Sometimes geo-politics can be funny and deserve a little snark in discussion. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank, are holding a conference in DC. this weekend.  Deplorable Secretary Mnuchin represents U.S. and Trump interests.

Amid the earlier G20 Summit the Trump effect ended up with changed language from the finance leadership.  Titan Trump’s election changed the way the IMF and World Bank globalists talk about international trade.   Bi-lateral and nationalism are no longer dirty words.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – International Monetary Fund members on Saturday dropped a pledge to fight protectionism amid a split over trade policy and turned their attention to another looming threat to global economic integration: the first round of France’s presidential election. (more)

However, funnier still is the resurfacing of a familiar face.  You might well remember former Mexican Finance Minister Augustin Carstens resigned as Mexico’s central bank chief just after the election of Donald Trump.   Well, apparently, the job of saving face for the changed approach of the IMF/World Bank is now squarely on Carsten’s shoulders.

(more…)

President Trump visited the Treasury Department today so sign one executive order and two presidential memorandums.

The executive order requires Treasury to identify and lessen burdens from tax regulations issued in 2016.  The two memorandum focus on examining and possibly revisiting two areas of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law in an effort to remove the regulatory and compliance burdens on smaller banks.

When Dodd-Frank was instituted it was sold to the electorate as a bill to stop banks from becoming too big to fail, there were 12 massive banks under that definition.  The goal was to create more national banks.  Since passage those ‘too big to fail banks‘ have become even bigger.  Twelve banks, are now five even bigger banks.  Go figure.

[Transcript] 2:55 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Steve. Great honor, I must say. It’s a great pleasure to be at the United States Treasury Department and to meet so many dedicated public servants.

I went through that beautiful hallway where those incredible paintings of past secretaries, and it was really very interesting. I want to read every one, I want to learn about every one of them, but we have one that I hope will go down as one of the greats. I think Hamilton is tough to beat, but maybe you can do that too. We’ll take it, right? But thank you very much.

(more…)

Perhaps it’s because the complexity is difficult to distill; maybe it’s because some just can’t give President Trump any credit; or perhaps it’s because the scope is too challenging to comprehend against the constant belittlement meme du jour.  Regardless of reason, President Trump is fundamentally realigning international geo-political alliances and almost no-one is connecting the dots.

President Trump obviously held a long-ball strategy with the Chinese; he’s described the approach in his books and lived the approach in his business life:

At the outset, position yourself at the furthest oppositional point when it costs you nothing; then leverage inward toward your opponent as they expend their resources to meet your stance.

Almost no-one is noting the scope of what President Trump has accomplished simply by positioning himself at the furthest extreme from the best interests of China, and then working his leverage back toward dual-interests as the Chinese expend capital to meet the point of mutual benefit.

President Trump has expended nothing other than his sheer will, and yet he has leveraged gains that are jaw-droppingly consequential.

♦ What’s the goal of identifying China as a currency manipulator?  To stop China from manipulating currency, right?  Well, arm-chair opposition says President Trump has reversed his position simply by ‘not doing something’.   However, that opposition doesn’t seem to acknowledge the end-goal of the labeling has been achieved without expending an effort.   The doing is unnecessary when merely the threat of the doing changes the behavior of the doer.

In two days, April 6th and April 7th, President Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.  What actions has President Trump taken, other than ‘not’ doing something, and what actions has President Xi Jinping taken? (more…)

As President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping wrapped up the summit in Mar-a-lago, overshadowed in media reports by U.S. missile strikes in Syria, President Xi joined with President Trump and focused on stressing the positive mood of the meetings between the world’s two biggest economies.

Team U.S.A insisted both President Trump and their delegation had made good on the pledge to raise concerns about China’s trade practices and said there was some headway. Team China and President Xi agreed to a 100-day plan for trade talks aimed at boosting U.S. exports and reducing China’s trade surplus with the United States.

Secretaries Tillerson (State), Mnuchin (Treasury) and Ross (Commerce) held a debriefing session with the media at the end of the summit.  What a stunning difference in the approach and level of direct and concise communication.  (Oh, and side note – Wilburne continues to crack me up, even in the reading of his responses.)  Here’s the transcript:

(more…)

Today President Trump and President Xi JinPing of China conducted bi-lateral meetings to discuss ongoing concerns surrounding trade, finance, military engagement, and the need for China to assist in leverage over North Korea’s hostilities.

