Yesterday while exiting the White House, President Trump told reporters he had just finished a 90 minute phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin:

“We had a great call with President Putin. We’re talking about peace in Syria — very important. We’re talking about North Korea. We had a call that lasted almost an hour and a half. We’ve just put out a release on the call. But we’re talking very strongly about bringing peace for Syria. We’re talking about very strongly about North Korea and Ukraine.” (transcript)

Important to note that conversation was longer than would have been possible at any of the Bilat’s (Bilateral Discussion) during the ASEAN Summit or APEC Meeting in Asia.  A further review of the White House readout:
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UCLA basketball players LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill were arrested in China for shoplifting while attending basketball tournament. UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero said the players stole from three stores in China including sunglasses stolen by LiAngelo Ball from a Louis Vitton store. They were facing 10 years in prison. President Trump asked President Xi Jinping for leniency. The three players were released.
Thug life on display – After watching this bizarro interview with his father I can completely understand why LiAngelo Ball thought it would be perfectly okay to shoplift in China and live a life beyond the boundaries of ordinary moral behavior.  Somehow this guy thinks he’s making a point that will benefit his son – epic fail.
The father of the UCLA basketball player who was arrested in China for shoplifting sunglasses appears on CNN to explain why he feels President Trump did nothing to help his son get released from Chinese authorities.

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$64 billion of the current annual trade deficit with Mexico stems from the auto sector alone.
For over a decade auto manufacturers have moved to Mexico in order to import parts from Asia, assemble and install them, and then ship the completed cars into the U.S. through NAFTA without duties (tariffs).
The U.S. auto ancillary business groups (parts suppliers) have been pushed out of competition in the auto sector by this corporate profit strategy.  Thousands of U.S. jobs have been lost in both the plant assembly and the ‘auto-parts’ manufacturing sector.
CTH has called attention to this bastardized supply chain for years.  Foreign auto-parts, made by foreign workers, assembled into U.S. owned manufacturing, and sold as U.S. automobiles. The weird supply chain and assembly process is essentially a multinational corporate scheme (in the auto sector) which exploits one of the loopholes in the 25-year-old NAFTA agreement.
If the assembly plant was on U.S. soil the foreign (mostly Asian) parts would be taxed as imported parts.  However, so long as the assembly is in Mexico (or Canada), the origin of the parts is currently irrelevant, and the finished automobile crosses the border into the U.S. avoiding the taxes using NAFTA.
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Holy Cats… things are moving exponentially fast now…
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri is now disclosing the nature of his resignation, and why he left Lebanon to spend time in Saudi Arabia.  It appears the Saudi and regional partners provided evidence that Iran and Hezbollah were planning an assassination targeting Hariri and his family.
Saad Hariri traveled to France for a meeting with French President Emanuel Macron.
Yesterday President Trump and President Macron had a phone conversation where they agreed on the need for continued cooperation and partnership with regional allies, namely Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Gulf States and coalition members to confront the destabilizing efforts of Iran and Hezbollah:

JEDDAH: US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday agreed on the need to partner with allies to respond to the destabilization activities of Hezbollah and Iran in the region.
The two leaders’ telephone conversation came in the aftermath of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s resignation, which he announced during a recent trip to Saudi Arabia.
“Both presidents agreed on the need to work with allies to counter Hizballah’s and Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region,” a statement from the White House said.

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UCLA basketball players LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill were arrested in China for shoplifting while attending basketball tournament. UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero said the players stole from three stores in China including sunglasses stolen by LiAngelo Ball from a Louis Vitton store.
During a state visit to China President Donald Trump requested leniency and consideration from President Xi Jinping. The players were released as President Trump returned from Asia.
Now, the ungrateful father of LiAngelo Ball, LeVar Ball, dismisses the efforts of President Trump:

“Who?” LaVar Ball told ESPN on Friday, when asked about Trump’s involvement in the matter. “What was he over there for? Don’t tell me nothing. Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out.”

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The entire apparatus of the American moonbat-left ignores it, and simultaneously attempts to send it into the inconvenient memory-hole of nothingness, that’s what.
Nobel prize winning Aung San Suu Kyi is the State Counselor of Myanmar (Burma), and has for years been the de-facto personification of a heroine for far left Brangelina Peacenik treehuggers.

Lauded by the Birkinstock crew: Bog Geldof, Bono, and President Obama as the “Asian Mandela“, Aung San Suu Kyi was elevated to almost mythological status by Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, the U.S. State Department and international human rights groups.  In short, she was their heroine.
Unfortunately Aung San Suu Kyi was also susceptible to the intoxicating self-importance of expressed western globalism; and entirely inept in understanding the value in cultural nationalism, and the value of national identity, when there’s no framework of democracy to underpin her desired political and social changes.
After months of weakness, willful blindness and duplicity in allowing genocide against the Rohingya Muslim population, the bloom is off the ruse.  Follow modern peacenik liberalism to its natural and logical conclusion and you find totalitarian dictatorships created by losses in national sovereignty. Despite the apologetic and defensive posture of the New York Times the reality remains.
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Almost everyone understands the term “re branding”. Don’t laugh when you consider the possibility of re-branding Kim Jong-un; and more importantly, as an outcome, the entire geopolitical architecture of North Korea.  Rebranding takes time. This type of re branding takes silent and subtle persuasion.

It’s not a short term process, but look for indicators like this to ever-so-slowly morph. China’s Xi Jinping seeding ploughshares over missiles needs careful and controlled fertilization.
Business suits replacing General’s uniforms would be very good for the people of North Korea. Ultimately that’s an honorable goal.
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Chairman Xi is sending his CPC special envoy, Song Tao, to North Korea.

Song Tao, special envoy of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping, will leave for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Friday.  (Story Here)

This is President/Chairman Xi Jinping, now fully empowered by the communist party in Beijing, sending the party apparatus to talk to Kim Jong-un.  Previously these instructions would have come from Beijing’s old guard.  However, Chairman Xi now commands all power over the communist government; he doesn’t need their approval any longer.
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LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalem Hill have embarrassed our country, our president, their school and their families.  A day prior to President Trump’s arrival in China the three UCLA Bruin freshman basketball players were arrested in Shanghai, China for stealing sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store near the team hotel.
In addition to being a national embarrassment, they were facing harsh legal consequences in China that would forever destroy their lives.  However, during President Trump’s meeting with Communist Chinese President Xi Jinping, he asked for leniency.

While President Trump is en route back to the U.S. from the 12 day Asia trip, Chairman Xi Jinping has released the three thieves:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three UCLA basketball players detained in China on suspicion of shoplifting are on a plane back to Los Angeles.

Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said Tuesday the matter “has been resolved to the satisfaction of the Chinese authorities.”

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President Trump left the Philippines a little early Tuesday after the East Asia Summit schedule was running late.  According to Reuters President Trump left Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to attend the plenary session.

[Pool Report] POTUS, wearing a blue tie, exited Marine One, walked to Air Force One, shook a few people’s hands and scaled the stairs. He entered Air Force One at 3:12 pm and waved.
Trump did not stay for family photo with the 18 members of the East Asia Summit. The event was running behind schedule and he opted to leave.
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