The Commerce Department has released the first advanced estimate of retail sales and consumer spending for June. Core retail sales increased 0.7 percent last month (very strong), and 3.8 percent year-over-year; very strong retail sales.
Retail sales is an important component to the U.S. economy as more than two-thirds of our GDP is based from retail sales. In essence, one of the unique attributes to the U.S. economy is that we buy lots of stuff. Actually, the U.S. consumer buys almost three-quarters of everything produced. We are -for the most part- self-sustaining; we do not necessarily need to depend on exports. When the U.S. consumer is buying stuff the internal economy is strong.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. retail sales increased more than expected in June, pointing to strong consumer spending, which could help to blunt some of the drag on the economy from weak business investment.
[…] Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales edging up 0.1% in June. Compared to June last year, retail sales advanced 3.4%.

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Earlier today President Donald Trump welcomed Amir Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani from Qatar to the White House. Qatar came under considerable scrutiny from President Trump as part of the 2017 mid-east alliance due to their connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, terrorist financing, and regional issues in conflict with Saudi and Egyptian allies.
When President Trump formed the mid-east coalition, & referencing extremist elements, said: “drive them out”, the target audience was Qatar. [Video and Transcript below]

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[Transcript] PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. It’s a great honor to be with the Amir of Qatar — a highly respected man, a real leader in a large part of the world and a very important part of the world. And we’ve known each other a long time. We’ve been friends for a long time.
And we’re doing a lot of work now. They’re investing very heavily in our country. They’re creating a lot of jobs. They’re buying tremendous amounts of military equipment, including planes. And they’re buying commercial planes, as you know — very large numbers of commercial planes from Boeing. And we very much appreciate it.
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Back in 2015 I explained why CTH would support Donald J Trump, and what the statement: “Make America Great Again”, really meant from my perspective.  Not only has Donald Trump been a President true to his word, he has far exceeded our expectations.
America, our America, is greatest -most blessed- nation on the face of the earth; and every person within her borders is lucky.   I make no apologies for my patriotism and neither does United States President, Donald J Trump.   American independence is a swagger:

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President Trump proudly says: “We will Make America Great Again”, and when I hear that, I hear someone who gives a damn about America.  Actually, physically, purposefully and intently ‘gives-a-damn’ without the hint of apology for it.  And that is buckets more valuable to me than a perfected highly-rehearsed set of 30 second sound bites and think-tank policy.
You see, from my perspective any average hard-working American could eat every one of DC’s political elites’ lunches, all of them; and if they want to go down the intellectual superiority path… well, where it really matters, intellectualism is useless.

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The last bilateral meeting of the first day at the G20 in Osaka, Japan, was held between President Trump and Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro.  [Video and Transcript]
The US accounts for 34 percent of the world’s soybean production with 108 million metric tons. Brazil accounts for 30 percent of the global production of the crop with 87 million metric tons. Combined, Trump and Bolsonaro control 64 percent of global soybean production. [China consumes 60 percent of global soybeans available for export.]
Note: Brazil is a strategic geopolitical U.S. partner against Chairman Xi’s influence, due to the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). It is obvious this has been discussed between Bolsonaro and POTUS Trump.  Within the media pool some enterprising narrative engineer asked President Trump about the Day-Two meeting between Xi and Trump, as noted below (emphasis mine):

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[Transcript] PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much everybody. We’re with a gentleman who had one of the greatest election wins anywhere in the world, as far as I’m concerned, and he was very proud of his relationship with President Trump — President of Brazil. And he’s a special man — doing very well, very much loved by the people of Brazil. And I think we can say that Brazil and the United States are as close or closer as they’ve ever been. So I just want to welcome you and say thank you very much, my friend.
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The construct of the USMCA was always anticipated to sail through ratification in Mexico because, well, quite frankly, the USMCA is specifically structured to provide great benefit toward Mexico. It’s not because the language within the USMCA favors Mexico, but rather the rules are centered around deregulating industry, and lifting wages.
The rules-of-origin, in combination with mandated minimum wage rates attached to the manufacturing sector; and the fact that Mexico has the lowest current wage rates in North American; specifically means that Mexican workers stand to get the biggest financial benefits… and that’s ok.  Trump, Lighthizer and Ross designed it that way.

The U.S. benefits when the Mexican wage rates are raised.  Heck, there was a time in the early negotiations, after Canada was kicked out of the room, when Secretary Wilbur Ross was advocating for an $11/hr minimum wage in Mexico, and the Mexicans were like ‘whoa, wait a minute, too high, too high’… [It was quite funny, because Trump was being called racist simultaneous to him trying to give a $85/day pay raise to Mexicans (from $3/day)].

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico on Wednesday became the first country to ratify the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) agreed late last year to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) at the behest of U.S. President Donald Trump.

