Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appears on Fox News this morning to discuss Phase II in the economic confrontation with China.  The hurt will increase until behavior changes.
Phase II is direct, deliberate and fully confrontational trade engagement with extreme prejudice to financially hurt the Chinese economy and present the communist regime with examples of what will lie ahead if they do not concede to U.S. terms.
The first objective in Phase II is to convince the Chinese the war is real.  Beijing cannot yet fathom the United States is not going to allow the import of low cost manufactured goods…. they believe, wrongly, against a history with all previous administrations, that President Trump is bluffing.

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As POTUS Trump and the U.S. trade team target ever increasing tariff pressure upon Beijing to change their behavior, keep a close eye on North Korea. Given the zero-sum approach of the Chinese; and their history of weaponizing the DPRK; we could expect to see Beijing roll out nuclear antagonism again in an overt effort to gain concessions.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross discusses the need to hit China with even more economic pressure. WATCH:

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Main Street U.S.A., the American worker and the American farmer know what is at stake. The globalist Wall Street financial class, and their financial media, can gripe and moan, but that is not going to deter President Trump from this critical trade reset.  When Secretary Ross says: “we’re going to win this“, he speaks with knowledge of who controls the maximum leverage…. it ain’t Chairman Xi.
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In June and July last year it became obvious President Trump was going to initiate a full-frontal geopolitical confrontation with China based on their ambitions for economic conquest.  We labeled the confrontation: Eagle -vs- Red Dragon.
Specifically around: intellectual property theft; massive U.S. trade imbalances; imposed tariffs, and ridiculous non-tariff barriers put in place by China, we anticipated the conflict would eventually force Beijing to drop the Panda mask and expose their economic intentions.  Additionally there was clarity within President Trump’s approach for any observer who was willing to accept the history of Mr. Trump’s views on the larger issues. In short, POTUS Trump will not back down.
In March of 2018 U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer completed a section 301 review of China’s trade practices.  [SEE HERE] Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 authorizes the President to take all appropriate action, including retaliation, to obtain the removal of any act, policy, or practice of a foreign government that violates an international trade agreement or is unjustified, unreasonable, or discriminatory, and that burdens or restricts U.S. commerce.  However, as talks with China progressed, President Trump shelved the 301 action to see where negotiations would end-up.
Due to the severity of communist ideology, and the intransigence of China to make any modification to their global economic plans, Chairman Xi Jinping made the strategic decision to elevate the confrontation in full Red Dragon mode.  The May and June, 2018, negotiations between the U.S. and China provided no progress.  The 301 review of China is now pulled back off the shelf, and President Trump assembles his trade-war strategy:
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Apparently our CTH suspicions were correct; this is interesting.  Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland is scheduled to leave Canada on Tuesday for a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Singapore…. Meanwhile U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and a high-level Mexican team -consisting of both incoming AMLO and exiting Nieto delegations- will be meeting again to determine the details of a bilateral trade deal.

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo is from the outgoing Pena Nieto administration and was part of the crew supporting the Canadian position; ie. the plan to continue exploiting the NAFTA loophole.  However, Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has selected Jesus Seade as his lead person for trade negotiations and appears more willing to engage in a bilateral trade deal with the U.S.
AMLO’s Jesus Seade, Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and Ambassador Robert Lighthizer are meeting again this Thursday to put the outline of a deal together; while Canada is sidelined from the discussion.
Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association in Canada, said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Americans and the Mexicans came to some resolution on that piece (autos) and then the Americans flip it back to Canada and say ‘Take it or leave it’.”  That is exactly what CTH anticipated was going to happen.
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Interestingly Reuters uses the narrative from an anonymous Canadian “official” to frame an article about how global car manufacturers are coming together next week in Geneva to coordinate their strategy against the United States and President Trump.
Just let that part sink in for a moment…

Behind that context we can clearly see: 1) the economic importance of the Auto industry to the countries that are assembling; 2) their multinational corporate interest in retaining unlimited access to the U.S. market; and 3) the absolute need of all assembling corporations to find a way to keep their investments in NAFTA’s fatal flaw viable.
Who is gathering?  Canada, Mexico, the EU (ie. Germany), Japan and South Korea.
Where are they going?  To visit Geneva, Switzerland.  Why Geneva? Because that way China can attend (see Volvo/Sweden) without being on the official roster.  ::nudge, nudge:: ::wink, wink::  ::say-no-more Panda boy, say-no-more::  Additionally, Cecelia Malmström (EU Trade Minister), is the person Canada is relying upon to cover their anti-Trump position:

MEXICO CITY/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada, the European Union, Japan, Mexico and South Korea will meet in Geneva next week to discuss how to respond to threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on U.S. imports of autos and car parts, officials familiar with the talks said.

