On March 11, 2011, when an earthquake-triggered tsunami damaged the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, Chancellor Merkel and her cabinet held that nuclear power in Germany had to come to an end. It was a historic event and a historic decision (see Der Spiegel). The new green deal of Merkel quickly became bogged down in the details of German reality and the impracticability of the whole idea. The so-called Energiewende, the shift away from nuclear in favor of renewables, was a major project that was up there with Germany’s reunification. After eight years, it is facing complete failure. Germany’s leaders in Berlin committed themselves to a project. They introduced laws, decrees, and guidelines with a complete lack of coordination, demonstrating once again that government is incapable of proper management skills.
With all the hype about pollution and greenhouse gases, Germany is still producing electricity by burning coal. German houses are still dependent on oil and natural gas furnaces, and the streets are still packed with the cars burning diesel when once upon a time they thought it was less polluting than gasoline-powered motors.
European carmakers are rolling out electric vehicles like the ones on view this week at the Paris Motor Show to burnish their reputations as technology leaders and compete with Tesla. But they are also doing this because EU regulations don’t leave them much choice. Europe’s automotive market is slowly getting charged. The drivers of electrification are EU regulatory agencies, which are imposing ever-stricter limits on carbon and nitrogen oxide pollution. The European Parliament has voted to mandate a 20% cut in CO2 emissions from new cars and vans in 2025, and a 40% reduction in 2030. The EU’s elected chamber rejected the European Commission’s more modest proposal of a 30% cut in 2030 compared to 2021 emission levels. The Parliament’s plan includes penalties for automakers that fail to meet sales targets, a key policy instrument the Commission had dropped from its proposal after lobbying by German carmakers.
With the bulk of electricity being produced by coal furnaces, it seems the lack of coordination and this drive for a new green deal is just far from organized and may have a tremendous impact upon the European economy as a whole. Nobody is addressing the heating of homes on top of this and the wind power that has failed to provide a viable alternative.
Inspector General Horowitz is doing a FISA review based on the Carter Page application. However, if Michael Horowitz has started looking deeply into the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD), via their historic use of FARA definitions to submit Title-1 surveillance warrants against U.S. persons…. well, there’s a strong possibility such an IG investigation would take much longer than expected.
Additionally, if the Obama DOJ-NSD was using the appearance of FARA violations as the predicate for FISA warrant authority (now seems likely); and that sketchy predicate was the basis for keeping all OIG oversight away from the NSD (again, likely); then the entire political system in/around Washington DC would be opened as a target for surveillance.
Anyone targeted under such a sketchy legal predicate for lobbying violations, would unknowingly be carrying their Title-1 surveillance virus into every interaction. The downstream ramifications are almost beyond imagining….
Yesterday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held a press conference to answer questions about the U.S-Mexicos migration and border security agreement. After reviewing some info from today, I’m inserting a graphic into Pompeo’s transcribed responses to better understand the “45 days” aspect. [Video and Transcript]
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[Transcript – (emphasis mine)] SECRETARY POMPEO: A couple things this afternoon. First, I’ll give some remarks later this week that are consistent with what we’ve been working on for my entire time here in the Indo-Pacific.
I’ll be speaking to a group of Indian business leaders in preparation for the trip that I’ll take in a couple weeks where I’ll be visiting India, an important part of President Trump’s strategy in the Indo-Pacific. And I’m looking forward to the opportunity both to give the set of remarks about how it is our relationship is so closely tied economically, but also importantly the things that the United States and India can continue to do to build out what is an incredibly important relationship for both countries.
I thought too I’d spend just a minute here talking about the agreement that was reached with the United States and Mexico on Friday of last week. Frankly, it reflects diplomacy at its finest. It shows the enduring strength, too, of the relationship between our two countries, and it’s a significant win for the American people.
The deal continues the Trump administration’s commitment – the strongest by any administration in history – to confront the tide of illegal immigration and many other problems along our southern border, including the drug trafficking issues that transit there. The President is doing precisely what he said he would do.
We agreed to a number of things, including the placement of 6,000 Mexican National Guard along the Mexican southern border. It’s the biggest effort to date that the Mexicans have committed. It’s something that we pressed for with them throughout the time of the negotiations. We will work closely with them to make sure that that is a successful effort.
Those crossing the U.S. southern border to seek asylum will be rapidly returned to Mexico where they may await their adjudication of their asylum claims. We’ve seen this before; we were able to do this to the tune of a couple of hundred people per day. We now have the capacity to do this full throttle and engage this in a way that will make a fundamental difference in the calculus for those deciding to transit Mexico to try to get into the United States. This full-blown effort under the migration protocols is a big deal and was something that we worked on very, very diligently with our Mexican counterparts over two days.