[Transcript] 11:22 A.M. EDT – PRESIDENT TRUMP:  I just want to say that President Xi and all of his representatives have been really interesting to be with.  I think we have made tremendous progress in our relationship with China.  My representatives have been meeting one-on-one with their counterparts from China.  And I think, truly, progress has been made.  We’ll be making a lot of additional progress.

The relationship developed by President Xi and myself I think is outstanding.  We look forward to being together many times in the future.  And I believe lots of very potentially bad problems will be going away.

(more…)

Oh man, THIS is epic. 

This is what happens when you take an intellectual gnat carrying nothing but ‘talking points’ (Tapper), and have them interview a Subject Matter Expert (Ross).

Secretary Wilburine hilariously flicks off the stuttering gnat with an immediate ‘Triple Farkas‘.

• Tapper: Muh “Chinese currency manipulation”?
• Wilburine: ‘I’m the Secretary of Commerce not Treasury’.

• Tapper: Muh “Well, Builder Trump used Chinese steel to build”?
• Wilburine: ‘Builders hire contractors, they purchase materials’.

• Tapper: Muh “But, but… Trump signed XO in different room”?
• Wilburine: ‘Where President Trump signs orders is not of particular concern’.

.

Important note: Notice how not a single question of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was related in any way to commerce or trade.

(more…)

Perfect.

President Trump, through OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, has demanded the House of Representatives vote tomorrow on the current bill for ObamaCare Repeal and Replacement.
This directly calls out the UniParty structure of Washington DC.
The time for endless political talk in circles is over.  Time for action.  The Koch Brothers wing (House Freedom Caucus), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wing (Ryan/GOPe), will have to vote to support the Health and Human Services construct of Tom Price, or kill it by voting against it.

Either way they vote President Trump has delivered on his promise: an opportunity to vote for the repeal of ObamaCare.

All those who vote “NO” on the bill will own the outcome. Meaning, they support the continuance of ObamaCare and all of the subsequent outcomes therein.  Get them all on record. (more…)

A series of recent headline articles about traditional economic analysts, government and private, perplexed by financial and consumer trends – highlights the disconnect inherent amid those who cannot reset their frame of economic reference.
For 30+ years U.S. economic political policy has been driven by Wall Street interests. STOP. Main Street, the middle-class and the American worker have suffered. STOP. The successful election of Donald Trump, and the execution of his “main street” economic policy agenda, has sledgehammered the prior economic machine into a full seizure an halt. FULL STOP.

(WSJ Article Link)

It was Albert Einstein who aptly stated:

“The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.”

The same basic principle applies to those who are trying to understand and evaluate current economic activity yet failing to disengage themselves from their historic economic frames of reference. (more…)

President Trump’s U.S. trade policy of “America First”, free but FAIR trade, came to the forefront in Germany as Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin subtly yet firmly pushed back against language that affirmed globalism and multilateral trade.
According to the Washington Post German officials urged Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to agree to their customary modern free trade language in the G20’s joint statement.
However, the U.S. Treasury Secretary refused their request and instead urged adoption of more general wording allowing each nation to make their own determinations of what constitutes “free and fair trade” with their own best interests in mind.
This approach is the basis for one-on-one bilateral trade.  It is also the starting point toward negotiating exceptional trade deals by providing leverage which allows President Trump, Secretary Ross and Trade Rep Lighthizer to frame proposals (by competing nations) against each other.  By holding firm to the basic trade outlook Secretary Mnuchin is setting the table for the U.S. trade team to renegotiate everything.
The disconnect from the traditional economic group-think of the G20 finance ministers is a direct break from the past two decades.  This central approach reflects the baseline change in ongoing U.S. trade policy.  It would appear President Trump and his economic team are more concerned about the interests of American workers than foreign nationals. Go figure.
Secretary Mnuchin suggested adding more general language committing to “strengthen the contribution of trade.”   A version of that sentence was included in the statement, despite criticisms from some G20 finance ministers that it was pointless.
(more…)

President Trump has initiated a new administration protocol of greeting each foreign dignitary personally at the entrance to the White House upon each visit.

Today German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the White House and attended a cabinet room roundtable discussion with U.S. and German business leaders on the topic of vocational training.  Anticipating a future trade negotiation President Trump also brought Commerce Secretary Wilburne (Ross) to engage:

.
12:58 P.M. EDT [Transcript] PRESIDENT TRUMP: Chancellor, thank you very much. Such a great honor to get to know you, to be with you. I want to thank all of the business leaders who have joined us to discuss a subject that’s very important to me — training our workforce for the 21st century, especially with respect to manufacturing jobs.
(more…)