Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland begin a U.S. media grievance tour to frame a narrative around the recent Steel and Aluminum tariffs.

The Canadian duo intentionally conflate a U.S. objective to secure the Steel and Aluminum industrial base into a narrative that the U.S. is targeting Canada as a security threat.  Despite this shamefully obtuse argument the majority of Canadians and the vast majority of Americans can see right through this nonsense.  Trudeau and Freeland should be ashamed (but they won’t be), watch:

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Canada and Mexico have both structured their international trade deals around their ability to provide access to the coveted $20 trillion U.S. market. Rather than fix the fatal flaw in NAFTA, which would cost them billions, both nations have doubled down with demands that their dependency model be allowed to continue. They are both about to discover the catastrophic consequences to that decision. Their economic losses will now be exponentially larger as an outcome of their entrenched ideology.

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Interesting delegation to accompany Secretary Ross: treasury, agriculture and energy. Small delegation, short trip, sounds like contract discussions.

From Camp David –  Today, President Donald J. Trump announced the members of an official delegation from the United States to China to discuss rebalancing the bilateral economic relationship between the United States and China.

These meetings will take place from June 2 through June 3, and are a continuation of the talks held in Beijing one month ago and in Washington two weeks ago.

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross will lead the discussions, accompanied by United States Ambassador to China Terry Branstad, Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs David Malpass, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Ted McKinney, and United States Trade Representative Chief Agricultural Negotiator Ambassador Gregg Doud.

Additional officials and technical experts from the Department of Commerce, Department of Treasury, United States Trade Representative, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Energy will also participate in the talks.  (link)

“No more stupid trade deals” ~ U.S. President Donald Trump

From the G7 Mission Statement outlining the objectives of their meeting: “From May 31 – June 2, 2018, G7 Ministers responsible for development cooperation met in Whistler, Canada, to discuss their shared priorities on some of the most pressing global development and humanitarian challenges, including advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.”

However, as the G7 finance ministerial sessions wrapped up today, all the talk centered around their collective, and stunningly hypocritical, angst at new United States trade policy; specifically the imposition of Steel and Aluminum tariffs on imported goods.

France, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and Italy all have trade tariffs and trade barriers far higher than the U.S.  Each of the G7 nations has exploited the overwhelmingly one-sided access to the U.S. market for decades.  As President Trump demands “reciprocal and fair” trade agreements – those same nations now balk at the same rules and duties they impose on the U.S. now being imposed against them.

The European Union is a non-enumerated member of the G7, and does not chair nor hosts Summits; however, the EU head joins with the G7 in collective angst against a U.S. trade reset.   It’s hilarious to watch them going bananas.

WHISTLER, British Columbia (Reuters) – Finance leaders of the closest U.S. allies vented anger over the Trump administration’s metal import tariffs but ended a three-day meeting in Canada on Saturday with no solutions, setting the stage for a heated fight at a G7 summit next week in Quebec.

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the May Jobs Report earlier today (pdf here) and has stunned forecasters and economic analysts with incredible results.  Over 223,000 jobs were created in May, and the unemployment rate drops to 3.8%.

As the New York Times is forced to admit, there are not enough words to describe just how good these results are amid the continued growth of the U.S. economy. Accepting the BLS heavily manipulated jobs numbers during the Obama years, the BLS is forced to attempt to reconcile the scale of monthly job gains (223k) and an unemployment rate that has seemingly dropped below the floor of reasonable possibility.  As a result 3.8% is the lowest unemployment rate since April 2000; and if the unemployment rate drops another 0.1% it will be the lowest unemployment number since the 1960s.

Average monthly employment growth in 2018 now averages a whopping 207,000 jobs per month.  These monthly average gains are faster than gains in both 2016 and 2017.  Collectively, the U.S. economy has added nearly 3 million jobs since President Donald J. Trump took office.

White House:  “Job growth has been strong across the board during the first 16 months of this Administration, and the gains in the goods-producing industries (manufacturing, construction, and mining and logging) have been especially robust. After averaging gains of 27,000 jobs per month during President Obama’s second term, these industries have almost doubled the pace of hiring to 46,000 jobs per month since January 2017. Manufacturing gains have picked up even more speed: Monthly gains have averaged 19,000 per month since President Trump took office after increases of only 8,000 per month, on average, during the second term of President Obama.