And we’ll pursue other cooperative efforts, too.
For much of last week, Foreign Secretary Ebrard and his team were excellent partners in all of this. We worked alongside them with our team here at the State Department.
I’ve seen some reporting that says that these countless hours were nothing, that they amounted to a waste of time. I can tell you that the team here at the State Department believes full-throatedly that this an important set of agreements, important set of understandings, one that we’ll continue to work on, because in the end we’ll be measured by the outcomes that we deliver with respect to stemming the flow of illegal immigration into our country.
I want to, on that note, repeat my personal gratitude to Foreign Secretary Ebrard and his team. They worked hard; they were diligent; they defended the Mexican people. I think we made both of our countries proud with this agreement. I spoke to President Trump not too long ago about this. He is grateful to everyone who made this happen, and he had a chance to speak with President Obrador about this as well.
As I mentioned, this isn’t the end of the road. We’ve got a lot of work to do to implement what we’ve agreed to, not just in the joint declaration but the approach to the region, for Central America, that we agreed to last December. And we have full confidence, as the President tweeted yesterday, that Mexico will fulfill its shared commitments.
We’ll continue to work with Mexico to discuss migration asylum issues, and if necessary, we’ll take additional measures that the Mexican government agreed to during these conversations as well.
I look forward to great cooperation between our two countries. And with that, I’m happy to take a couple of questions.
MS ORTAGUS: Christina.
QUESTION: Thank you. Hi, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY POMPEO: Hi.
QUESTION: Can you explain what in this agreement was different than what was discussed between Secretary Nielsen and the Mexican governments in December, the agreement that people have been talking about? And have – in addition, is there a separate agreement with the Mexican government than what was announced Friday, as the President has suggested on Twitter? And both sides have said if there’s not enough progress we’re going to come back to the table and re-evaluate. How are you measuring that? What kind of metric are you going to use? Is there a specific number or target you need them to hit?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Sure. So I was part of those conversations in Houston in December when the original migrant protocols were put in place. The scale, the effort, the commitment here is very different from what we were able to achieve back in December and frankly wouldn’t have happened.
The entire team from the Mexican government that came up, they came up because the President had raised the specter of 5 percent tariffs on their products. It’s what prompted this series of conversations that took on a level of seriousness and a timed commitment that we were committed to getting done before the weekend. And so it’s a fundamentally different commitment about doing this across the entire border at scale.
You see the numbers in the several thousand per day. Those are the folks that will now be subject to the migrant protocols and will be, when appropriately adjudicated, returned to Mexico to await their asylum hearings inside of Mexico.
As for other agreements, there were a number of commitments made. I can’t go into them in detail here, but each side was committed to a set of outcomes.
The United States retained its ability to use its own determination of whether there was success along the border. You saw that the announcement was that the President would indefinitely suspend the tariffs.
That means if it’s the case that we’re not making sufficient progress that there’s risk that those tariffs will go back in place. And as we had these conversations with my foreign secretary – my counterpart Marcelo, we both understood that.
It means that we’re got hard work to do over the coming days and weeks to deliver on those actual outcomes on the ground along our southern border. I know the Mexican government is committed to it, and I know that not only the State Department but DHS and all the others who have real responsibility that will deliver this. I’m confident that this hard work will go to get – go – we will go hand-in-hand to make this deliverable something that we can all say yeah, this resulted from what we did last week.
QUESTION: And is there a metric that you’re going to use to judge that? Like, how will you decide how much progress or if enough progress has been made?
SECRETARY POMPEO: We will evaluate this literally daily.
MS ORTAGUS: Lesley.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, good afternoon. What do you think about other countries such as Brazil and Panama helping with this? Are you talking to them about perhaps backing up Mexico in its efforts to stem this migration, given that it’s – and again, coming to my colleague’s question, how much time are you prepared to give this to ensure – to make sure that it’s actually working?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Yeah. So I can’t answer the second question. Some amount of time. This won’t be instantaneous. It won’t happen today, but the work has already begun. So I don’t know. The agreement – we talked about 90 days, but I imagine that we’ll know the effectiveness, the ability of us to work together to deliver this, much more quickly than that. Perhaps a month, perhaps 45 days, we’ll have a good sense of whether we’re able to achieve these outcomes in the way we’re hoping that we can.
Graphic of Text in POTUS Hand Today – Note: “45 days“
As for other countries, yes, we’re going to work with the Central American countries too. A good deal of the folks who are transiting through – or into our country are coming through Mexico and are not originally from Mexico, and we have high expectations they’ll deliver as well. We have teams that will be working there this week to get agreements with those countries to put the onus where it is for them to make sure that their citizens are not the ones transiting through Mexico into the United States.
