I am thankful every day that we have a businessman in the White House who brilliantly understands how to leverage U.S. economic power to achieve national security objectives.

While remaining under the threat of punishing U.S. tariffs, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador (aka AMLO) is strictly enforcing migrant blockades to stop the unlawful travel of Central American migrants to the U.S. border.

(Via AP) […] Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said he believes Mexico’s strategy of cracking down on illegal migration with a National Guard deployment, investment in Central America and allowing the U.S. to make more asylum seekers wait in Mexico is enough to avert President Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on all Mexican imports.

Ebrard is scheduled to meet with U.S. officials Tuesday at the White House to review the progress.

Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador, a leftist who took office Dec. 1 promising better treatment of migrants, instead has embraced the fight against migrant smuggling.

In recent weeks, he has seldom mentioned the U.S. pressure and depicts the crackdown on migrants as a struggle to defend Mexican laws. His administration has taken a tough line against hundreds of African migrants waiting in the southern city of Tapachula for transit visas that Mexico no longer hands out.

“We will not budge,” he said after the Africans protested, “because the recent events in Tapachula aim to make Mexico yield and oblige us to give out certificates so migrants can get into the United States. We cannot do that. It isn’t our job.”

He said migrant caravans once tolerated by Mexico were the work of human traffickers, and effectively ended them.

“All of these people who traffic with migrants’ needs for jobs, safety and welfare, they are committing a crime and they will be punished,” López Obrador said last week. “We are already doing this in Mexico, without violating human rights. We are ensuring there isn’t anarchy, disorder.”

Migrant-rights activists say López Obrador is simply dressing up the fact that he yielded to Trump’s pressure tactics.

[…] Mexico has raided freight trains that migrants ride north, and pulled thousands off buses and out of the freight compartments of trucks. The government has warned bus and taxi drivers they could lose their permits if they transport migrants. (read more)

Hopefully, with continued strategic policy success, we will soon reach a point where American voters will only accept business leaders as presidential candidates.

…”Complicated business folks… Complicated business”….

White House Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow discusses the August jobs report and the latest on China trade negotiations. Main Street USA is thriving, and the U.S. economy is very strong.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the August Jobs Report showing 130,000 jobs added during the month.  Year-over-year wage growth remains 3.2%, with a very strong three month wage growth showing gains of 4.2%.

Overall the top line growth of 130k jobs sounds modest; but jumpin’ ju-ju bones, the data underneath the top line is extremely strong and highlights exactly why wage rates have been rapidly increasing over the past three months.  [Table A – BLS Report]

• The civilian labor force increased by 571,000 workers in August.
• The number of employed Americans jumped up by 590,000 in August.
• The number of people not in the labor force dropped by 364,000 in August.
• The workforce participation rate increased 0.2 to 63.2 percent in August.

With a tight labor market we are seeing the natural upward pressure on wages. In the past four months wage rates have increased 4.2% [Table B-3], and from the employment data it appears those large wage incentives are bringing people back into the workforce.

Year-over-year the number of employed Americans has grown by 2,274,000 people.