Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, the primary NAFTA negotiator, went to Washington DC today for a highly political ‘in-camera’ session with the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. [Press briefing video at bottom]

The Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee is Bob Corker, one of the largest recipients of corporate Wall Street lobbyist money in the senate.  Corker is the most staunch voice in opposition to President Trump’s trade reset policy.  The ranking democrat is Bob Menendez.  Together Corker and Menendez represent two of the most corrupt representatives in congress.  These are the allies Chrystia Freeland is counting on.

Freeland’s strategy, on behalf of Prime Minister Justin from Canada, is to leverage internal U.S. political opposition against President Trump’s NAFTA trade reset.  However, while Canada and Mexico fight against any new trade agreement that eliminates their economic exploitation model, the Canadian economy is already beginning to contract; and this is happening even before any substantive U.S. trade policies are in place:

(Via CBC) The economy lost 7,500 jobs in May as a drop in full-time employment was only partially offset by an increase in part-time jobs, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The overall drop in the number of jobs came as full-time jobs fell by 31,000, offset in part by a gain of 23,600 part-time positions.

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One of the greatest gifts President Trump provides through his policy discussion(s) is an awakening to how much U.S. voter perspective has been driven by constructed fallacy.

This is especially true in the discussion of domestic economic policy.  There are trillions of dollars at stake; and the stakeholders are growing increasingly angry as President Trump places a spotlight on decades of economic fraud and abuse.

Prior to the 2016 election few people understood that DC politicians don’t actually write legislation, lobbyists do.  Politicians don’t write laws, their role is to sell legislation created by lobbyist groups.  That is the modern legislative model; that’s how it really works.  Unfortunately the same bastardized and manipulated process has happened around trade deals and trade agreements.

In modern trade agreements, before the election of President Donald Trump, corporations would write the actual language within the deal.  Corporate lobby groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have fully functioning staff that do nothing except write the trade agreement language.

If a multinational corporation wanted to increase its value, it simply needed to pay the indulgency fee to the U.S. CoC and the massive lobbying group would create language inside the agreement to assist their interest.   Note the corporation didn’t need to be U.S. centric, currency is multinational.  The U.S. CoC then pays politicians, both democrats and Republicans, via campaign contributions for the trade controls.  People can debate the nuance and intersections of governmental bureaucracy within the process; however, peel all the skin from the onion and this is how it really was working.

Then came President Trump.

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President Trump affirms the U.S. position to use targeted tariffs to assert reciprocity as the trade standard.  Free and fair trade is the goal via removing tariffs and non trade barriers:

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Earlier today President Trump and members of the administration delivered remarks following the G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Canada.  President Trump is heading to Singapore for a historic meeting with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un.

Prior to departing Canada, President Trump took questions from the media on a wide variety of issues including trade:  “Economic Security is National Security” !

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There are visible economic indicators today that positive U.S. MAGAnomic results are overwhelming the voices of purchased political leaders trying to sell a narrative of doom around President Trump’s tariff proposals and reciprocal trade reset. A key point is the U.S. stock market growth amid tariff, trade and NAFTA withdrawal discussion. As CTH has discussed the eventual trade outcomes appear baked into the latest market analysis.

Bolstered by election results showing increased momentum for team MAGA, and decreased likelihood for a Democrat wave, the overall economic news -and factual corporate bottom line results- are flooding the zone with optimism. Amid the strong foundation for U.S. investment and economic growth, the reciprocal trade strategy is no longer heavily feared. Simply put, the ‘America First’ policies are working.

Not only are Trump’s economic policies working (jobs, wages, investment growth), but they are gaining massive momentum as analysts begin to quantify the possibilities of expanded economic growth well beyond the -formerly outrageous- 3% GDP target. The ceiling is being raised faster than the winnamins can be digested.

Amid this U.S. MAGAnomic environment, threats of counter-tariffs by Mexico, Canada and the EU are as useless as feathers in a hurricane:

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The essential argument made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during this interview was already addressed in the preview segment prior to broadcast – SEE HERE –  However, here is the full interview as broadcast on NBC Meet The Press with Chuck Todd.

The interview is a typical narrative engineering attempt by Chuck Toad; however, beyond the narrative, for those who pay close attention to the economic issues, there are some key elements which deserve attention:

• @04:05 Trudeau admits the problem with corporate transshipment of Chinese Steel into the U.S. market – through Canada via the NAFTA loophole.  While Justin from Canada frames the issue from their own national efforts to stop the practice, you’ll note how he avoids taking ownership…. it’s called ‘willful blindness‘.
• More importantly at @08:17 the topic of NAFTA surfaces. Pay close attention.  Not only does Trudeau speak in past tense (reinforcing the reality that all parties have accepted that NAFTA is essentially dead), but moments later @09:00 he admits the Canadian trade and manufacturing economy is set up as a brokerage (ie. multinational corporate investment) dependent, exclusively dependent, on access to the U.S. market.