I can take one more.
MS ORTAGUS: Okay. BBC.
QUESTION: Just to follow up on that, in the agreement it says the United States and Mexico will lead in working with regional and international partners to build a more prosperous and secure Central America, but there have been steps to cut aid to Central America, so I’m wondering how that fits and whether you’re committing resources, not just sort of negotiations to this. Are you going to put money into it or expertise?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Yeah, I think you’ve conflated economic prosperity with U.S. dollars going down to those places. I don’t think about them that way remotely. Those economies need to grow. They need to develop rule of law. They need to develop systems and to grow their economies.
The United States is prepared to do the things we need to do, but we’ve made no incremental resource commitments associated with this deal. We didn’t offer any resource assistance to the Mexican government to deliver these outcomes. We’ve not done so in Central America as well. Where we find it in our interest in the Northern Triangle or in Mexico to provide resources that make sense to protect the American people, we’ll do that. But in the first instance, these nations have the responsibility to take care of these immigration problems in their home country.
There’s always a larger geopolitical dynamic when you assess the economic alliances that President Trump puts together…. Always and underlying plan… Sometimes it just takes time to surface.
As we have noted, even going back to 2017, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe always appeared to be the fulcrum for President Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy.
Remember the trip to Japan as honored guests of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako at the Imperial Palace? Remember last month’s (May 25th) unprecedented reception with the titans of Japanese business? Remember the private reception set up by a very nervous U.S. Ambassador William F. Hagerty? A reception with the most influential business CEO’s in Japan and Southeast Asia?
Well…
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Tokyo Electron, the world’s No.3 supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, will not supply to Chinese clients blacklisted by Washington, a senior company executive told Reuters.
The decision shows how Washington’s effort to bar sales of technology to Chinese firms, including Huawei Technologies, is ensnaring non-American firms that are not obliged to follow U.S. law.
China, which is locked in a crippling trade war with the United States, is pushing to build its semiconductor industry to reduce its reliance on U.S., Japanese and European suppliers for chip-making machinery.
“We would not do businesses with Chinese clients with whom Applied Materials and Lam Research are barred from doing businesses,” the executive said, referring to the top U.S. chip equipment firms.
“It’s crucial for us that the U.S. government and industry see us as a fair company,” he said, citing Tokyo Electron’s long U.S. partnership since the 1960s, when it started off as an importer of U.S. equipment.
He did not want to be named given the sensitivity of the matter. Applied Materials and Lam Research declined to comment.
Another major Japanese chip equipment supplier is also considering halting shipments to blacklisted Chinese firms, a person familiar with the matter said.
“The issue is beyond something we can decide on our own,” said the person, who also declined to be identified.
Executives at other equipment suppliers said they were communicating closely with the Japanese industry ministry. (read more)
Now the design of President Trump’s multidimensional strategy to confront China gains clarity. Now we see the benefits of personal investment…
President Trump is executing one of the most brilliant geopolitical economic resets in the history of global trade. It really is stunningly remarkable how President Trump has controlled the entire landscape. The consequential phase has begun.
It is fascinating how the financial pundits didn’t see this coming. Perhaps one of the best indicators of where things are comes from this quote within the South China Post:
…“The Administration’s Section 301 tariffs and China’s retaliatory tariffs will now further disrupt – or even break – many thousands of supply chains in both countries.”…
The quote by Nelson Dong is stated *as if* shifting/breaking supply chains is a flaw in the approach. It’s not. Exactly the opposite is true; this is a feature of the strategic reset. A specific and purposeful feature designed by President Trump.
What Dong is predicting is the deconstruction of “one-belt, one-road”.
As President Trump highlights, over time (and it won’t take long) there will be an exodus of multinational manufacturing away from China. Corporations will shift their purchase agreements, manufacturing and assembly plans to ASEAN countries outside the investment ‘risk zone’ that is now China.
Notice some of the nuance (specific references) within President Trump’s tweets. Japan, Vietnam (President Trang Dai Quang), South Korea (KORUS), Philippines and India are positioned to pick-up business.
To counteract the predictable exodus the Chinese state-run enterprises (and banks) will offer incentives to retain the corporate manufacturing business. This process means China, in essence, subsidizes the tariffs:
China has no choice if they want to retain their economic model. Remember, China’s economy is deep (manufacturing) but also narrow. They are dependent on raw materials, customers and market access. {Go Deep}
Additionally, President Trump announced he has not made any decision on the next phase of 25% tariffs on the remaining $350 billion in Chinese products. He doesn’t need to. Merely the possibility of additional tariffs will pause any further investment; and some companies not currently impacted will make decisions to avoid the possibility of impact.
