This has to be one of the single funniest French retorts in the history of commerce.  If President Trump follows through on auto tariffs, France will strike back.  Let that sink in.

Oh noes,… your next Peugeot, Citroen or Renault purchase might cost more.  D’oh.

PARIS (Reuters) – Europe will hit back if U.S. President Donald Trump follows through with a threat to slap import tariffs on European-made cars, France’s finance minister said on Monday. Trump escalated already burning trade tensions on Friday by threatening to hit all imports of cars assembled in the European Union (EU) with a 20 percent tariff.   (more)

The EU is the most protectionist trade bloc in the world.  The German auto-sector is the most protected trade sector inside the EU.  The hypocrisy is silly.

The EU, Germany specifically, needs access to the U.S. market to survive.  Angela Merkel has already conceded this point in the EU concessionary position to abandon all auto tariffs; in exchange for removal of Steel and Aluminum tariffs.

The only reason Merkel was so quick to the trigger is because without access to the U.S. market, the German economy begins the contraction cycle currently being experienced by Canada.   It’s the same reason why Germany abandoned the Paris Climate Treaty within weeks of the official U.S. withdrawal.

President Trump doesn’t want to necessarily tax German auto imports, but he is more than willing to use the tariff hammer to crack the protectionism within the EU market.

[Harley Davidson] said on Monday it would move production of motorcycles shipped to the EU from the United States to its international facilities and forecast the retaliatory tariffs would cost the company $90-100 million a year.

Reacting to the news, Le Maire said: “Whatever allows jobs to be created in Europe goes in the right direction. We don’t want a trade war, but we will defend ourselves.” (link)

Note the hypocrisy.  EU trade positions to protect their jobs is “going in the right direction“, but Trump trade positions to protect U.S. jobs is, well, not ok?

Harley Davidson is doing what companies and manufacturers should do, build within the market they are selling to.   If the EU applied the same standard they cheer Harley Davidson for, Germany would immediately begin expanding auto production facilities inside the U.S.   See how that works.

Drop all restrictive trade barriers and no country can compete on an even playing field with the U.S.  We lead the world in innovation; we have lower energy costs, abundant raw materials; highest returns on investment; and with organic upward pressure on wages, we will once again achieve the worlds fastest growing skilled labor force.

CNBC – […] Fifty-four percent of Americans say the economy is good or excellent, the highest recorded by CNBC in the 10 years of the survey. Just 43 percent say the economy is fair or poor, the lowest in the history of the survey. Positive views on the economy have surged 20 points since the election. And for the first time, the percentage of Americans saying the economy is excellent outstrips the percent saying it is poor. Americans look for a strong 4 percent gain in their home values in the next year, equaling the highest percentage previously recorded in 2007.

The president’s economic approval numbers come with some support from Democrats, said Jay Campbell with Hart Research Associates, the Democratic pollster for the survey. “There is component of Democratic base that’s willing to acknowledge the improving economy and willing to give Trump a certain amount of credit for it,’’ Campbell said. “A large number still disapprove of Trump on the economy but 30 percent of Democrats is not nothing.”  (read more)

Tonight President Trump heads to West Columbia, South Carolina for a campaign event supporting Henry McMaster. President Trump’s remarks at the joint MAGA rally are anticipated for 7:00pm EDT.

Fox News Livestream Link – NBC Livestream Link – Alternate Livestream Link

Earlier today President Trump and First Lady Melania welcomed King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein and Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan back to the White House.  This is the second official visit of King Abdullah and Queen Raina.

In the background it is likely much of the executive conversation surrounds the current issues with Iran, the state of Syria, Israel and the Palestinian Authority as it pertains to regional stability overall and Jordan specifically.   In the quiet distance, and entirely overlooked by Western -mostly U.S. media, President Trump has been positioning the EU via economic leverage against Iranian influence.

.

[Transcript] PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. It’s a great honor to have the King and Queen of Jordan with us. They’re friends. We’ve known each other now for quite a while. Long before this.

But you have done an incredible job on the refugees and the camps and taking care of people. And I just want to say while our nations have a very good relationship, we now have a great relationship. But the job you do on a humanitarian basis is fantastic. And I would like to thank you very much.

KING ABDULLAH II: Thank you. And if, sir, I could thank you and the United States and the people of America for all the support you’ve given our country. If the rest of the world just took a little bit of your humility and your grace to help us, we’d be in a lot better position.

But if it wasn’t for the United States — just on behalf of myself and my people, thank you so much for all that you’ve done.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Remember, he used the word “humility” with respect to me, so I am very happy with that word. That’s probably the nicest compliment I’ve been given in a long time.

No, the job you do is fantastic. And yes, we do — we spend a lot of money, but we spend a lot of money in a lot of places. And people don’t do the job that you do, so I want to thank you very much.

KING ABDULLAH II: Thank you, sir. Thank you.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Okay. Thank you very much, everybody.

Q Mr. President, do you regret signing the executive order?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, no. The executive order was great. It was something that I felt we had to do. We want children staying together. The law has been this law for a long period of time. You would understand this better than most because of the great job you do in your country.

No, it was — there was a false story, fake news in the New York Times. Just the opposite: I wanted to sign that. In fact, I was saying yesterday, before I read this phony story in the New York Times, that I was very, very happy that I signed that.

