White House trade and manufacturing policy advisor Peter Navarro appears on Fox News to discuss the administration’s outlook toward China and the intense focus to bring critical manufacturing back to the U.S.
Earlier in the day a visibly angered President Trump told Maria Bartiromo he “doesn’t want to talk to China right now”, and Navarro highlights exactly why. All administration policy and economic influence is targeted to remove Chinese manufacturing from the U.S. supply chain. President Trump officials openly discussing an intentional U.S. effort to decouple from China is a significant shift…. WATCH:
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has been in discussions for several years with both TSMC and Intel to build advanced chip manufacturing plants in the U.S. and extract U.S. supply chain needs from China and southeast Asia. It appears his efforts, and the emphasis on global supply-chain shifts from President Trump, are getting results.
According to numerous media reports Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is likely to announce this week they will build an advanced chip manufacturing facility in Arizona. A manufacturing facility for advanced 5 nanometer chip manufacturing is a steep investment decision costing around $10 billion.
This shift in a high-tech supply chain will align with President Trump’s prior discussions with Tim Cook the CEO of Apple which led to a decision to invest in Texas. TSMC is a chip supplier for Apple products; and Apple is moving to the 5nm processors in new devices. It looks like the movement of advanced industrial products away from China is underway.
(Via Appleinsider) – Apple supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is set to announce that it plans to build an advanced chip factory in Arizona.
Taiwan-based TSMC is the world’s largest contract manufacturer of silicon chipsets and has long been Apple’s primary supplier of A-series chips.
Today President Trump travels to Allentown, Pennsylvania to visit the Owens and Minor distribution center for coronavirus relief supplies. The president is expected to deliver remarks at approximately 2:15pm – 2:30pm ET – Livestreams Below.
A few points on the unmasking before Rand Paul response. First, the release today is only what the Obama team did regarding unmasking General Flynn. As Devin Nunes previously outlined, there are many more Trump transition team members who were unmasked as the Obama team conducted surveillance on the incoming administration.
Second, the NSA “reports” are related to actual transcripts, emails and text messages of communication; not just various intelligence interpretations of those communications.
As Senator Rand Paul shares, the effort of the Obama and Biden administration to unmask their political opposition during the transition; and then use widespread distribution and leaks to the media to push a specific one-sided view; is the weaponization of the intelligence apparatus to target political opposition. That’s the major issue:
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Again, a reminder, these reports surround only NSA intercepts. Simultaneous to this there was an ongoing FBI counterintelligence operation using FISA surveillance (Carter Page) and non-fisa targeted FBI surveillance of Michael Flynn.
This is nuts. According to the Los Angeles Times city officials plan to keep the stay-at-home order in place for an additional three months. However, this decision does provide further evidence the deep blue regions plan on maximizing economic damage.
The odd dynamic is…. without a massive local bailout, and funding for the citizens who are on lockdown, how could they possibly even attempt to pull this off? Is this LA plan of action dependent on Pelosi’s brand new scheme for a $3 trillion spending package?
CALIFORNIA – Los Angeles County’s stay-at-home orders will “with all certainty” be extended for the next three months, county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer acknowledged during a Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday.
Ferrer, though she didn’t issue an official order, said that timeline would only change if there was a “dramatic change to the virus and tools at hand.”
It appears we are about to find out if one of my long-standing theories about surveillance of Michael Flynn is correct. Flynn was not “unmasked”, because he was the direct target.
For three years the official media account of how the intelligence community gained the transcript of incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn talking to Ambassador Sergey Kisliyak on December 29th, 2016, surrounded “incidental collection” as a result of contact with an agent of a foreign power.
Meaning the Flynn call was picked up as the U.S. intelligence apparatus was conducting surveillance on Russian Ambassador Kisliyak.
If this version of events were accurate (it’s not), it would fall under FISA-702 collection: the monitoring of a foreign agent (Kislyak) who has contact with a U.S. person (Flynn).
In order to review the identity of the U.S. person, a process called ‘unmasking’, a 702 submission must be made. As NSA Director Rogers said: that submission, the unmasking, leaves a paper/electronic trail. However, I do not think that is what happened, here’s why:
Back in 2017 Senator Lindsey Graham questioned former DAG Sally Yates and former DNI James Clapper. Within the questioning, Sally Yates tipped her hand. There was never an unmasking of Flynn because Flynn was a target; it was not incidental collection. WATCH:
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Sally Yates doesn’t directly say Flynn was a target, but by now we all know he was a target of the FBI investigation. As a result of Flynn being the actual target he would be directly identified within the intelligence documents because the investigation would be about him, and not incidental. But there’s more…
During testimony in June 2017 Admiral Mike Rogers helps to explain what documents would be available to identify who was making unmasking requests. WATCH:
Note: “you must make that request in writing”; which explains the documents Ric Grenell has declassified and the probability that AG Bill Barr will soon release.
ABC News first reported the news but initially said in the title that Grenell was in the process of trying to declassify the list of Obama officials.
A source with knowledge of the matter told The Daily Wire that the list has already been declassified and now it’s on Attorney General William Barr to release the list. (LINK)
FULL BACKGROUND – However, a strong note of caution. Sometimes the specificity of the intelligence operation itself means the U.S. target will already be named in the originating intelligence document and would not require an unmasking request.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is drawing a line in the sand in his fight against authoritarian rules in California. After several days of intense debate and argument with the arbitrary rules of the local Almeda County authorities, Musk says he’s reopening his auto plant:
FREMONT, Calif. — Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed on Twitter Monday that the company has restarted its California factory in violation of local government orders.
In the afternoon tweet, Musk wrote that he would be on the assembly line and asked that he be arrested if authorities take anyone into custody. State law allows a fine of up to $1,000 a day or up to 90 days in jail for operating in violation of health orders. (link)
Senator Tom Cotton appears with Maria Bartiromo to discuss recent reporting showing cell phone in/around Wuhan China showed road-blocks and/or a containment zone was mysterious set up in October of 2019. The suspicion is that China knew the virus had escaped the Wuhan bio-lab and was taking effort to contain the spread of the virus.
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These suspicions fall on the heels of additional confirmation that Beijing asked the World Health Organization not to reveal human-to-human transmission of the virus at the same time.
Stay big picture. After three years of Beijing losing the geopolitical confrontation to President Trump…. Think about what you know of the aggressive Communist and zero-sum disposition of China. Keep in mind these new reports from intelligence research are pointing to a biologic release in/around October of 2019. Now consider this timeline overlay…
White House Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro appears for an interview with Maria Bartiromo. As a China hawk Navarro outlines the economic damage from a perspective where China needs to be held accountable.
One of the ways to hold Beijing accountable is to retract all U.S. business interests and decouple from China. The White House is currently using a task-force approach to assemble the background evidence. Once assembled, many people suspect President Trump will initiate very strong policies against China (including tariffs) simultaneously timed with tax incentives for U.S. companies to return manufacturing back to the U.S.
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If you think about the economic vulnerabilities currently carried by China, it is entirely possible for USTR Lighthizer, Secretary Mnuchin, Secretary Ross and Peter Navarro to structure serious financial punishment upon the Red Dragon.
At no time in the past twenty years has Beijing been more vulnerable to an economic adversary. At the same time, there has never been a more strategic economic adversary in the oval office. This is a conspicuously remarkable moment in history.