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The latest set of statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) shows all of the professional pundit claims of higher prices on imported goods due to Trump tariffs are simply disconnected from reality.  In actuality the year-over-year prices of import products are actually dropping:

U.S. Import prices fell 0.3 percent in May, the first monthly decline since a 1.4-percent drop in December. Import prices advanced 1.8 percent from December to April before the downturn in May. The price index for overall imports decreased 1.5 percent over the past 12 months, matching the drop in January. These were the largest over-the-year declines since the index fell 2.2 percent in August 2016. (See table 1.)

The U.S steel and aluminum tariffs have been in effect globally since 2017. Tariffs on softwood lumber (Canada) & durable appliances (S. Korea), same duration.  Additionally the first set of tariffs on China is now well over a year old; and the second set of expanded tariffs on China began a month ago; again, no material impact to the delivered price.
Despite two years of claims by the professional media that tariffs would lead to higher prices for U.S. consumers, as you can see above the reality is quite different.
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President Trump has taken the leverage of economics to levels of geopolitical strategy never seen before.  Nowhere is the genius strategy more clear than in the way Trump has positioned the trade reset and confrontation with China.
In hindsight every move since early 2017 including:  (1) the warm welcome of Chairman Xi Jinping to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate; (2) the vociferous praise poured upon Xi; (3) the November 2017 tour of Asia; (4) the direct engagement with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un; the strategic relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe; and a host of smaller nuanced moves have been quietly building toward a conclusion.
The upcoming G-20 summit is the last chance for Trump and Xi to reconcile considerable differences and President Trump has the strongest strategic position any Chinese official has ever faced.
After Beijing walked away from previous agreements between USTR Robert Lighthizer and Vice-Premier Liu He, Trump initiated a series of punishing economic consequences that had to have been well planned in advance.
The economy in China is reeling from the pressure applied; and stunningly it has only been a month since the consequence phase began.
In addition to tariff increases, the U.S. blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co., threatened other major Chinese tech companies and essentially cut-off China from the international supply chain it needs to sustain itself.  Beijing responded by drawing up a list of “unreliable entities” and making threats against any enterprise that would walk away from business engagement with China.  The totalitarian response has worsened the situation, and more companies have announced their intent to decouple from Beijing.
An important aspect, missed by most observers, is the ideology and outlook within any Chinese engagement. Quite simply, if it does not benefit China it is not done.  Therefore any negotiation with China is challenging because Beijing will cede no ground they view as already won.
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If you’ve got the time this is well worth watching.  Larry Kudlow is Chairman of the National Economic Council and delivers a strong voice amid the economic team of assembled by President Trump.
Kudlow provides value because he comes from the Wall Street economic punditry networking group that just doesn’t understand MAGAnomics, or ‘America First’ Main Street policy.   President Trump has taught Kudlow a great deal.  So Kudlow’s value is heightened by his ability to explain Trump’s Main Street policy to his old Wall St. tribe; who genuinely have no concept of Main Street policy (hence, they’re always puzzled).

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President Trump travels to Iowa today to deliver a policy speech on renewable energy.  The remarks are taking place at Southwest IA Renewable Energy in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Later this evening President Trump will deliver remarks at the Republican Party of Iowa annual dinner.  Start time for the energy speech approximately 4:20pm EST:
UPDATE: Video Added

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Let’s be clear about a few things regarding “carbon taxes”.  First, the system of taxing carbon emissions, also known as “cap-n-trade”, has absolutely nothing to do with climate change.  Second a “carbon tax” is the holy grail for the totalitarian globalist world view.
The concept of a tax on carbon emissions was developed inside the same financial network of multinational monetary interests that control the current global trade system.  Powerful financial interests directly connected to The World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organization (WTO), together with global banking interests connected to Wall Street and all international stock-trading systems, were the first to put together a “cap-n-trade” proposal after the financial collapse in 2008.

The basis of a carbon tax, which is the foundational element of a cap-n-trade system, is based on the same model(s) used by multinational banks within the global trade markets.
The cap-n-trade system, is a financial scheme; an actual trading system where global leaders (IMF) would determine the equity of energy that should be proportioned to each person around the world.
From that global determination, an average of sorts, any excess use of energy by any individual or entity would lead to a payment, a tax, into a global trade market.  The scale of the money involved -tens of trillions- is why a cap-n-trade system is the ‘holy grail’ to control human behavior.
In reality the system, as proposed, works to redistribute individual wealth in the same manner that exifiltration of wealth works in commodity and durable goods trading.  If the global energy footprint per person is an allowance of, say, $100/month; and you consume $150/month in carbon energy, you would be taxed on the excess $50 at a rate determined by those who control the trade market.  The whole thing is a financial scheme.
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