President Trump has walked Chairman Xi into a trap. There is only downside for China in the current dynamic. In an effort to avoid the downside, China will bleed cash to retain their economic position…. However, this can only last so long.
President Trump knows the strength of our U.S. position is that our economy is deep and wide. The U.S. is a self-sustaining economy. Almost 80% of our internal production and manufacturing is purchased within our own market.
In the big picture – economic strength is an outcome of the ability of a nation, any nation, to support itself first and foremost. If a nations’ economy is dependent on other nations to survive it is less strong than a nation whose economy is more independent.
The reality of China as a dependent economic model; heck, they cannot even feed themselves; puts them at greater risk from the effects of global economic contraction. However, more importantly it puts China at risk from President Trump’s strategic use of geopolitical economic leverage to weaken their economy. Trump is exploiting that risk.
As things go forward, China cannot sustain a long-term economic conflict with the U.S. As each day passes the ASEAN alliance will see inbound investment grow as companies pull-out of China and invest in Japan, S-Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, India etc.
The GDP of our allies (including Mexico, think recent ‘migration deal’) grows, and the controlled GDP of China, as an adversary, shrinks.
(LA Times) GoPro Inc. will move most of its U.S.-bound camera production out of China by summer, becoming one of the first brand-name electronics makers to take such action to minimize the impact of the U.S.-China trade war.
“Today’s geopolitical business environment requires agility,” GoPro Chief Financial Officer Brian McGee said in a statement Monday. “We’re proactively addressing tariff concerns.” The company is still deciding where to put the manufacturing operation. (more)
All of this was entirely predictable. President Trump and Ambassador Lighthizer told the world what to expect in 2017:
Da Nang, Vietnam – United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer today released the following statement in response to President Trump’s speech on trade between the United States and the Indo-Pacific region, at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit (emphasis mine):
“The President spoke loud and clear: the era of trade compromised by massive state intervention, subsidies, closed markets and mercantilism is ending. Free, fair and reciprocal trade that leads to market outcomes and greater prosperity is on the horizon.
“President Trump understands that too many nations talk about free trade abroad, only to shield their economies behind tariff and non-tariff barriers at home. The United States will no longer allow these actions to continue, and we are willing to use our economic leverage to pursue truly fair and balanced trade.
“I look forward to doing as thePresident instructed me and to pursue policies that will improve the lives of our workers, farmers and ranchers.” (link)
Kiyotaka Ise, President of Aisin Seiki
Peter Jennings, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan
Noriyuki Inoue, Chairman of Daikin Industries
Koji Arima, President and Chief Executive Officer of DENSO
Hiroyuki Ochiai, President of Fuel Total System
Toshiaki Higashihara, Chairman of Hitachi
Toshiaki Mikoshiba, Chairman and Director of Honda
Masatsugu Nagato, President and Chief Executive Officer of Japan Post Holdings Co.
Yuzaburo Mogi, Honorary Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors for Kikkoman
Akira Marumoto, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mazda
Ken Kobayashi, Chairman of Mitsubishi Corporation (Trading House)
Masaki Sakuyama, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Seiji Izumisawa, President and Chief Executive Officer for Mitsubishi Heavy Industry
Nobuyuki Hirano, Chairman and Corporate Executive for Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc.
Shigenobu Nagamori, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer for Nidec Corporation
Hiroto Salikawa, President and Chief Executive Officer for Nissan
Junko Nakagawa, Executive Managing Director for Nomura Asset Management Co.
Hiroshi Mikitani, Chief Executive Officer for Rakuten
Yasuhiko Saitoh, President of Shin-Etsu Chemical
Masayoshi Son, Chief Executive Officer of Softbank
Masayoshi Fujimoto, President and Chief Executive Officer for Sojtz
Shiro Kambe, Executive Vice President for Sony
Tomomi Nakamura, President of Subaru (Fuji Heavy Industries)
Masayuki Hyodo, Representative Director, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sumitomo Corporation
Takeshi Niinami, President and Chief Executive Officer of Suntory
Christoph Weber, President and Chief Executive Officer of Takeda Pharmaceuticals Co.
Michiaki Hirose, Chairman of Tokyo Gas Co.
Satoshi Tsunakawa, President of Toshiba Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota
President Trump travels to Iowa today to deliver a policy speech on renewable energy. The remarks are taking place at Southwest IA Renewable Energy in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Later this evening President Trump will deliver remarks at the Republican Party of Iowa annual dinner. Start time for the energy speech approximately 4:20pm EST:
Chopper pressers are the best pressers. Departing the White House for an energy policy speech in Iowa, President Trump stops to take questions from the assembled media pool.
