MAGAnomics baby!!  Throw dem ju-ju bones out the windows and hold on to your britches…  The U.S. Dept of Labor is reporting unemployment claims have dropped to 210,000.  That’s the lowest jobless number since December 6th, 1969.

You know what this means right?

…wait for it.

…wait for it.

That’s right. We better grab chin straps for the hard hats, because pay raises and wage rate increases are thundering toward the middle-class like an unstoppable herd of buffalo. Exactly on schedule.  Cha-ching & Ka-pow.

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For those who follow closely the strongest argument against the U.S. trade and economic policies of the past 30 years has been the outcome. We don’t need to guess what the pro’s and con’s of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce position is, we are living them. We don’t need to guess what the Wall Street economy delivers, we are living through them.

For the past 30 years the U.S. has lost jobs, wages have been depressed, and the middle-class has suffered through the implementation of economic trade policy that destroyed the U.S. manufacturing base. None of this is in question – the results stare us in the face – yet the Wall Street and multinational corporate club(s) [U.S. CoC chief among them] now demand a continuance of the same.

The economic and trade policies of the Trump administration are adverse to those interests. As we have shared for several years, candidate Trump, now President Trump is an existential threat to the multinational program.

All opposition to President Trump is about the underlying financial and economic policy of America-First. There are trillions at stake.

Those who have read here will note the media are generally oblivious to America-First economic policies; this includes the financial media.

As an example today they are trying to figure out how Steel/Aluminum tariffs would work. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross stated clearly exactly how the Steel and Aluminum policy would be carried out; yet for the financial media they claim to be clueless. The level of intellectual dishonesty is off-the-charts.

The truth is, well, two points: •Point #1 – the media don’t want to know; they are committed to selling the prior policy. •Point #2 – there’s almost no-one within the professional economic punditry class who have ever given thought to what happens during the space between two fundamentally different economic policies as executed.

What happens in the space between taking the U.S. economy off the path of ‘service-driven-globalism’, and reasserting the economy back to a balanced ‘production-based national economy’? None of the key participants within the larger discussion have ever contemplated this dynamic.

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President Trump announces he is like to impose global tariffs on imported steel and aluminum – in a broad effort to ensure U.S. national security and manufacturing capacity within a very important industrial sector.

Earlier today President Trump appeared to be accepting Commerce Secretary Ross proposals for 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and 10 percent for aluminum.  It is likely the tariffs will apply globally to all imports because targeted national tariffs have not worked.  China ships their manufactured steel to another nation first in order to avoid the tariff.  As Secretary Ross has previously stated we end up with a whack-a-mole policy.   So likely the tariff will apply globally regardless of the nation shipping the product.

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The usual, the corporate GOPe and Chamber of Commerce politicians will go bananas.

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As U.S. Trade Officials meet with auto executives surrounding ongoing NAFTA sector negotiations, U.S.T.R. Ambassador Robert Lighthizer appears on Fox News to discuss ongoing trade initiatives with Laura Ingraham.

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It’s challenging to discuss the basic ‘fatal flaw’ within a modern NAFTA in a short discussion segment; however, Ambassador Lighthizer, Secretary Ross and the newly positioned Peter Navarro have a strong position for withdrawal.

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Earlier today President Trump spoke candidly with the White House assembly of U.S. Governors about the critical need to re-evaluate their position(s) on trade.  President Trump’s remarks were direct, but also remarkably nuanced toward the audience.  However, if you follow Trump’s process, you’ll note the familiar indications.

Next, far less subtle and yet following along the same predictable process, the Wall Street Journal is reporting President Trump now promoting his economic guru Peter Navarro to be Assistant to The President.   Navarro is a brilliant and strategic trade hawk who has a long track record of supporting the same trade principles as Donald Trump.

A NAFTA decision/announcement looms. ♦ As expected and predicted, a recent phone call by Mexican President Pena Nieto to POTUS Trump didn’t end well. ♦ USTR Lighthizer blasted Canada at the end of round six NAFTA renegotiation. ♦  Placing Pete Navarro inside the circle puts him directly in the right place to speak on behalf of President Trump for an upcoming announcement.   All of these NAFTA exit indicators are great news.

Our wolverine team is growing.  Now we have Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Asst. To POTUS Peter Navarro, all assembled.

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Just ‘twitches’ – We explained yesterday how Moon Jae-in relates to the NAFTA exit (SEE HERE).  We showed last year how President Trump uses specific emissaries, only the most trustworthy, for critical geopolitical messaging in advance of big action. Well…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, a senior White House adviser, will meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday as part of a weekend trip to lead the U.S. delegation to the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics. (read more)

A senior administration official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said Ivanka Trump will dine with Moon at the Blue House in Seoul on Friday night. She has no plans to meet with North Korean officials, the official said.

