White House Trade and Manufacturing Advisor Peter Navarro has an interview with Maria Bartiromo to discuss potential U.S. supply chain issues and the need to reorient our medical equipment manufacturing back to North America. As Navarro highlights the Chinese communist govt recently nationalized an American medical manufacturing company and commandeered all of their products. An important discussion.
Additionally, Navarro discusses the ongoing administration effort to combat incoming fake products from China still estimated to be over ten percent of all imports.
CTH often describes the background DC motives with the phrase: “There are Trillions at Stake.” Here we take a look at what that really means, and how DC politics is not quite based on the ideas that frame many reference points.
With people taking notice of DC politics for the first time; and with people not as familiar with the purpose of DC politics; we end up within two different references. Perhaps it is valuable to reset the larger frames of reference and provide clarity. Most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a House or Senate representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past. There is not a single person in congress writing legislation or laws.
In modern politics not a single member of the House of Representatives or Senator writes a law, or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct. This simply doesn’t happen.
Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body. Here’s how it works right now. (more…)
National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow appears on CNBC for an extensive interview on upstream economic issues. With China’s economy at a standstill; and with the troubles of the coronavirus spreading outward; what does that mean for us?
There’s some good questions in this interview. Domestically, as we noted yesterday, the U.S. economy is strong and growing. However, the Wall Street multinationals are very exposed to the China issues. On the bright side the overall China issues are helping to push more corporate decisions toward domestic investment and away from Beijing.
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Given these lessons being learned, I sure wish we didn’t have China involved in making our medicines and medical products. The administration needs to look at this more.
Director Kudlow also appeared on Fox Business with Lou Dobbs. (more…)
President Trump and Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno deliver remarks to the press pool prior to a bilateral meeting in the White House. [Video and Transcript Below]
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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you very much. It’s great to be with the President of Ecuador — and it’s one of the most beautiful countries in the world — and perhaps equally as important, and maybe even more importantly, your great First Lady. Thank you very much for being here. This is a tremendous honor. Some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world and one of the most beautiful places on Earth, they say. I’ve heard that for a long time. (more…)
Earlier today President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump welcomed the President of the Republic of Ecuador and Mrs. Rocio Gonzales De Moreno to the White House.
Ecuador is a key country for stability in central America. A key topic of discussion between the two leaders will be Venezuela. Ecuador is suffering firsthand the effects of Nicolas Maduro and his dictatorship in Venezuela with waves of economic migrants from Venezuela arriving through Colombia to Ecuador. The refugee crisis represents a fiscal strain and also a security threat. There are 400,000 Venezuela refugees in Ecuador.
Counter-narcotics and a trade agreement are also a priority for this meeting. The United States and Ecuador are very close to a free trade agreement. USTR Robert Lighthizer has held a successful round-one negotiation for trade and investment with the Ecuadorian Commerce Ministry; and a second round is likely very soon.
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Ecuador and the United States are working toward an energy and infrastructure framework agreement under America Crece. Brazil is likely to join in March and they will join Panama, Chile, Argentina, Jamaica, Colombia, El Salvador, and hopefully Ecuador.
U.S. President Donald Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi form a trilateral group within President Trump’s Indo-Pacific economic strategy. Essentially a geopolitical alliance based on economic interests.
PM Abe and PM Modi have visited the U.S. several times since the alliance was formed. President Trump has also visited Japan several times but not visited India. (There has been a sticky issue with Modi’s protectionist trade tariffs.) However, today the White House announced President Trump & First Lady Melania will be traveling to India:
[White House] – President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will visit India on February 24 – 25, 2020. The President and The First Lady will travel to New Delhi and Ahmedabad, which is in Prime Minister Modi’s home state of Gujarat and played such an important role in Mahatma Gandhi’s life and leadership of the Indian independence movement.
Earlier today President Trump hosted a business luncheon with U.S. governors to discuss economic expansion and administration policy efforts to assist the states.
[Video and Transcript Below]
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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Wow. Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. It’s a great honor to have you at the White House, a very special place. Beautiful and so meaningful in so many ways. And our country has never done better. You’re all doing really well. Every state is doing well. I can say most every state in the room today is setting records. And we’d like to think that the federal government has been helping you a lot. (more…)
White House trade and manufacturing policy advisor Peter Navarro appears on Fox News to discuss the strong January jobs report of 225,000 gains. Navarro highlights something few pay attention to. The Trump administration not only focuses on the macro policy principles to create the economic environment for job growth, but President Trump also personally engages on specific company, state, and regional efforts.
The engagement of a U.S. president to discuss and influence U.S. jobs on a company by company basis, and get down in the details of deals, is a completely unique political standard in the modern era. President Trump is very uniquely fighting for each job.
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It is very disappointing to hear vulture capitalist Jeff Bezos having a disinterest in protecting American intellectual property rights, and instead choosing to accept/allow cheap Chinese, knock-off goods as the backbone of his Amazon business model. (more…)
National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow appears on Fox Business to discuss the excellent January jobs report. Job gains and wage increases are all going in the right direction…. And Stuart Varney immediately asks: “do we need more immigration”?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases the January jobs and labor report and the results are MAGAnificent. 225,000 jobs gained in January; non-supervisory wage growth against exceeds supervisory at 3.2%; and 185,000 workers re-entered the workforce.
The 225,000 new jobs far exceeded expectations. Economists were looking for 160,000. Also the November report was revised up by 5,000 (from +256,000 to +261,000) and the change for December was revised up by 2,000 from (+145,000 to +147,000). With these revisions, employment gains in November and December combined were 7,000 higher than previously reported.
Keep in mind these excellent jobs results are without the domestic investment expected to be produced by the USMCA manufacturing realignment. As goods producing companies start evaluating the new total production costs, the investment shift toward North America will likely keep a tailwind on our economic growth and jobs. (more…)
