UPDATE: The second round of NAFTA renegotiation concluded today in Mexico City, Mexico. A joint statement was released:
Washington, DC – On September 5, 2017, United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Secretary of the Economy Ildefonso Guajardo concluded the second round of the renegotiation and modernization of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in Mexico City, Mexico. This concluded five days of meetings by a team of subject matter experts covering various negotiation topics.
Building on the progress made in the First Round of the renegotiation and modernization of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and Mexican Secretary of the Economy Ildefonso Guajardo, today successfully concluded the Second Round of negotiations, which took place in Mexico City from September 1 – 5.
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As you might remember, in response to a thermonuclear atomic weapons test by North Korea Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is now in the process of writing additional sanctions he will guide into the hands of U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Ambassador Haley will then create a U.N. Security Council resolution containing further economic sanctions toward North Korea using treasury department guidance.
However, as a direct result of the escalation from the DPRK, we can easily predict the final draft will not just target North Korea, but will more substantively target North Korea’s economic enablers.
This is where things get super interesting because all prior U.N. action has built upon itself to these specific ‘enabler’ state sanctions.
Through two rounds of Security Council resolutions both China and Russia have supported the economic sanctions, knowing they would use various workarounds to continue their duplicity.  However, now those sanctions become a risk to the economies of China and Russia because Secretary Mnuchin is likely to use the weight of the dollar in trade contracts as the trigger for sanctions against China and Russia.
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U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is scheduled to speak publicly alongside Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland Tuesday to conclude the second round of talks toward a new North American Free Trade Agreement.
However, you can put a fork in any optimism for a successful NAFTA outcome as Canada now takes liberal virtue-signaling to exponential levels of moonbattery and demands control of the U.S. legislative process.
One source familiar with the discussions said Canada’s Chrystia Freeland is demanding the U.S. pass “a federal law stopping state governments from enacting right-to-work legislation“.  Obviously Team U.S.A., understanding the entire construct of a U.S. Constitutional Republic and the underlying constitution therein, would not, could not and has not agreed to such a ridiculous Canadian request.
What this indicates is how far left the Canadian NAFTA negotiation team are willing to go in advancement of social justice issues that have no bearing on actual trade.  They are politically virtue-signaling to their own internal domestic audiences rather than actually engage in discussion of trade parameters.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin interviewed by swamp guardian Chris Wallace.

And keep in mind, regardless of how severe the sanctions are that Treasury Secretary Mnuching might draw up, China and Russia are essentially bound to agree to them or face the dropping of the panda mask, and STILL get more economic sanctions from the U.S.
It’s like China can’t just catch a break.  The more they dig, the deeper they get,..

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Sunday that he would put together a package of new sanctions to potentially cut off all trade with North Korea after Pyongyang conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test.
Speaking on Fox News, Mnuchin said he would ask U.S. President Donald Trump to strongly consider cutting off all trade with new sanctions.

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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.
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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)

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Lara Trump shares the week in review from the President Trump administration.  Topics include Hurricane Harvey response, economic news including the Tax Reform proposal and the geopolitical threat from North Korea’s aggression.

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.

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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.
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