Early this morning China transmitted and interesting tweet position that was/is a transparent display of their panda mask. In essence the panda play was a call for team USA to drop the zero-sum outlook and seek a win/win. Given the historic nature of Chinese negotiations the tweet was rather funny. However, it does highlight the dance.
Additionally, a few hours later President Trump tweeted about ongoing U.S-China trade discussions and something to watch for:
Moments ago we received the first indications of Chairman Xi’s panda play:

(Via Wall Street Journal) China agreed to reduce tariffs on U.S. autos to 15%, down from 40% currently, during a phone call with U.S. officials that opened the latest round of trade talks aimed at settling a trade dispute festering between the world’s two largest economic powers, according to a person familiar with the matter.

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The issues appear multifaceted. In a Canadian court lawyers for Chinese company Huawei CFO, Meng Wanzhou, are arguing for bail while she awaits extradition to the United States for violations on Iran sanctions.
There’s an element to this entire story that appears suspicious. President Trump was intentionally kept out of the loop; and that reality could infer that U.S. (deep state) actors were/are leveraging the Huawei matter as a poison pill against Trump’s trade reset with China.
Years ago such a possibility might be dismissed as conspiracy theory. However, today, knowing how far the administrative state has gone to disrupt the Trump presidency, such a concerted deep state scheme with Canada seems entirely plausible.

VANCOUVER (Reuters) – A Canadian provincial court on Monday weighed whether to grant bail to a top executive of one of the world’s biggest telecommunications companies, Huawei Technologies, while she awaits a ruling on extradition to the United States.
U.S. prosecutors want Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou to be extradited to face accusations she misled multinational banks about Huawei’s control of a company operating in Iran, putting the banks at risk of violating U.S. sanctions which would incur severe penalties, court documents said.

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CTH has never hidden our disgust for the corrupt lobbying enterprise known as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and their President Tom Donohue.  No internal organization in modern history has done more to harm American workers and American industry than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  Their fraudulent and corrupt enterprise is a toxic threat to our economy.
Today the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issues a statement denouncing the trade strategy of the Trump administration and announcing their lobbying support for the USMCA trade agreement is contingent upon the removal of Steel and Aluminum tariffs.

As the Washington Times writes: “The Chamber had previously complained that the deal’s language limiting protections for investors and stiffening of the “rules of origin” for when autos can be duty-free were problematic.”  Put another way: Wall Street is angry their multinational constructs are not supported, and protecting U.S. workers from the predatory nature of global outsourcing is bad for their controlled market schemes.
Ultimately, Donohue’s biggest complaint -revealed by historic review- is that his organization didn’t get to write the USMCA trade agreement and were stopped from selling their special interest carve-outs to their corporate clients.
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President Trump is the first U.S. President to confront Beijing directly -head on- and the Chinese respect him immensely for it. It is an inherently adversarial relationship; but it is also a conflict where opponents respect their enemy because the outcome is victory or death. Ultimately, this, from the perspective of China, is a zero-sum contest.
President Trump is also the first U.S. President to: (1) understand how the red dragon hides behind the panda mask; and (2) be willing to directly confront that dynamic. That’s where U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer comes in.

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Ambassador Lighthizer is willing to go to the mattresses because he knows that ultimately his kids future, and his bosses’ grand-kids future, are entirely dependent on victory.  Freedom or serfdom, those are the alternatives.  Yes, this is that big a deal.  The biggest of all big deals (pun intended) in the last century.
There is also no doubt in my mind that President Trump has a very well thought out long-term strategy regarding China.
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President Trump’s MAGAnomic trade and foreign policy agenda is jaw-dropping in scale, scope and consequence. There are multiple simultaneous aspects to each geopolitical policy objective; however, many have been visible for a long time – some even before the election victory in November ’16.
Maria Bartiromo has a view that stems from 30-years of Wall Street economic advocacy. Bartiromo reflects the most common frame of reference for almost all financial punditry. [Orange-Man-Bad-Tariffs] This perspective stems from the era when Wall Street’s economy was sold as the only model possible for the future of the U.S.  In short they were taught that a U.S. manufacturing and production economy was gone, and the only viable economic model was the “service driven economy”.  Bullshit!
In this interview U.S. Trade Council Director Peter Navarro is affirming policy to the benefit of Main Street not Wall Street. There is an inherent disconnect and conflict.

