President Trump has hinted at deconstructing a trade deal with South Korea.  Geopolitical “experts” clutch their pearls at the possibility of President Trump targeting S-Korea at the same time that North Korea threatens the region.

WASHINGTON – President Trump confirmed Saturday that he was talking with advisers amid reports that he had instructed aides to prepare to withdraw the U.S. from its free trade agreement with South Korea.
“I am. It’s very much on my mind,” Trump told a reporter covering his day trip to Texas and Louisiana when asked if he was talking to advisers and would do something in the coming week. (more)

Media pundits join in deep sighs of concern. Oh noes, he didn’t..
CTH laughs.
People need to get their mind right with the entire principle behind ‘America-First’ and looking out for America’s best interests.  It wasn’t so long ago that South Korea was snarking back at POTUS Trump, the United States and were dismissive about paying for THAAD missile defenses etc.
(more…)

Well, that didn’t take too long.  For those who might not be familiar with the key issue in the breakdown of prior six-party talks (China, Russia, DPRK, S-Korea, Japan and U.S.), the issue was “denuclearization”.
Both China and Russia have just announced a shift in their public policy.  Together Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin agree the goal for the Korean Peninsular should be denuclearization:

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Sunday to “appropriately deal with” the latest nuclear test by North Korea, state news agency Xinhua said.
“The two leaders agreed to stick to the goal of denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula and keep close communication and coordination to deal with the new situation,” Xinhua said in a brief dispatch.

(more…)

CTH holds a fundamentally different view of China and North Korea than most.  Our position is based on independent research and a lengthy following of patterns between the two which show predictable cause and effect outcomes.
It is our position that while the DPRK is technically an independent nation; in reality, and in quintessential economic terms, North-Korea is more accurately defined as a province of China, and not an independent nation.  What China authorizes Kim Jong-un (North Korea) to do, Kim Jong-un does.  “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-un is better described as a provincial governor, who serves a specific function as a tool against the West.

History will observe the key date for President Trump’s strategic victory over North Korea was achieved on August 5th, 2017.  That’s the original date when Russia and China agreed to the U.N. Security Council’s economic sanctions against North Korea.  That first, historic, Russia and China U.N. Security Council vote against North Korea came as a result of eight months of assembled economic leverage created by President Donald Trump.
As a result of President Trump’s strategy, every time North Korea’s Kim Jong-un takes an action, President Trump hits China’s Xi Jinping with an additional economic action. As Beijing feels the squeeze, they tell Kim Jong-un to act. Every time Kim Jong-un acts, President Trump squeezes Beijing with more economic pressure.  Wash-Rinse-Repeat.
Communist Beijing has boxed themselves into this inescapable cycle.  The reason they keep authorizing Kim Jong-un to take action is simply because China has no alternative leverage to use against President Trump.  China has nothing in their economic arsenal they can use to hit back against President Trump, so Beijing keeps using North Korea in an attempt to create leverage.
(more…)

Two seismic events happening in North Korea are suspected to be a nuclear test.  The first event was reportedly measured at a 5.6 Richter Scale magnitude. The second event is being reported at 6.3.  Both seismic events are potentially related to a nuclear detonation:

SEOUL (Reuters) – An earthquake 5.6 was recorded on Sunday in North Korea near the country’s known nuclear test site Punggye-ri, Yonhap news agency reported, citing South Korea’s meteorological agency.
The quake appeared to have been man-made, Yonhap quoted the agency as saying, suggesting the isolated country had conducted a sixth nuclear test. (read more)

(more…)

Well, this is rich.  A Canadian labor union leader, Jerry Dias, national president of Unifor, has called President Trump “batshit crazy” yet supports the U.S. NAFTA position on Auto origination.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is said to be leveraging a position that NAFTA rules on auto manufacturing require 70% of source origination from inside the U.S., Mexico and Canada.  Canadian union leader Jerry Dias agrees with the position in order to Make Canada Great Again.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross wants more than 70 percent of North American content in vehicles built in the United States, Canada and Mexico under a renegotiated NAFTA trade deal, the head of Canada’s largest private sector union said on Friday.
Jerry Dias, national president of Unifor, told reporters he suggested in a recent meeting with Ross that the level be raised to 70 percent from the current 62.5 percent, and that the U.S. commerce secretary suggested a “more aggressive” level.

(more…)

President Trump announced a decision on DACA will be Tuesday.  Will this finally begin the “Big Ugly” confrontation?  Possibly, but one thing is certain, right now he’s probing.
CTH is not a seer of Donald Trump, and anyone who would claim they are should be necessarily dismissed.  President Donald Trump is the only entity who knows specifically what he’s going to do in the moments leading up to what he’s going to do; no-one else.  However, that said, CTH does have a pretty good sense of what evaluation processes Trump takes prior to action.  There are indications Tuesday might be the day.
There is one political enterprise within Washington DC and national politics.  There is only one enterprise.  That enterprise is the UniParty.  There is only one political party in Washington DC, with two internal caucuses – Republicans and Democrats.
The “Big Ugly” is the moment when President Trump decides to rip the masks off the remnants of the Republican wing of the UniParty within Washington DC.  In many ways the “Big Ugly” is the elimination of the Republican party, and the beginning of an era when a second party, a MAGA party, actually enters the blood stream of U.S. politics and stands against the UniParty.

