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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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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Chairman Devin Nunes attends the CPAC Convention and sat down for a lengthy Question and Answer session to discuss the ongoing investigations into top-tier corruption within the FBI and DOJ.   Much of the discussion centers around the abuse of the FISA court system and the politicization of multiple U.S. intelligence agencies.

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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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Earlier today Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley sent a letter to President Obama’s former National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, about a curious email she sent to herself documenting a White House conversation between President Obama and former FBI head James Comey (pdf below).

On the day of the inauguration, January 20th, 2017; at the very last minutes of the outgoing administration; Mrs. Rice documented a conversation which took place on January 5th, 2017 between President Obama, Asst. AG Sally Yates and FBI Director James Comey.  Vice-President Joe Biden and Susan Rice were in attendance.

On its face the Rice note would appear to be a CYA memo documenting a conversation in the larger effort of the White House in case the DOJ/FBI were discovered to be conspiring to create a series of false accusations, the “insurance policy” per se’, against the incoming president.  Rice appears to be leaving a document trail in the event she needed to extricate herself from risks associated with the intention of the ‘small group’.

The substance of the meeting surrounded the “Clinton-Steele Dossier”, and how the DOJ and FBI officials were pursuing the use therein.  The date of the meeting, January 5th, 2017,was amid a series of leaks from inside the FBI and DOJ toward allied media who were working diligently to frame a narrative of Russian collusion.

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Apparently a group of GOP Senators are proposing an outline (pdf below) for the Republican senatorial legislation for immigration reform.  A first review of the seven  senators outlined in the group shows a majority-minded tilt toward the CoC position(s), with a dose of Chuck Grassley sprinkled in to make their GOPe mix palatable.

With the 1000mg bitter pill of a massive budget bill still blocking our trachea, upon first glance we note an ideological similarity here to the failed Obamacare repeal construct (amid the big picture analysis). The backdrop is a faux-deadline of March 5th where POTUS asked congress to solve the DACA issue. Here’s the press release:

WASHINGTON D.C. -A group of U.S. Senators tomorrow will introduce a common-sense proposal aimed at providing legal certainty for undocumented children brought to the United States by their parents and preventing others from falling into the same legal limbo in the future.

Their proposal, which mirrors the White House framework announced by President Trump, provides a generous opportunity for approximately 1.8 million DACA or DACA-eligible immigrants to earn citizenship while strengthening our nation’s border security and enforcement measures to reduce illegal immigration.

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