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The words from Peter Navarro will come as no surprise to any CTH reader who is fully engaged and reviewing the multi-trillion stakes, within the Globalist (Wall St.) -vs- Nationalist (Main Street) confrontation.
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If the latest reports are accurate, this is *not* good.  Remember, there are trillions at stake and Wall Street has spent hundreds-of-million on behalf of multinational interests lobbying to keep the current status with China unchanged.
There’s a deep financial motive within this dynamic to stop President Trump from resetting the trade relationship with China. Additionally, Canada is aligned in self-interest with Wall Street and Trump’s adversaries toward the same goal.

Apparently National Security Adviser John Bolton was aware the CFO of Huawei was going to be arrested in Canada.  However, President Trump was kept out of the loop.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, said in an interview with National Public Radio that he knew in advance about the arrest of a top executive of the Chinese technology giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL], according to an NPR reporter on Thursday.
Bolton said he did not know if the president was aware in advance of the arrest of Meng Wanzhou in Canada on Saturday, the day Trump struck a 90-day truce on trade in a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Argentina, NPR reporter Steve Inskeep said in a tweet.

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White House trade adviser Peter Navarro appears on Fox Business to discuss the possibility of trade deals between the U.S. and China.  Navarro explains the Buenos Aires dinner meeting and how Chairman Xi outlined his position on three buckets of U.S. concerns.
Charles Payne is going bananas because he doesn’t understand what happens in the space between two different sets of economic policy benefactors:  Wall Street and Main Street.
Wall Street is going to lose ground; period.  Their financial interests are dependent on retaining the status-quo multinational/global economic systems.  President Trump is supporting Main Street over the interests of Wall Street.  Stocks that are centered on U.S. blue-collar companies, domestic benefits, will grow; all other multinational stocks will not.

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Within the dynamic of the U.S -vs- China trade confrontation, CTH noted the Wall Street (globalist) multinationals would likely go bananas.  There are trillions at stake and President Trump is confronting three decades of financial influence from the corporate lobbyists.   To the angst of Wall Street, POTUS Trump tweets the dynamic:
President Trump has been brutally consistent for more than three decades on his intent and purpose with the Chinese.  President Trump is the first U.S. President to understand how the red dragon hides behind the panda mask.
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National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow discusses some of the key specifics within the dinner table conversation between President Trump and Chairman Xi.  [*note* at the very end of this briefing, Kudlow is asked about the German auto visit tomorrow]
President Trump has been brutally consistent for more than three decades on his intent and purpose with the Chinese.  President Trump is the first U.S. President to understand how the red dragon hides behind the panda mask.  Additionally, while carrying out the objectives of the confrontation, Secretary Mnuchin, Secretary Ross, Ambassador Lighthizer and adviser Navarro are well aware of Beijing’s panda mask; POTUS Trump will never let them forget about it.

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With a full quarter of trade data to analyze the impacts, the Chinese tariff results are now measurable.  A multinational group studying the outcome (full pdf), identified that approximately 4.5% of the current tariff impact is being carried by American consumers.  The overwhelming cost of the tariff is being paid (20.5% absorbed) by Chinese producers.
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One of the less discussed aspects to President Trump’s economic cabinet is the careful selection of specific members who operate above the financial influence of ‘The Big Club’. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are two key positions able to focus on economic nationalism without worrying about undue influence from the globalist lobbying pressure of Tom Donohue and the U.S. CoC.
The baseline of financial independence, and disconnect from self-interest, is unique in our lifetime; and allows the resulting execution of economic policy to focus, very deliberately, on America First objectives.  Secretary Mnuchin discusses the China confrontation:

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