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South Korean Prime Minister Moon Jae-in is the Asian version of Barack Obama, and much like North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un essentially irrelevant in this geopolitical confrontation.  Take a seat, or make a sandwich…. it matters not.

Behind the fanciful Korean ‘denuclearization talks‘ and lofty ‘peace initiatives‘ a far more consequential geopolitical economic battle is taking place between the worlds largest two economies.  U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping are engaged.

The Sandwich Maker Summit –  (Reuters) – “South Korean President Moon Jae-in held a surprise meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Saturday in an effort to ensure that a high-stakes summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump takes place successfully, South Korean officials said.

[…]  Their two hours of talks at the Panmunjom border village came a month after they held the first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade at the same venue. At that meeting, they declared they would work toward a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War.

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Big picture move by President Trump today that has massive, and generally misinterpreted, ramifications for any trade deal with China, EU and most importantly NAFTA.

China is using U.S. nuclear negotiations with North Korea as leverage for more beneficial trade outcomes; the communist regime is in full manipulative dragon-mode. President Trump can see through the economic play and is dropping the Panda outreach.  Eagle-one now hits back at Chairman Xi for deploying such dangerous tactics.

If you have been following trade nuance, the Automobile Sector is one of the biggest points of contention within varying trade negotiations. In the NAFTA discussion the auto-sector, via rules of origin, runs at the heart of NAFTA’s fatal flaw.

The fatal flaw is the use of Asian, mostly Chinese, auto components within auto manufacturing. Mexico and Canada arguing to allow more Chinese auto parts in North American manufacturing; and President Trump demanding more North American parts for North American auto manufacturing.

Many U.S. Auto manufacturers have moved to Mexico to exploit the NAFTA loophole (fatal flaw). Vehicles assembled in Mexico use cheaper Chinese parts and are shipped into the U.S. without any tariff under NAFTA rules.

It didn’t take long before EU auto-manufacturers, mostly German, to begin taking the same approach. Albeit to a lesser extent, German auto companies also invested in building vehicles in Mexico/Canada for tariff-free transfer into the U.S. This works out great for Canada and Mexico auto-workers, but not for the U.S.

In essence, the auto-sector is representative of much of the manufacturing exploitation by multinational corporations beyond vehicle production. China has supported this approach because they produce the components for multiple sectors (furniture, appliances etc).

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Earlier today President Trump welcomed President Mirziyoyev of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the White House for a diplomatic meeting. Among the issues discussed were regional security issues important to Uzbekistan, and engagement in economic partnerships with U.S. companies to enhance a growing trade relationship:

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Recap video below:

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On June 29th, 2017, CTH drew attention to the advanced U.S. energy policy as it was being announced, and the media avoided coverage.  At the time our headline was: “Stratospheric in Consequence – Trump Policy: Unleashing American Energy Independence”.

The bottom-line was simple.  It was clearly visible that POTUS Trump had a plan to unleash the U.S. energy sector as part a much larger larger economic and national security strategy.  The concept was so radical, and the potential ramifications so consequential, it was stunning how no financial media were putting the dots together.

Trump’s geopolitical energy strategy actually underpinned the national security interests with Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.  Additionally, the same energy policy was one of the four corners of the MAGAnomic trade policy; currently becoming more visible.

Check out today’s headline from Reuters, and think about how outside-the-box thinking has brought about these results:

(Tweet Link – Article Link)

From the article: MOSCOW/LONDON (Reuters) – As OPEC’s efforts to balance the oil market bear fruit, U.S. producers are reaping the benefits – and flooding Europe with a record amount of crude.

Russia paired with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries last year in cutting oil output jointly by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd), a deal they say has largely rebalanced the market and one that has helped elevate benchmark Brent prices close to four-year highs.

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Making left-wing ‘splodey heads one tweet at a time:

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Today President Trump is traveling to Richfield, Ohio, to visit a union technical training facility for welding and heavy equipment. While there the President will deliver a speech about rebuilding infrastructure in America.  Anticipated start time 2:00pm EST.

UPDATE: Video Added

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