During an executive order signing session in the White House today, President Trump announced a major change in tariffs on the auto industry.  [Full Executive Order Here]

The 25% import duty applies on top of any preexisting tariff for cars and light trucks.  The 25% tariff also applies to imported car parts.  The USMCA trade agreement between the U.S. Canada and Mexico still applies.

If the content of a car assembled in Mexico/Canada contains 50 percent component parts from the USA, the 25% tariff only applies to the final value of the imported components. In this example the tariff rate would be 12.5% of the total value.

The tariff applies to all imported cars and light trucks.  Approximately half of all cars sold in the USA are currently American made, the other half are import vehicles from mainly Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Germany.

This is a very big kick in the teeth to Germany.  Previously in a long-term strategy to avoid U.S. tariffs, German automakers invested billions in auto assembly plants in Mexico.  Ex. the BMW parts were shipped from Germany and the cars assembled in Mexico.  Now that investment is worthless as the vehicle will be taxed at a rate of 25% regardless of whether it is assembled in Germany or Mexico.

Ex.2 High end auto Mercedes currently builds SUVs in the USA in order to avoid the previous 25% tariff; however, they still build cars outside the USA and export them into the USA market.  This will likely change quickly, and Mercedes will begin building all cars and SUVs in the USA.

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As the negotiations for a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire agreement are being worked out, here are the statements from each of the participants in the technical team discussion following their meeting in Saudi Arabia.

RUSSIA STATEMENT (SOURCE):1. “In line with the agreement reached by the presidents of Russia and the United States, the Russian and American sides agreed to provide for the implementation of the Black Sea Initiative, which includes ensuring safe navigation, eliminating the use of force, and preventing the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea, while adopting appropriate control measures by inspecting such vessels.

2. The United States will help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertiliser exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions.

Note:

Clauses 1 & 2 will come into force following:

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I doubt anyone in their correct and intellectually honest mind would believe this DC drawing assigning Judge James Boasberg to the recently filed lawsuit against the Trump national security cabinet members on the signal chat, was random.

There are 20 judges in the DC pool eligible to hear the case [CASE DETAILS HERE] and with a 1:20 chance, Judge James Boasberg was assigned.

American Oversight is a left-wing Lawfare outlet who sue President Trump while sipping coffee daily.  This time they are suing the administration to force govt preservation of the Signal app ‘non-classified’ chat messages that have already been published to the public.

The lawsuit issue is made moot by the Atlantic publication of the chat.  But I’m sure Boasberg will find a way to affirm the lawsuit and assign attorney fee damages to the Lawfare plaintiff.

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Against the backdrop of the Trump administration saying nothing contained in the discussion was classified information, the Atlantic Magazine has decided to publish the full content of the Signal app chat group:

READ IT HERE

The full release coming after the coordinated SSCI effort to build upon the story, and ultimately the response from President Donald Trump toward the entire substance of the issue, seemingly indicates the Atlantic Mag realizes the juice for a bigger targeted outcome is just not there.

The content of the chat is a nothingburger, sans it makes VP Vance look better.

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Yesterday President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting: “Immediate Declassification of Materials Related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.” [ORDER TEXT HERE]

Within the XO President Trump informs the Attorney General (Pam Bondi) the Director of National Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard), and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (John Ratcliffe), “I have determined that all of the materials referenced in the Presidential Memorandum of January 19, 2021 (Declassification of Certain Materials Related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation), are no longer classified.”

However, there’s an important set of qualifiers.

“I have further determined that the material proposed for redaction by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a cover letter dated January 17, 2021, remains classified.

My decision to declassify the materials described above does not extend to materials that must be protected from disclosure pursuant to orders of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and does not require the disclosure of certain personally identifiable information or any other materials that must be protected from disclosure under applicable law.” (link)

Caution is warranted.  Yes, there may be a few new items, perhaps a few redactions removed on previously released items, but essentially this is likely be a rehash of assembled component parts we have already discussed at length.  In essence, this sounds like the Mar-a-Lago ten-inch binder content the FBI was previously trying to get back.

There is also a possibility the FISA Court has ordered some materials related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, sealed by the FISC.  President Trump does not extend his order to these materials.

There is a certain likelihood the CIA holds foreign intelligence equities that tangentially supports the origin of the Crossfire Hurricane targeting.  We already know officials and intelligence operations from the U.K, Australia, Italy and Israel were involved in the 2016 operation against Trump.  President Trump does not extend his order to these materials, because the equity ownership of the classified material rests in the foreign intelligence services.

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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.

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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 †

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National Security Advisor Mike Waltz appears on Fox News with Laura Ingraham to discuss the exploding controversy around a left-wing journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, being included on a Signal chat with members of President Trump’s cabinet.

According to Mike Waltz the name of a contact was mis-attributed to the telephone number of Jeffrey Goldberg.  Waltz thought someone else (¹he will not say who) was in the chat group, but it was actually Goldberg.  Waltz says his team and Elon Musk’s technical team are working through an investigative process to discover how that happened.

As I repeated earlier, the most likely origination of the mis-attribution is the intelligence community, specifically the CIA.  The entire fiasco originates as an operation targeting the Trump administration.  Mike Waltz says he is not a conspiracy theorist, but indicates he too thinks something like this is quite possible. WATCH:

Let me summarize for those new to these performances: (1) The CIA tech team organized the Signal App operation (directory manipulation). That’s how Goldberg got in. (2) Jeffrey Goldberg held the story until the day before the scheduled SSCI hearing. (3) The SSCI uses the hearing to attack the Trump officials at the top of the critical silos.

Why? The CIA group doesn’t like the Trump Ukraine and Trump Russia policy.

[¹We may discover that somehow the name Marco Rubio was attributed to the phone number of Jeffrey Goldberg.  Rubio was reportedly on the chat, but didn’t say anything.]

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President Donald Trump answered several questions from the media during a White House meeting with various ambassadors and nominees for the position of ambassador.

During the media segment, President Trump was questioned about the national security cabinet members use of the Signal app to discuss administration plans to open sea lanes and confront Houthi terrorists. President Trump noted the difficulty of secure communication that would be responsive and fast for the purposes of rapid discussion.

President Trump fully supports National Security Advisor Mike Waltz who is attributed with the problem of originating an inadvertent invitation to a journalist the chat group. Overall, there are several media questions about this specific topic and President Trump seemingly appreciates the line of inquiry but swats away attempt attack his cabinet.

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CIA Director John Ratcliffe outlines how the Signal App is a CIA approved “permissible” tool for encrypted communication, and the app was pre-loaded onto his devices by CIA personnel.  [Moment at 1:15, WATCH]

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