UPDATE: Video and Transcript Added
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[Transcript] – 12:35 P.M. EDT – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. This group gets bigger and bigger. This is a big group by any standard. This is like the Academy Awards used to be before they went political. Now nobody cares.
But a great honor to be with you. We’re doing very well. Mexico is doing a great job at the border, really helping us. We want the Democrats to help us as much as Mexico. And we’ll have absolutely no problem at the border. We’ll clean it up very quickly.
But the agreement with Mexico has been great. They’ve been working very hard. We’re doing very well together. A good relationship.
Yes.
Q Mr. President, in his speech today, Joe Biden will say that your policies represent an existential threat to this nation. What do you say to Joe Biden?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I heard Biden, who’s a loser — I mean, look, Joe never got more than 1 percent, except Obama took him off the trash heap, and now it looks like he’s failing. It looks like his friends from the left are going to overtake him pretty soon.
But I heard he — you know, his whole campaign is to hit Trump. If you look at what the Obama administration did in terms of the military, in terms of security, in terms of other nations, in terms of almost everything, much of it now, fortunately for everybody here, has been overturned.
But, look, when a man has to mention my name 76 times in his speech, that means he’s in trouble. Now, I have to tell you, he’s a different guy. He looks different than he used to. He acts different than he used to. He’s even slower than he used to be. So, I don’t know. But when he mentions my name that many times, I guess they should be complimented.
Q Did you ask staff to lie about your poll numbers?
THE PRESIDENT: Who?
Q Did you ask members of your team to lie about your poll numbers?
THE PRESIDENT: I never do. My poll numbers are great. By the way, we’ve gotten fantastic numbers. I guess Rasmussen just came out with a 50 percent. And the amazing thing is all I do is get hit by this phony witch hunt, although they don’t mention Russia anymore because there was no collusion. So now they want to try and say, “Well, did he obstruct a no-collusion?” So there was no crime. The crime was by the Democrats, folks. They’ve committed, in my opinion, many crimes. And time will tell what happens there. But the crime was by the Democrats.
My poll numbers have been very, very good. We’re starting, really, next week. It’s going to be something, I think, very special. We’re starting in Orlando, Florida.
Q Mr. President, are you elevating Joe Biden by continually attacking him?
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me?
Q Are you elevating Joe Biden by continually attacking him?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I’d rather run against, I think, Biden than anybody. I think he’s the weakest, mentally. And I like running against people that are weak, mentally. I think Joe is the weakest up here. The other ones have much more energy. I don’t agree with their policies, but I think Joe is a man who is — I call him “One Percent Joe,” because until Obama came along, he didn’t do very well.
But I — look. Look, but I don’t bring him up.
Q He says your tariffs are going to hurt Iowa farmers.
THE PRESIDENT: The best thing that ever happened to the farmers is me. We gave $16 billion to the farmers to make up for the deficit with China. We gave them $16 billion. We don’t give them; they earn it, because they’re patriots. We gave them ethanol at 15, which nobody was ever going to do; which Biden didn’t do in eight years as, you know, Vice President. The farmers are my best friend. Nobody has treated the farmers better than Donald Trump.
Q Mr. President, on Mexico. Do you have an agreement with Mexico to become a safe third country for asylum seekers?
THE PRESIDENT: (Displays a document.) That’s the agreement that everybody says I don’t have.
Q Can you tell us?
THE PRESIDENT: So, no, because I’m going to let Mexico do the announcement at the right time. For Mexico, they want to go through it. But here’s the agreement. It’s a very simple agreement. This is one page. This is one page of a very long and very good agreement for both Mexico and the United States.
Without the tariffs, we would have had nothing. We had nothing two weeks ago. Mexico told us “absolutely.” I don’t know where the Times got the story, but — I think they got it probably from somebody that worked here and said, oh, how well they were doing. Well, for a long time — for many years — people tried to get what we got in a period of a couple of days. And they couldn’t get it. That’s the difference: They couldn’t get it.
So, Mexico, we’re getting along with them great. Marcelo and the President and all of them, we’re getting along great. They’ve started a very strong action. They’re moving, right now, 6,000 soldiers to their southern border. Who ever heard of that? You think we had that two weeks ago?
Two weeks ago, I’ll tell you what we had: We had nothing. And the reason we had nothing is because Mexico felt they didn’t have to give us anything. I don’t blame them. But this is actually, ultimately, going to be good for Mexico, too. And it’s good for the relationship of Mexico with us.
