types of extruded aluminum imported into the United States from China.

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In 2015 CTH outlined how candidate Donald Trump’s proposals were in-line with those who had long argued for a return of “economic nationalism”.  We also outlined when those proposals (now policy) are implemented, Fed action would be essentially irrelevant.

The Federal Reserve is pegged to the Wall Street Economy.  President Trump’s policies are pegged to the Main Street Economy.  There is a disconnect; a new dimension in U.S. economics; and very few people understand what happens in this space between them.
Thirty-five years ago Fed monetary policy impacted the U.S. economy directly because almost all activity (durable good manufacturing) was within our borders.  The natural dynamic of inflation could be influenced by the Fed.  Rate changes could offset inflation and also enhance domestic investment etc.
However, as time progressed that manufacturing activity -the basic underpinning of middle-class jobs, wages etc- shifted overseas.  When monetary policy became controlled by multinationals (Wall Street influencers purchasing politicians), capital investment moved to generate purely higher profits.  Businesses, specifically manufacturing, went abroad.  As a consequence the determination of prices, ie ‘inflation’, was no longer influenced by the Fed because the actual economic activity was/is outside the U.S. borders.
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