White House Delegation Announcement HERE.

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Consider this a kick-off to my official NAFTA watch.  Readers will note my earlier spidey-sense prediction of NAFTA withdrawal announcement in/around the end of February through March.   I cannot see a delay in an announcement extending beyond March 2018.  Ergo, CTH is fine-tuning the radar to watch closely.

The fatal flaw within NAFTA has not been addressed.  Neither Canada nor Mexico has even slightly indicated a willingness to engage talks over the fatal flaw.

Exactly the opposite happened earlier this month when Canada signed up to the TPP deal.

The agreement has yet to be ratified by Canadian Parliament, and many are nervous, but it will likely get done.

The NAFTA decision will be the biggest political and economic decision in the Trump administration so far, and the corporate GOPe response is anticipated to be beyond ugly.  Additionally, it would be intellectually dishonest not to accept there are very specific interests watching these pages as part of their proactive strategy. (Hi, Tom)

That said, if you were Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and you noted the specificity of the current trade-policy planetary positions; and you were overlaying the preparatory action taken by Justin from Canada; and you understand there are factually hundreds of billions in play; you would be a fool not to go past past Economy Minister Ildefonso Guarjardo and directly engage the ultimate decision-maker, U.S. President Donald Trump, out of an urgent need to evaluate the survivability of your economic surroundings.  It would be imprudent not to prepare yourself:

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Last year President Donald Trump requested a national security Section 232 trade-investigation, to conducted by the U.S. Department of Commerce and Secretary Wilbur Ross, specifically focusing on U.S. steel and aluminum manufacturing.

The discussion continued last week as President Trump met with a group of republican and democrat members of congress to talk about trade policy and focus attention on the lack of American steel and aluminum production.   [The responses from the republican participants was very enlightening and disappointing.]

On Friday Commerce Secretary completed the industrial review and provided President Trump with trade recommendations to consider given the nature of the national security compromise.   See Outline Here.

Recommendations of the Steel Report:  Secretary Ross has recommended to the President that he consider the following alternative remedies to address the problem of steel imports:

1. A global tariff of at least 24% on all steel imports from all countries, or
2. A tariff of at least 53% on all steel imports from 12 countries (Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, India, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam) with a quota by product on steel imports from all other countries equal to 100% of their 2017 exports to the United States, or
3. A quota on all steel products from all countries equal to 63% of each country’s 2017 exports to the United States.

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Yesterday President Trump invited the media to keep their cameras on during a round-table discussion on trade.  He did this for a reason.  President Trump wanted the American voters to watch Republican politicians demand that he stop trying to bring manufacturing jobs to the United States.

In essence, Trump doing what Trump does best, played the role of Toto and pulled back the curtain on the Republican anti-American corporate business agenda.  The republicans in attendance never paused to reflect upon the sunlight or the reason for their specific invitations. They are comfortable back-room deals and POTUS Toto relaxed them perfectly.

One by one the Republicans took-the-bait and fully exposed themselves.  Lamar Alexander, Mike Lee, Pat Toomey and Roy Blout all took turns telling POTUS to quit trying to save American high-wage jobs, drop the national economic view and just accept multinational corporate globalism.

The subsequent full-throated establishment display stands as one of the greatest plays of the Trump administration to date. However, it was Republican Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin who really went the full distance:

[Transcript] […] In Wisconsin, a big manufacturing state, in seven years I have not visited one manufacturer that could hire enough people. That was certainly my experience in the last 20, 25 years. For a host of reasons, we tell our kids you have to get a four-year degree. We pay people not to work. So we do need to be concerned about, in such a tight labor market, do we have enough workers in manufacturing.

So my final point is, it makes no sense for me to try and bring back high labor-content manufacturing to America. We need to do the value added things. And so I would just say, proceed with real caution there.  (more)

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Earlier today one of the more consequential meetings took place between President Trump and his economic team -vs- the professional UniParty apparatus consisting of multinational corporate-purchased Democrats and Republicans.

The policy discussion isn’t sexy or headline making from the perspective of the U.S. media; however, the resulting outcomes will have more of a bearing on you and your family than any other economic policy conflict in this administration.

On one side we have President Trump and a very focused policy and trade group containing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Robert Lighthizer. On the other side the corporate UniParty apparatus consisting of U.S. Chamber of Commerce Republicans and Democrats.

An encapsulated view would be Main Street (Trump) -vs- Wall Street (UniParty).

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This is THE battle. This is the “trillions at stake“. Everything else is chaff and countermeasures; a war is being waged around this financial issue. Everything within the current conflict is downstream from the economic argument around these issues.

This is the epicenter of the entire institutional conflict against President Trump. This is why THE SWAMP, through all its various affiliated and indulgent enterprises – including the intelligence apparatus, are waging a battle against the disruption that is President Trump.

It is the money.

Period.

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