So here’s your thing. You know, they all say, “Oh, he doesn’t…” I just give you my word inside here. And I would love to do it. But you will freeze-action it. You will stop it. You will analyze it. Every single letter you’ll see. But in here is the agreement.
Q Mr. President, Speaker Pelosi said today that every time you attack her, her stock goes up. Are you helping her politically?
THE PRESIDENT: Now, look, Nancy is a mess. The Democratic Party is a mess. They’re doing everything they can to win the election in 2020.
They are guilty of many crimes. Many, many crimes — what they’ve done. They’re guilty of many, many crimes. And hopefully, in a short period of time, that’ll be seen. They should never have done what they’ve done. And all they do is waste time on these investigations where there’s no obstruction, no collusion, no nothing.
And in the meantime, they can’t get a border deal done. They can’t do anything. We need — in addition to the great deal with Mexico, we need them to work on illegal immigration, on lower drug prices, on infrastructure. And they’re not doing anything. They are — they’ve come to a halt.
Q On that specific question, if I could: Did Mexico agree —
THE PRESIDENT: Say it?
Q Did Mexico agree in the negotiations last week to become a safe third country for asylum seekers?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t want to say, but you can just figure it out yourself. And the reason is Mexico wants to handle. That would have to go through their legislative body.
Q But I heard that they agreed to that on Friday.
THE PRESIDENT: A lot of people heard they agreed to it. A lot of people are saying that. Good luck. Okay? I’m not going to say one way or the other. But I will tell you, right here is the story. You know, I don’t like it when newspapers write fake news, or when reporters, like you, do fake news. I don’t like that. So right here is the agreement. It’s very simple. It’s right here. And in here is everything you want to talk about. Done. It’s done. It’s done. It’s all done.
Emerald.
Q On Joe Biden, he’s reportedly going to change his rhetoric about China to say, “We need to get tough. They are our competition.”
THE PRESIDENT: Joe Biden thought that China was not a competitor of ours. Joe Biden is a dummy. Joe Biden thought China was not a competitor. China made $500 billion, over a short period of time, against Obama, Biden — and for many, many years, in all fairness to them.
China is a major competitor and right now China wants to make a deal very badly. It’s me, right now, that’s holding up the deal. And we’re going to either do a great deal with China or we’re not doing a deal at all.
Right now, China is paying us billions and billions of dollars. They never gave us 10 cents. And China ate our country alive during Obama and Biden. They ate us alive. And then, Biden has some kind of relationship financially, or his son, with China? Tell me about that? Because China ate the United States alive economically, and it’s a shame.
Q Was it appropriate for you to attack Pelosi in Normandy? Was it appropriate for you to attack Pelosi in Normandy?
THE PRESIDENT: No, no, Pelosi attacked me. She was here. She made a horrible statement that I’m sure she wished she didn’t make. She made a horrible statement while I was with the Queen of England, while I was with — while I was with the President of France. And you’re not supposed to do that. Okay? But the ones that committed the crimes are the Democrats and others.
Q Mr. President, do immigrants from Venezuela deserve asylum in the U.S.? And why haven’t you given them temporary protected status?
THE PRESIDENT: We’re looking at that and we’re very much involved with the Venezuela crisis. It’s a horrible thing, a horrible situation. It’s been brewing for many years. It really started, in the worst form, during the Biden-Obama administration. But it’s been brewing for a long time.
Q Can you give them temporary protected status?
THE PRESIDENT: So we’re looking at that very strongly. We’re looking at that.
Q Mr. President, on Xi — your tweet about Xi and the threat of tariffs if he doesn’t meet with you, where are you on that?
THE PRESIDENT: My relationship with President Xi of China is a very good one. One of the people I really like. I get along with him right. He’s representing China. I’m representing the United States of America. We’re doing very well. We’re taking in billions and billions of dollars. Companies are leaving China right now and they’re coming here because they don’t want to pay the tariffs. And they’re going to other countries.
But I think that China — I can tell you China would like to make a deal very badly. They’re getting hurt very badly by the tariffs because companies can’t pay the tariffs, so they’re leaving China.
And the other thing you have to remember about China is that China will subsidize companies so our taxpayer is not paying for very much of it. A report came out; they’re paying for very little of it.
But what it’s doing is creating a fair playing field, which we’ve never had with China since the WTO — the World Trade Organization.
Q And will you meet at the G20? Will you meet with Xi at the G20?
THE PRESIDENT: We expect to meet with President Xi very shortly. We think we’ll meet him at the G20. We’re talking. We have a very good relationship.