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The head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Kevin Hassett shares his perspective on the 4.1 percent GDP growth, and the ongoing MAGAnomic America-First initiatives.   Hassett rightly points out that finished good domestic inventories dropped as an outcome of consumer purchasing outpacing manufacturing.  As more manufacturing comes on-line, the production capacity expansion leads to more GDP growth.
Remember, one of the unique attributes of the U.S. economy, thanks to the foresight of industrial titans who built it, is our internal consumption.  We are not only the worlds’ largest economy, we are the biggest self-sustaining economy in the history of the world; a massively consequential strategic advantage. Our leverage comes from nations needing access to our market; the U.S. does not necessarily need access to theirs. Therefore POTUS Trump can dictate the terms.

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National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow discusses the framework for the U.S./E.U. trade agreement. [Remember, the highly controversial auto-sector is removed from the entire negotiation.] Chairman Kudlow discusses the benefit of the U.S. and E.U. working together to confront China at the World Trade Organization; this is key.
Additionally, Kudlow discusses the forward-leaning meetings being conducted by both the U.S. trade team and the Mexican trade delegation. The multidimensional U.S. trade strategy is operating, and advancing, on several simultaneous fronts.

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Originally outlined a year ago. Reposted by request, because we are watching it play out in real time: Believe me, at the heart of the professional/political opposition the issue is the money; there are trillions at stake.

President Trump’s MAGAnomic trade and foreign policy agenda is jaw-dropping in scale, scope and consequence. There are multiple simultaneous aspects to each policy objective; they have been outlined for a long time even before the election victory in November ’16.
If you get too far into the weeds the larger picture can be lost. CTH objective is to continue pointing focus toward the larger horizon, and then at specific inflection points to dive into the topic and explain how each moment is connected to the larger strategy.

Today we repost an earlier dive into how MAGAnomic policy interacts with multinational Wall Street, the stock market, the U.S. financial system and perhaps your personal financial value. Again, reference and source material is included at the end of the outline.
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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appears on Fox News with Barf Baier to discuss the outlines of the trade agreement between the U.S. and E.U.
While there is overlap and a great deal of synergy depending on the deal being negotiated, within the central U.S. trade team each member has a specific region of responsibility to focus upon: ♦U.S.T.R Ambassador Robert Lighthizer has NAFTA; ♦National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow and White House Manufacturing Policy Director Peter Navarro have China; ♦Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has the EU.
So it makes sense that Secretary Ross would be the point-person discussing the outlines of the U.S./E.U. trade agreement.

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There’s a lot of news this week reflecting a great deal of oppositional alignment against the presidency of Donald Trump. CTH can get down in the weeds of each specific issue to discuss the motives and intents (we will, and do), but the big picture MUST remain at the forefront of understanding. If we lose track of the big picture, the weeds are overwhelming.

…“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”
~ Niccolò Machiavelli

♦POTUS Trump is disrupting the global order of things in order to protect and preserve the shrinking interests of the U.S. He is fighting, almost single-handed, at the threshold of the abyss. Our interests, our position, is zero-sum. Our opposition seeks to repel and retain the status-quo. They were on the cusp of full economic victory over the U.S.

(Reuters Article Link)

Summary of Action: President Trump structuring a plan to break up multinational BIG-AG, and their “controlled markets.”  STOP  In the interim, to return to supply-side principles, POTUS Trump proposes a bridge-subsidy approach to wean farmers off exploitative, globalist, multinational “contract farming”.  STOP  In this endeavor President Trump and Mexican President Lopez Obrador will be brothers-in-arms.  FULLSTOP
President Trump is disrupting decades of multinational financial interests who use the U.S. as a host for their ideological endeavors. President Trump is confronting multinational corporations and the global constructs of economic systems that were put in place to the detriment of the host (USA) ie. YOU; or in this example the U.S. farmer. There are trillions at stake; it is all about the economics; all else is chaff and countermeasures.
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