There is an article from Bloomberg which finally concedes the obvious economic and trade dynamic within a U.S. -vs- China confrontation.  The media paradigm shift is based on new statements from Chinese Ministers admitting they cannot win a trade confrontation with U.S. President Trump.
The summary reason is simple, we have discussed it frequently:
China is a production-based economic model, they do not have the ability, or wealth, to consume their own durable goods production; they rely on exports.
The U.S. is a more balanced economy; we consume 80% of our own production.  We are self-sustaining, China is not.
Without a market to sell their products, the Chinese economy cannot survive.
Conversely, China has focused so intensely on durable-goods manufacturing, their consumable goods market (food) is dependent; they cannot feed themselves.  The U.S. can survive without exporting food, China cannot survive without importing food.  The U.S. economy can survive without importing durable goods; the Chinese economy cannot survive without exporting durable goods.  This is the unavoidable trade reality.  As a consequence President Trump has all the factual leverage.
In stunning, and carefully worded economic writings, Chinese academics and economic ministers are now talking about the inherent weakness of the Red Dragon policies:
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This has to be one of the single funniest French retorts in the history of commerce.  If President Trump follows through on auto tariffs, France will strike back.  Let that sink in.
Oh noes,… your next Peugeot, Citroen or Renault purchase might cost more.  D’oh.

PARIS (Reuters) – Europe will hit back if U.S. President Donald Trump follows through with a threat to slap import tariffs on European-made cars, France’s finance minister said on Monday. Trump escalated already burning trade tensions on Friday by threatening to hit all imports of cars assembled in the European Union (EU) with a 20 percent tariff.   (more)

The EU is the most protectionist trade bloc in the world.  The German auto-sector is the most protected trade sector inside the EU.  The hypocrisy is silly.
The EU, Germany specifically, needs access to the U.S. market to survive.  Angela Merkel has already conceded this point in the EU concessionary position to abandon all auto tariffs; in exchange for removal of Steel and Aluminum tariffs.
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Whoopsie – During a debriefing session between Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, Canadian politicians and business leaders, the chief NAFTA negotiator for Canada Steve Verheul accidentally told the group, while cameras were rolling, there were no actual NAFTA negotiations taking place.

When a seemingly shocked participant then asked a follow-up question about how could Steve Verheul reconcile that admission against earlier statements about an upcoming  Memo of Understanding (MOU), Ms. Freeland quickly shut down the discussion -in french- until the cameras left the meeting.  [Watch Video Segment Here]

Council Question: “Do you still meet your counterparts? Do you still have committees that are working?  What is the status of the negotiations?
Steve Verheul: “We don’t have any active negotiations. I haven’t talked to them in a little while.”
Council Question: “Since, …since?”
Steve Verheul: “Two or three weeks. Um, I’ll have the odd conversation, but no real engagement, no real negotiation session.”
Council Question: “And when we hear that you were close to a kind of MOU [Memo of Understanding] what was the basis of that?”
Chrystia Freeland: awkward interruption in French. (watch below)

What became evident within the exchange is the Canadian government trying to hide the lack of NAFTA progress from concerned citizens inside Canada.  In essence, the Canadian government is lying to their citizens about the possibility of a NAFTA agreement.
The Canadian economy contracting.  Last month the Canadian economy dropped 31,000 full-time jobs.  Amid an economy one-tenth the size of the U.S, that would be a comparative single-month job loss of 310,000 in the United States.
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Seek first to understand.  During an assembly of Canadian left-spectrum pundits the U.S. and Canada relationship is the topic; the backdrop is the economic consequences, trade and NAFTA.   In this group the high-minded Canadians express their views, their wounded sensibilities, and yet simultaneously highlight an important strategic flaw.
Within their political frame-of-reference, they cannot fathom the tenuous nature of their dependency.  They think they are more important than they are. Their inability to accept the weakness of their economic position is based on their feelings. Pride is very dangerous in negotiations amid apex predators. If you are prideful you provide a strategic advantage for the opposition.  In negotiations, President Trump doesn’t care about ‘feelings’ or opinions toward his approach.
The Canadian economic position is ‘not to lose‘, the Trump position is to win.  There is a huge strategic difference within those two perspectives.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross gives an interview with CNBC about how the administration’s ongoing trade initiatives are addressing U.S. products and interactions with ongoing congressional stakeholders.
One of the more recent globalist (Wall Street) approaches to fend-off President Trump’s America First trade reset has been to target the ethical position of Secretary Ross; within the interview Ross swats away press reports about his current and prior investments.

This win needs to be sipped slowly for maximum enjoyment.  

First, we would draw your attention to May 23rd, when President Trump announced an instruction to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to begin a Section 301 review of the auto industry a week prior to the implementation of the Steel and Aluminum tariffs.
At the time when all media were discussing other ‘matters’ CTH pointed out the strategy that was visible in the Auto-Sector.  China, the EU (specifically Germany), and Canada were the strategic trade targets in the approach.  About a week later, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland snarkily announced her “sisterhood in trade” with EU Trade Minister Cecilia Malström, and how together they formed a strategy and were going to block President Trump.  They were very pleased with themselves (please watch).
Freeland and Prime Minister Justin from Canada, then strategized with Emmanuel from France and Angela from Germany on how they were going to use the G7 to embarrass President Trump on trade conflict issues via the summit; and subsequent use of media press conferences.  The entire thing back-fired, bigly.  President Trump announced the tariffs would continue until trade reciprocity improved.

It’s been two weeks since the best-laid-scheme was attempted.  In the interim, the international audience has watched President Trump’s unrelenting approach toward China.
In the grand-trade-conflict; China is a big fight none of the sideline players would ever attempt.  However, the downstream consequence of the international trade team watching intently is their realization that President Trump is not bluffing.  You can hear the proverbial gulps from across the Atlantic; and the tremors up North.
Back to May 23rd, 2018, and remember the auto tariff proposal.  President Trump has made it clear that he’s more than willing to use reciprocal trade tariffs against all trade partners in getting fair and balanced trade.  He ain’t bluffing.
Well, guess what just happened?
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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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European Union President Donald Tusk worries about the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama legacy being dismantled: “What worries me most is the fact that the rules-based international order is being challenged, quite surprisingly, not by the usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor: the US.”

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Every parasite needs a host. As soon as the host refuses to remain co-dependent to its own demise, the abusers begin to panic.

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The G7 outcome was politically important to left-wing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland.  In the days leading up to the summit, their leftist political ideology took a hit when Doug Ford’s conservative movement won in the Ontario Province.   Trudeau and Chrystia needed a G7 win.

As a consequence, Justin from Canada needed U.S. President Trump to sign-on to the G7 communique, giving the summit the appearance of influence and success.

The win was needed for domestic political consumption; however, there were/are massive trade issues as an outcome of NAFTA and both Canada and Mexico structuring their economies as pass-through manufacturers of Chinese, Asian and European goods to gain access to the coveted U.S. Market.

Team Justin/Chrystia played the “ally card” diplomatically requesting G7 support. Team Trump was willing to give Team Justin/Chrystia the optics of a political win in the G7 communique as a diplomatic showing of ‘good faith‘, and set aside the larger conflict of the trade dispute for another day.  However, moments after they achieved the needed validity, after gaining the U.S. G7 support, Justin/Chrystia dropped the diplomatic approach and went back to public political trade antagonism and confrontation.

That’s the ‘stab-in-the-back’ aspect.

For months Chrystia and Justin have been playing politics with their U.S., Mexico and Canada (NAFTA) trade negotiations.  Chrystia and Justin traveling all over the U.S., meeting with liberal comrades and lobbying Washington DC politicians.

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