Earlier today President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump welcomed Kenyan President Kenyatta and his wife to the White House. Two videos and transcripts.
♦Oval Office Meeting:
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[Transcript] Oval Office – 1:53 P.M. EDT – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. It’s great to have President Kenyatta of Kenya, and First Lady Kenyatta. Thank you very much for being here. It’s a great honor.
We have a tremendous relationship with Kenya. We have terrorism, a lot of trade, getting bigger and bigger all the time. (more…)
So much good news:WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The trade deal between the United States and Mexico will stand even if Canada does not come to an agreement with the Trump administration in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexico’s foreign minister said on Monday.
“If for any reason the government of Canada and the United States do not reach an agreement, we already know that there will still be a deal between Mexico and the United States.”
~ Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray (link)
Remember those “private meetings” between Jesus Seade and Robert Lighthizer?
It is said: a picture is worth a thousand words. Cue the audio visual:
The incoming Mexican President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador,(AMLO)’s representative is Jesus Seade. The outgoing Mexican President Pena Nieto’s representative is Mexican Secretary of Economy Idelfonso Guajardo.
Why the joy in Seade and the defeated Guajardo? The answer is inthe details:
One of President Trump’s principal objectives in the renegotiation is to ensure the agreement benefits American workers. The United States and Mexico have agreed to a Labor chapter that brings labor obligations into the core of the agreement, makes them fully enforceable, and represents the strongest provisions of any trade agreement.
Key Achievement: Worker Representation in Collective Bargaining
The Labor chapter includes an Annex on Worker Representation in Collective Bargaining in Mexico, under which Mexico commits to specific legislative actions to provide for the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining.
In direct relationship to the checkbook policy that impacts middle-class Americans the U.S./Mexico trade deal is the biggest win so far in Trump’s presidency. There are such massive ramifications it could take days for anyone to comprehend how the granular details have such massive downstream consequences. The deal is incredibly complex.
At the 30,000 ft level, the deal positions Mexico to retain their current multinational investments, and through a series of sector-by-sector standards on origination the deal simultaneously closes the fatal NAFTA loophole. The agreement makes an economic manufacturing partnership between the U.S. and Mexico; and for assembly products third parties will have to produce parts and origination material within the U.S. and Mexico.
U.S.T.R. Lighthizer has put some details forward:
♦The NAFTA Loophole closure is explained in Summary Form HERE; with emphasis on the Auto-Sector. The key is a 75% part origination level for auto-assembly; and a 40-45% level for parts with a minimum $16/hr wage rate. The source-origination rate (75%) is even higher than all previously forecast negotiation results.
Example of downstream consequences/benefits: German auto-maker BMW recently built a $2 billion assembly plant in Mexico (almost complete). Most of their core parts were coming from the EU (steel/aluminum casting components) and/or Asia (electronics). Now the assembly plant will have to source 75% of the auto-parts from the U.S. and Mexico, with 45% of those parts from facilities paying $16/hr. Result: BMW will need to modify their supply chain and build auto parts in the U.S. and Mexico. (more…)
Promises made, promises kept. The CTH community is in a unique position to understand exactly what has taken place today as President Donald Trump announces the termination of NAFTA and simultaneously announces a bilateral trade agreement has been made between the U.S. and Mexico. This is exactly what CTH predicted. Most, not all, but most of the media are absolutely clueless.
In an Oval Office announcement today President Trump put outgoing Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on his speaker phone as the press watched in the Oval Office. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Mexican Secretary of Economy Idelfonso Guajardo, and the key figure for incoming Mexican President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), Jesus Seade was present for the announcement.
CTH will have much more on the details of the trade agreement. This is the most comprehensive and complex trade agreement in U.S. history. However, in the interim here’s the full video of the announcement (including nuance). ENJOY:
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[Transcript] Oval Office – 11:09 A.M. EDT – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Hello everybody. It’s a big day for trade, a big day for our country. A lot of people thought we’d never get here because we all negotiate tough. We do, and so does Mexico. And this is a tremendous thing.
This has to do — they used to call it NAFTA. We’re going to call it the United States-Mexico Trade Agreement, and we’ll get rid of the name NAFTA. It has a bad connotation because the United States was hurt very badly by NAFTA for many years. And now it’s a really good deal for both countries, and we look very much forward to it. (more…)
In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.
This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.
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 †
After the Michael Cohen guilty plea. his attorney Lanny Davis began pitching a claim that the longtime Trump loyalist/lawyer had information Trump knew of the Russian hacking of Democratic emails ahead of time. Davis said: “I believe that Mr. Cohen has direct knowledge that would be of interest to Mr. Mueller that suggests -I’m not sure it proves- that Mr. Trump was aware of Russian government agents hacking illegally, committing computer crimes, to the detriment of the candidate who he was running against, Hillary Clinton.” And the media ate it up, and put Davis on just about every possible TV show imaginable.
However, in an interview with the Washington Post this weekend, Mr Davis not only walked back that claim, he entirely retreated from it:
(Via Washington Post) An attorney for Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, is backing away from confident assertions he made that Cohen has information to share with investigators that shows Trump knew in 2016 of Russian efforts to undermine Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
In June, 2017, while trying to keep President Trump committed to the Paris Climate Treaty, Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron delivered a joint statement proclaiming: “the Paris Climate Treaty is irreversible and cannot be renegotiated.”
U.S. President Trump knew the economic ramifications would handcuff the U.S. and that was the primary motive behind their demands. Rightly POTUS Trump brushed off the demands and withdrew the U.S. from the treaty, in July 2017: Then came a predictable series of events…
A month after U.S. President Trump called out the ridiculous globalist economic agenda and withdrew the U.S. from participating, German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded on August 20th, 2017, by removing her own country from the primary treaty demands. Five months later, January 2018, the anointed leader of far-left international political policy then withdrew entirely from the 2020 carbon emission reduction goal.
All of these moves only further evidenced that ‘climate change’, vis-a-vis the Paris Treaty, was/is an insufferable economic control policy; a ruse; a scheme manufactured by global financial elites who seek power and leverage upon the sheeple proles. Merkel well understands that global emission control mechanisms, specifically carbon reduction schemes, are nothing more than policy tools to exfiltrate national wealth.
Today, much to the chagrin of the barking moonbats and pontificating international elites, Chancellor Merkel refuses to change her position: (more…)
The overwhelming majority of Sunday political talk-show discussion focuses around the death of UniParty Senator John McCain, etc. There is little value there, and grandma’s rule always applies.
However, Representative Darrell Issa appeared on Sunday Morning with Maria Bartiromo for a discussion on multiple subjects including the DOJ, Robert Mueller, North Korea and ongoing trade reset initiatives with China.
Remember the ju-ju bones?… Well…. The U.S. Main Street economic engine is almost firing on all cylinders as brick-and-mortar retailers drop their historic complaints of e-commerce impacting their sales and foot-traffic, and instead begin seeing the real life consequences from a resurgent American middle-class.
Target CEO Brian Cornell: “There’s no doubt that, like others, we’re currently benefiting from a very strong consumer environment — perhaps the strongest I’ve seen in my career.” “We’re seeing a great consumer response … unprecedented traffic. As we go back and look, we’ve never seen traffic growth like this.” (link)
The growth in retail foot-traffic is a critical KPI for the economy. Despite economic and business school theory (pushed over the past 20 years), everything of consequence is dependent on a thriving American middle-class; blue and white collar. (more…)
