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President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP
Sarah H Sanders Twitter @SHSanders45
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †
The latest set of statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) shows all of the professional pundit claims of higher prices on imported goods due to Trump tariffs are simply disconnected from reality. In actuality the year-over-year prices of import products are actually dropping:
U.S. Import prices fell 0.3 percent in May, the first monthly decline since a 1.4-percent drop in December. Import prices advanced 1.8 percent from December to April before the downturn in May. The price index for overall imports decreased 1.5 percent over the past 12 months, matching the drop in January. These were the largest over-the-year declines since the index fell 2.2 percent in August 2016. (See table 1.)
The U.S steel and aluminum tariffs have been in effect globally since 2017. Tariffs on softwood lumber (Canada) & durable appliances (S. Korea), same duration. Additionally the first set of tariffs on China is now well over a year old; and the second set of expanded tariffs on China began a month ago; again, no material impact to the delivered price.
Despite two years of claims by the professional media that tariffs would lead to higher prices for U.S. consumers, as you can see above the reality is quite different.
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President Trump has taken the leverage of economics to levels of geopolitical strategy never seen before. Nowhere is the genius strategy more clear than in the way Trump has positioned the trade reset and confrontation with China.
In hindsight every move since early 2017 including: (1) the warm welcome of Chairman Xi Jinping to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate; (2) the vociferous praise poured upon Xi; (3) the November 2017 tour of Asia; (4) the direct engagement with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un; the strategic relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe; and a host of smaller nuanced moves have been quietly building toward a conclusion.
The upcoming G-20 summit is the last chance for Trump and Xi to reconcile considerable differences and President Trump has the strongest strategic position any Chinese official has ever faced.
After Beijing walked away from previous agreements between USTR Robert Lighthizer and Vice-Premier Liu He, Trump initiated a series of punishing economic consequences that had to have been well planned in advance.
The economy in China is reeling from the pressure applied; and stunningly it has only been a month since the consequence phase began.
In addition to tariff increases, the U.S. blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co., threatened other major Chinese tech companies and essentially cut-off China from the international supply chain it needs to sustain itself. Beijing responded by drawing up a list of “unreliable entities” and making threats against any enterprise that would walk away from business engagement with China. The totalitarian response has worsened the situation, and more companies have announced their intent to decouple from Beijing.
An important aspect, missed by most observers, is the ideology and outlook within any Chinese engagement. Quite simply, if it does not benefit China it is not done. Therefore any negotiation with China is challenging because Beijing will cede no ground they view as already won.
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Against the backdrop of the DOJ admitting FBI investigators never had access to the DNC servers to verify a Russian hack; and with new information about the FBI receiving partial and redacted analysis from Crowdstrike; the review by U.S. Attorney John Durham toward the downstream assessment/claims of the CIA takes on new meaning.
CTH has previously outlined how the December 29th, 2016, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on Russia Cyber Activity was a quickly compiled bunch of nonsense about Russian hacking.
The JAR was followed a week later by the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment. The ICA took the ridiculous construct of the JAR and then overlaid a political narrative that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump.
The ICA was the brain-trust of John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey. NSA Director Mike Rogers would not sign up to the “high confidence” claims, likely because he saw through the political motives of the report.
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The foundation for the Russian election interference narrative is built on the claim of Russians hacking the servers of the Democrat National Committee (DNC), and subsequently releasing damaging emails that showed the DNC worked to help Hillary Clinton and eliminate Bernie Sanders.
Despite the Russian ‘hacking’ claim the DOJ previously admitted the DNC would not let FBI investigators review the DNC server. Instead the DNC provided the FBI with analysis of a technical review done through a cyber-security contract with Crowdstrike.
The narrative around the DNC hack claim was always sketchy; many people believe the DNC email data was downloaded onto a flash drive and leaked. In a court filing (full pdf below) the scale of sketchy has increased exponentially.
Suspecting they could prove the Russian hacking claim was false, lawyers representing Roger Stone requested the full Crowdstrike report on the DNC hack. When the DOJ responded to the Stone motion they made a rather significant admission. Not only did the FBI not review the DNC server, the FBI/DOJ never even saw the Crowdstrike report.
Yes, that is correct. The FBI and DOJ were only allowed to see a “draft” report prepared by Crowdstrike, and that report was redacted… and that redacted draft is the “last version of the report produced”; meaning, there are no unredacted & final versions.
Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot!
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This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.
President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP
Sarah H Sanders Twitter @SHSanders45
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †
Too funny…. apparently Mexican Economy Minister Graciela Marquez didn’t watch what happened to China (or Canada) when they made similar threats of retaliation against President Trump’s tariffs. Seriously.
President Trump wants the border secure, yes. However, President Trump would also welcome a trade tariff battle with Mexico (they can’t win); so this isn’t a technically a threat from the position of POTUS:
(Reuters) – Mexico will be ready to retaliate in kind if the U.S. government imposes tariffs on Mexican exports to the United States, Mexican Economy Minister Graciela Marquez said on Friday.
Twenty-three House republicans request declassification of documents directly from President Trump as soon as possible. Despite the executive office directive to AG Bill Barr, the republican group seemingly do not trust the DOJ and FBI institutional interests.
It’s a smart move to keep the pressure on.
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