Bilat #4 was a private meeting between President Trump and Denmark Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and closed to public.  [Greenland purchase?…]
Prior to Bilat #5 President Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’ hold a media availability prior to their meeting. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. We just met with the Prime Minister of Denmark. Had a great meeting and discussed a lot of things, including trade.
And now we’re meeting with a friend of mine — a good friend of mine, the Prime Minister of Italy. And we have many things to discuss, including trade and military and all sorts of different things that we’re working on together. And he’s done a terrific job, become very popular in Italy. A very popular man, as — I’m not surprised to say that.
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Earlier today President Trump hosted a luncheon at the NATO summit for nine nations’ who are living up to their pledges of two-percent of GDP financial support for the NATO military alliance: United States, Bulgaria, Greece, United Kingdom, Estonia, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you very much. These are eight countries, plus us — plus the United States — that are fully paid. They met the goal of 2 percent. We call them the “2 percenters.” Someday, we’ll raise it to 3 percent and 4 percent, maybe. But, right now, we have it.
But these are countries that have not been delinquent. They’ve been, in some cases, even more than 2 percent, because they feel so strongly about what we’re doing. And that’s really a sign of respect for the United States.
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President Trump held a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the sidelines of the 2019 NATO Summit in the U.K.  Against the backdrop of President Trump favoring increased tariffs against the EU to initiate a new trade deal based on reciprocity; and against the intransigence of Chancellor Merkel refusing to live up to the NATO Wales Accord and pay two percent of GDP for defense; there is some diplomatic tension.
We can sense a more determined tone from President Trumy as both he and Chancellor Merkel took questions from media. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you very much. We had a very successful NATO meeting. I think it was one of the most successful. We’re just discussing that the best, certainly, that I’ve been — I’ve been to three of them now, and this was really something very special. There’s great spirit. A lot of people are putting up a lot of money. We have $130 billion more. And within three years, we’ll have $400 billion more put up by other countries. So that’s really something. And it was a great meeting.
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President Trump was asked Wednesday to remark on disparaging comments made about him by Justin from Canada during the diplomatic reception at No. 10 Downing Street on Tuesday evening.
President Trump responded:  “Well, he’s two-faced;… and honestly he’s a nice guy, I find him to be a very nice guy, but the truth is I called him out on the fact that he’s not paying two percent and I guess he was not very happy about it.”

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At 10:00am ET the House Judiciary Committee will hold an “impeachment groundwork” hearing with a panel of left-wing resistance academics scheduled to help democrats justify their urgent partisan efforts to remove President Trump from office.
HJC Chairman Jerry Nadler will be aided by contracted Lawfare attorney Norm Eisen for the effort.  Chairman Nadler promised his peers he will be very aggressive toward any opposition questioning that seeks to undermine the predetermined enterprise. The academic panel is scheduled to begin testifying to Mr. Eisen at 10:00am ET
C-SPAN Livestream Link – Fox News Livestream Link – Fox Business Livestream Link

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President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump attend day two of the 70th Anniversary NATO Summit in London, England. The U.K. is five hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time.
Day two includes: a general session for all members of the NATO alliance; a luncheon by President Trump to thank those NATO members fulfilling their two-percent pledge to their own security; bilat meetings with Angela Merkel, Mette Frederiksen and Giuseppe Conte; a press conference, and then departure.

♦3:25am ET / 8:25am Local – THE PRESIDENT departs Winfield House Landing Zone en route to the Grove Landing Zone, London, UK
♦3:40am ET / 8:40am Local – THE PRESIDENT arrives at the Grove Landing Zone, London, UK
♦3:50am ET / 8:50am Local – THE PRESIDENT departs the Grove Landing Zone en route to The Grove, London, UK
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After a series of bilateral discussions and NATO meetings President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump attended two diplomatic receptions in honor of the 70th anniversary of the NATO alliance.
President Trump and First Lady Melania arrive at Buckingham Palace for a reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth II:

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The republican leadership from the U.S. House of Representatives held a press conference today as a rebuttal to the democrat impeachment inquiry report.  House Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins joined GOP leadership to discuss the significant issues with the impeachment process.  WATCH:

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Everything We The People ever needed to know about media bias is completely visible at the end of the press conference.  Few DC media attended.  Apparently the republican rebuttal message is antithetical to the DC media objective.
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In the second bilateral NATO meeting of the day, U.S. President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hold a joint press availability.
Unfortunately for U.S-Canada relations, at the conclusion of their bilat Trudeau went to a NATO reception at No. 10 Downing Street and was caught on mic disparaging President Trump with French President Emmanuel Macron. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you very much, everybody. A question was asked just a little while ago about supporting the people protesting in Iran and are going through a very tough period. And we do support them totally and have supported them from the beginning.
The question was asked: “Do we support them” — I thought — “financially?” And we haven’t supported them. I don’t know that we’ve ever been actually asked to support them, financially. And I — you know, if somebody asked, maybe we would. But we support them very, very seriously. The people that are protesting in Iran, they’re looking for their freedom, and we are fully in support of them.
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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appeared on CNBC earlier today to discuss the status of U.S-China trade discussions, the latest issues with tariffs on French goods, and the bigger picture issues within the EU that we previously discussed.
Ross highlights the additional tariffs on China scheduled for December 15th are currently still planned to take effect unless something substantial changes in the position of China.  Additionally, and interestingly on the French and EU tariffs, Secretary Ross reminds the financial pundits of the $7.5 billion WTO authorized award against the EU that would be in addition to the $2.4 billion in tariffs now scheduled for French products.

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Pay attention to what Ross says in that interview; the administration is being remarkably open and consistent.  Given the adversarial position exhibited by French President Emmanuel Macron today; and against the backdrop of continual EU intransigence on trade reciprocity; I suspect once the USMCA is passed we are going to see a *severe* shift in tone within the U.S. trade position toward both China and the EU.
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