The confrontation is inevitable.  It has been inevitable since the entire GOPe apparatus, including every single GOPe candidate within the 2016 Republican primary, stood up against Donald J Trump.   Candidate Donald Trump held an entirely different series of campaign platform issues the Republican apparatus abhors.  That’s why he won, and they didn’t.
(more…)

No current events have as much impact on the lives of ordinary paycheck-to-paycheck Americans as the NAFTA trade negotiations.  Every person in the U.S., our children and the lives of following generations, are impacted by the ongoing economic battle. The consequences are epic in proportion, yet the MSM insufferably avoids discussion.
Against the backdrop of NAFTA Round #2 renegotiations beginning in Mexico, the massive Multinational Corporations fight back to retain their market exploitation.  Decades-long established masks are dropping; the grand usurpation’s are being exposed; there are trillions of dollars at stake.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Trade negotiators from Canada and the United States gathered under rainy skies in Mexico City on Friday to discuss the North American Free Trade Agreement, with the mood darkened by U.S. President Donald Trump’s persistent threats to pull out.
Teams from the three countries were due to kick off a second round of talks on 25 areas of discussion, with subjects such as digital commerce and small businesses seen as areas where consensus was possible, Mexican officials said.
The Sept. 1-5 round will also touch on more thorny topics such as rules governing local content in products made in North America, Mexico’s economy ministry said in a statement. Mexican officials believe Trump wants to include rules that some content must be made in the United States.

(more…)

To understand the China ‘One-Belt / ‘One-World‘ economic trade strategy it becomes necessary to understand how structurally weak the Chinese economy was when created.
People often talk about the ‘strength’ of China’s economic model; and indeed within a specific part of their economy -manufacturing- they do have economic strength.
However, the underlying critical architecture of the Chinese economic model is structurally flawed and President Trump with his current economic team understand the weakness better than all international adversaries.
Lets take a stroll and lightly discuss.
China is a central planning economy. Meaning it never was an outcropping of natural economic conditions. China was/is controlled as a communist style central-planning government; As such, it is important to reference the basic structural reality that China’s economy was created from the top down.
This construct of government creation is a key big picture distinction that sets the backdrop to understand how weak the economy really is.
(more…)

Despite the good news, the insufferable MSM are still trying to bury the cause and effect. In an effort to give a more precise picture I’m going to use a Reuters summary, and shift their text location to highlight what they bury and emphasize what they avoid:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy grew faster than initially thought in the second quarter, notching its quickest pace in more than two years, and there are signs that the momentum was sustained at the start of the third quarter.
Gross domestic product increased at a 3.0 percent annual rate in the April-June period, the Commerce Department said in its second estimate on Wednesday. The upward revision from the 2.6 percent pace reported last month reflected robust consumer spending as well as strong business investment.
Growth last quarter was the strongest since the first quarter of 2015 and followed a 1.2 percent pace in the January-March period. Economists had expected that second-quarter GDP growth would be raised to a 2.7 percent rate.
♦[…] Businesses helped to carry the economy in the second quarter, with spending on equipment jumping at a rate of 8.8 percent. ♦[…] Trade added two-tenths of a percentage point to growth. ♦[…] Government spending contracted for a second straight quarter. ♦[…] Housing was a drag on growth in the last quarter, with investment on home building contracting at a 6.5 percent rate.
(more…)

Things are going swimmingly, strategically, seemingly according to plan.  When the full measure of history allows time to review, observers will note the strategic victory was achieved on August 5th, 2017; that’s the original date when Russia and China agreed to the U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea.  That first, historic, Russia and China U.N. Security Council vote against North Korea came as a result of eight months of assembled economic leverage created by President Donald Trump.
As a result of this ongoing strategy, every time North Korea’s Kim Jong-un takes an action, President Trump hits China’s Xi Jinping with an additional economic squeeze.  As Beijing feels the squeeze, they tell Kim Jong-un to act. Every time Kim Jong-un acts, President Trump squeezes Beijing with more economic pressure.  Wash-Rinse-Repeat.
Communist Beijing has boxed themselves into this inescapable cycle. The only way out of the box is to concede and lay the DPRK defeat at the feet of Kim Jong-un.  The conceding will evidence itself when Beijing inevitably calls for ‘Six Party Talks‘.  Today:

(Via Associated Press) Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi says his country will “fully and completely” abide by U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions on North Korea.
Wang told reporters Wednesday China would work with other members of the council on how best to react to North Korea’s launch of a ballistic missile over Japan on Tuesday.
He says, “We will make a necessary response.”

(more…)