WATCH:

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Once you see the strings on the marionettes, you can never go back to a time when you didn’t notice them.

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Buried in a Wall Street Journal article outlining their shock and horror over President Trump following through with a Phase-I trade penalty of $50 billion, you find the following quote from Captain Obvious at Cornell University:

“The Trump administration is clearly signaling, ahead of Wilbur Ross’s trip to Beijing, that the gloves are off given China’s unwillingness to agree to a trade deficit reduction target or to make broader trade concessions,” said Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University professor of international trade. In addition, the “hardline stance may partly reflect the perception that China played a part in nearly derailing the Trump-Kim summit.” (link)

Gee, ya think?

The White House announced today it will clarify by June 15 a final list of $50 billion in imports from China that would be subject to tariffs of 25%, with the duties implemented “shortly thereafter.”  Additionally, future investment restrictions aimed at preventing Chinese acquisition of American technology will be announced by June 30.

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The MSM is insufferable in their intentional disconnect of the dynamic behind the North Korean denuclearization talks.  It was Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping who brought the DPRK to the table; and it was Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping who pushed North Korea away from the table in their manipulative efforts to extract trade concessions. Every other review of the geopolitical gamesmanship is chaff and countermeasures.

U.S. President Trump is holding massive steel and aluminum tariffs as an economic sword of Damocles over the head of Beijing during ongoing trade negotiations.  Chairman Xi sought to increase his own leverage by pulling North Korea’s Chairman Kim Jong-un away from bilateral peace and denuclearization talks.  However, POTUS Trump responded to the Beijing power-play by announcing a Section 232 trade review over the entire auto-industry; and then bolstered his counter-move by cancelling talks with Kim Jong-un.

Red Dragon didn’t expect President Trump to respond so effectively to the customary schemes notoriously famous in any Chinese negotiation encounter. I really believe Chairman Xi underestimates how adept POTUS Trump is at cutting through the obfuscation and obtuse moves.

President Trump simply doesn’t operate in the land of traditional diplomatic discomfort… he doesn’t have any inclination to play these insufferable games.

Within minutes of President Trump withdrawing from the June 12th summit, Beijing realized all of their trade leverage was just wiped out.  Playing deceptive panda isn’t going to work this time.

(Via AP) – North Korea says it is still willing to sit down for talks with the United States “at any time, at any format” after President Donald Trump abruptly canceled his planned summit with Kim Jong Un.

Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan issued a statement Friday saying North Korea is “willing to give the U.S. time and opportunities” to reconsider talks.

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Big picture move by President Trump today that has massive, and generally misinterpreted, ramifications for any trade deal with China, EU and most importantly NAFTA.

China is using U.S. nuclear negotiations with North Korea as leverage for more beneficial trade outcomes; the communist regime is in full manipulative dragon-mode. President Trump can see through the economic play and is dropping the Panda outreach.  Eagle-one now hits back at Chairman Xi for deploying such dangerous tactics.

If you have been following trade nuance, the Automobile Sector is one of the biggest points of contention within varying trade negotiations. In the NAFTA discussion the auto-sector, via rules of origin, runs at the heart of NAFTA’s fatal flaw.

The fatal flaw is the use of Asian, mostly Chinese, auto components within auto manufacturing. Mexico and Canada arguing to allow more Chinese auto parts in North American manufacturing; and President Trump demanding more North American parts for North American auto manufacturing.

Many U.S. Auto manufacturers have moved to Mexico to exploit the NAFTA loophole (fatal flaw). Vehicles assembled in Mexico use cheaper Chinese parts and are shipped into the U.S. without any tariff under NAFTA rules.

It didn’t take long before EU auto-manufacturers, mostly German, to begin taking the same approach. Albeit to a lesser extent, German auto companies also invested in building vehicles in Mexico/Canada for tariff-free transfer into the U.S. This works out great for Canada and Mexico auto-workers, but not for the U.S.

In essence, the auto-sector is representative of much of the manufacturing exploitation by multinational corporations beyond vehicle production. China has supported this approach because they produce the components for multiple sectors (furniture, appliances etc).

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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin appears on Fox News Sunday for an interview with the insufferable swamp gatekeeper Chris Wallace.  The primary topic is China and the ongoing trade discussions.  However, look at the stone cold stare from Mnuchin at the very end when he points out that Wallace never even brought up the important Iran sanctions.  If looks could kill, Wallace would have spontaneously combusted.

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