Look, we had a deal with China and then they went back on the deal. They said, “We don’t want to have four major points, five major points.” So we changed it. But we had a deal with China. And unless they go back to that deal, I have no interest.
Right now, we’re taking in billions and billions of dollars. I’ve created something — what we’ve done in the last two and a half years, we’ve picked up $14 trillion in net worth of the United States. And China has gone down probably by $20 trillion. There’s a tremendous gap. When I came in, that gap was getting very close.
Q Why are you so certain, Mr. President, that you will win Iowa in 2020?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I love Iowa. I’ve gotten along great. I won Iowa by a lot the last time. Usually a Republican would not win it by that much. But I won Iowa, as you know, by a lot. I have a great relationship with the farmers. I have a great relationship with everybody. I mean, Iowa, I think, is going to be something that we win very easily.
I think we’re going to win. I saw a fake poll — a suppression poll in Pennsylvania. I even saw one in Texas. They’re suppression. They’re fake polls, just like the fake media, of which there are many here. They’re fake polls.
We’re going to win Texas by a lot. We’re going to win Iowa by a lot. We’re going to win, I would say, every — Pennsylvania, I think we’re going to do very well. We have steel companies opening up that for 40 years they didn’t open up steel companies. Now they’re opening up. No, I think we’re doing very well.
Q (Inaudible) about your meeting with Kim Jong Un while you’re in South Korea? Are there discussions underway?
THE PRESIDENT: So, I see that. And I just received a beautiful letter from Kim Jong Un, and I think the relationship is very well. But I appreciated the letter. I saw the information about the CIA, with respect to his brother, or half-brother. And I would tell him that would not happen under my auspices, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t let that happen under my auspices.
But I just received a beautiful letter from Kim Jong Un. I can’t show you the letter, obviously, but it was a very personal, very warm, very nice letter. I appreciate it.
And I’ll say it again: I think that North Korea has tremendous potential, and he’ll be there. I think that North Korea, under his leadership — but North Korea, because of what it represents — the people are great, the land is great, the location is incredible between Russia, China, and South Korea — I think North Korea has tremendous potential. And the one that feels that more than anybody is Kim Jong Un. He gets it. He totally gets it.
Q (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know. I have not heard about that, but we’ll see.
Q (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: I would, but I want to get it further advanced.
In the meantime, no nuclear testing. No major missile testing. Nothing like when I first got here. When I first got here, it was a bad mess.
We have a very good relationship together. Now I can confirm it because of the letter I got yesterday. And I think — you know, I think that something will happen that’s going to be very positive. But in the meantime, we have our hostages back. The remains keep coming back. We have a relationship.
Q Do you think he had his half-brother killed? Do you think he had his half-brother killed?
Q Are you saying that the CIA (inaudible) was wrong?
THE PRESIDENT: Say it?
Q Was the CIA wrong? Did he have his half-brother killed?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know anything about that. I know this: That the relationship is such that that wouldn’t happen under my auspices. But I don’t know about that. Nobody knows.
Q McAleenan (inaudible) — earlier he said that the border wouldn’t —
Q So, Mr. President, you said —
THE PRESIDENT: Quiet. Quiet. Quiet.
Go ahead.
Q — that the border wouldn’t be as bad today if they passed the 2013 immigration bill. But that included the Gang of Eight amnesty.
THE PRESIDENT: Up a little higher.
Q That included — McAleenan said that the border wouldn’t be as bad if Congress had passed the 2013 immigration bill. But that included the Gang of Eight amnesty.
THE PRESIDENT: So, Congress has to get their act together. They have to pass immigration laws. They have to get rid of — I mean, as far as I’m concerned, the most important thing is to get rid of the loopholes, because you have loopholes and asylum problems that they could do in 15 minutes if they wanted to.
The Democrats in Congress are causing this country tremendous drug problems, tremendous security problems, and they have to get together and they have to work out asylum and the loopholes.
It would take, literally, 15 minutes. It’s so simple.
Q That 2013 bill included amnesty. Does the administration support amnesty now, since McAleenan said that?
THE PRESIDENT: What we’re going to do is we’re going to sit down at some point with the Democrats; we’re going to work it all out. It is a quick negotiation. And they know I’m right. They just don’t want to do it politically. They want to have open borders. And open borders means crime. And really, it means crime; it means drugs.
So we get 90 percent of our drugs coming in through the southern border, which I think everyone pretty much agrees too. Hundreds of billions of dollars — we can close it up so easy.
Now, we took a big step with Mexico over the last three days. This is an even bigger step. But we took a big step with Mexico. The Democrats have to sit down with us and we have to work something out very easily on asylum and on loopholes.
Q Any plan, any thought, about another meeting with Kim Jong Un?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it could happen, but I want to bring it further down the line.
Look, in the meantime, he’s kept his word. There’s no nuclear testing, there’s no large, you know, long-range missiles going up. The only thing he sent up were very short-term, short-range. That was just a test of short range. It’s a whole different deal.
But he’s kept his word to me; that’s very important. And again, the letter he sent was a beautiful letter. It was a very warm letter. That’s a very nice thing. And I don’t say that out of naiveté. I say that was a very nice letter.
Q The agreement in your pocket, when does that go into effect? Does it happen even if Mexico brings down the numbers?
THE PRESIDENT: This will go into effect, and it’s my option. It’s not Mexico’s. But it will go into effect when Mexico tells me it’s okay to release it.
Q What if they bring the numbers down in the next 90 days?
THE PRESIDENT: If they bring the numbers way down, we won’t have to use it. Okay? If they bring the numbers way down, we won’t have to. But this my option. It goes into effect when I want it to. But I have a lot of respect for the President of Mexico, I have a lot of respect for the people we dealt with, so I don’t want to do that. And they have to go back to Congress to get that approved.
But it goes down — listen, it goes down — it goes into effect at my option. But I wouldn’t do that. I want to deal with them, okay?
Q Why haven’t you nominated a DHS and Defense Secretary?
THE PRESIDENT: Say it?
Q Why haven’t you nominated a DHS and Defense Secretary?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I have — Defense Secretary.
Q When is that going to happen, though?
THE PRESIDENT: I have. It’s done. I put it out.
Q When is DHS — it’s done?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. It’s done from the standpoint of the nomination.
Q Are you saying —
Q Why haven’t you nominated DHS?
THE PRESIDENT: Wait, wait, wait. Pat Shanahan was nominated two weeks ago.
Q (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, no, I put it out.
Q When are you sending it? When are you sending it?
THE PRESIDENT: I put it out officially. No, now he has to go through the process.
Q Okay, what about DHS?
THE PRESIDENT: He’s now going through. That, we’ll make a determination. I think Kevin is doing a very good job right now. But we’ll make a determination in the not-too-distant — we have Acting. We’ll make a determination. But I think Kevin is doing a very good job.
Q Have you spoken to the leadership in Iran? Are you hopeful about peaceful dialogue with Iran?
THE PRESIDENT: I hope that everything works out with Iran. Iran is a country that now, because of all of the sanctions and other things, is a much different country than when I came here.
When I came here, they were all over the place causing terror, causing problems. They’re not doing that right now. And I think they respect the United States right now much more than they ever have.
So Iran has got a lot of problems, and I’d like to help them with those problems. We’ll see what happens. But they have tremendous inflation. Their money is worthless. You can’t buy a loaf of bread. It’s a lot of problems in Iran. And it’s a lot different than it was two and a half years ago. And big things were sanctioned, but I think the biggest thing was when I — and the most important was when I terminated the Iran nuclear deal, which was an incompetent deal.
White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett squares-off against Fox Business crew on trade tensions with China, the state of the U.S. economy, the outlook for Federal Reserve policy and his upcoming departure from the White House.
Steve Forbes is disconnected from the reality of what happens with tariffs on China. Beijing first responds to off-set the tariff by lowering the value of their currency, and/or subsidizing the targeted products. There is no price increase to U.S. consumers (check inflation).
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Apparently President Trump was watching the segment, and had a word for Maria Bartiromo, Dagan McDowell, Steve Forbes and Stuart Varney:
According to two media reports democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden is scheduled to completely reverse his position on China, and outline the Asian nation as a global geopolitical threat in an Iowa speech today. That’s not a reversal or a flip-flop, that would be a triple-lindy.
Since the first day he announced his candidacy Joe Biden has been saying China does not pose a threat to the U.S. or our global allies. He has consistently down-played any talk of China as an economic or geopolitical threat to the U.S.
The Biden family has also made millions from their financial relationships with China, assisted by the family patriarch selling policy influence.
Biden has been so far out-front while advocating his friendly position toward China that he’s even been nick-named “China Joe” by those paying close attention…. And now he’s going to reverse that completely?Reminder:
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Either those media reports are wrong, or Biden’s internal campaign pollster finally got through to him how ridiculously stupid he looks defending China.
In this exclusive, in-depth interview, author and clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson joins Dr. Oz to discuss how we can find meaning in our lives, challenge our thinking, and provide tactical ways we can reach our full potential. Take Dr. Peterson’s full personality quiz: https://bit.ly/2yfmWSJ
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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