And it also — it shows. You know, we’re all talking about humanity, whether it’s what you’re doing in Jordan or whether it’s what we’re doing here. The laws are obsolete. The laws are horrible having to do with the border, both in terms of security and in terms of taking care of people.

President Obama had a big problem. In fact, a lot of the pictures used they thought would be — I guess, I don’t know what you folks did. You used pictures from 2014. They were all taken during the Obama administration. But the Bush administration had the same. It’s the same laws. They’re a disaster. The laws have to be changed. And whether it’s North Korea or whether it’s so many different things like trade, we’re taking care of a lot of problems that should have been taken care of over the years.

Well, one of the highest on the list is immigration. And we have to change our laws. We have to make them sensible. They came in to see me last week; they said, “We’d like to hire 5,000 more judges.” Five thousand. You ever hear of thing like that? Judges. Well, we’re appointing 145 judges here, and everyone goes through this extreme vetting process. You’re talking about 5,000. Where do you find 5,000 people to be judges? And you know what it leads? It leads to graft. It leads to a lot of other things.

We want a system where, when people come in illegally, they have to go out. And a nice simple system that works. You know, Mexico holds people for four hours, for five hours, for two hours, and they’re gone. We have people for four, five, six years and they never leave. So we want to have a great immigration.

What we have is very simple. We want strong borders and we want no crime. Strong borders. We want no crime. The Democrats want open borders and they don’t care about crime, and they don’t care about our military. I care about our military. That’s what we want and that’s what we’re going to get. And we’re going to get it sooner than people think.

Thank you very much. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you all very much.

Q What about the Middle East? Chances of peace better in the Middle East?

THE PRESIDENT: We’re doing very well in the Middle East. We’re doing very well in the Middle East, yes.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Q When do you want to release the Middle East peace plan?

THE PRESIDENT: I can only say this — and His Majesty knows we’re doing very well in the Middle East. A lot of progress has been made in the Middle East. A lot. And it really started with the end of the horrible Iran deal. That deal was a disaster, and things are a lot different since we ended that. A lot different.

Thank you all very much.

END 2:14 P.M. EDT

Those who know how to notice the Trump Doctrine at work will clearly see a very familiar pattern amid the latest geopolitical strategy currently underway by President Trump.

The president is using economic leverage against the majority EU influence agents, vis-a-vis EU trade positioning within the auto-sector which directly targets Germany¹. The Trump Doctrine as currently deployed is structuring a two-fold win/win. Leveraging EU auto-sector trade tariffs will likely end up with Germany removing all trade restrictions.

The removal of a looming 20% trade tariff benefits the German auto-sector; secondarily it reaches the economic goal of the administration to remove all trade barriers, ie reciprocity. Win #1 (majority benefit EU, minority benefit U.S).

However, in exchange for that benefit President Trump will likely request full EU (France and Germany specifically) support toward renewed and increased sanctions against Iran. Win #2 (majority benefit U.S. foreign policy).

¹ What is particularly interesting about this approach, in this instance, is how President Trump actually created leverage from nothing.  The “threat of” the 20% reciprocal auto tariff is leverage.  The threat would not have as much predictive authority if the Steel and Aluminum tariff did not precede it.  The EU is now forced to accept that even when President Trump proposes something (previously under any other administration they would have ignored), under President Trump it *could* likely happen.  So they must arrange their affairs accordingly.

Whoopsie – During a debriefing session between Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, Canadian politicians and business leaders, the chief NAFTA negotiator for Canada Steve Verheul accidentally told the group, while cameras were rolling, there were no actual NAFTA negotiations taking place.

When a seemingly shocked participant then asked a follow-up question about how could Steve Verheul reconcile that admission against earlier statements about an upcoming  Memo of Understanding (MOU), Ms. Freeland quickly shut down the discussion -in french- until the cameras left the meeting.  [Watch Video Segment Here]

Council Question: “Do you still meet your counterparts? Do you still have committees that are working?  What is the status of the negotiations?

Steve Verheul: “We don’t have any active negotiations. I haven’t talked to them in a little while.”

Council Question: “Since, …since?”

Steve Verheul: “Two or three weeks. Um, I’ll have the odd conversation, but no real engagement, no real negotiation session.”

Council Question: “And when we hear that you were close to a kind of MOU [Memo of Understanding] what was the basis of that?”

Chrystia Freeland: awkward interruption in French. (watch below)

What became evident within the exchange is the Canadian government trying to hide the lack of NAFTA progress from concerned citizens inside Canada.  In essence, the Canadian government is lying to their citizens about the possibility of a NAFTA agreement.

The Canadian economy contracting.  Last month the Canadian economy dropped 31,000 full-time jobs.  Amid an economy one-tenth the size of the U.S, that would be a comparative single-month job loss of 310,000 in the United States.

By contrast the U.S. economy is firing an all cylinders as massive investment flows into America.  In the same month the Canadian economy dropped 31k FT jobs, the U.S. economy added over 223,000 new jobs.

Ms. Freeland and Justin from Canada are trying to keep their electorate from comprehending what is about to happen.  The video segment is a brief window into the collective desperation amid a central cast of left-wing economic characters who are focused on feelings and political sensibilities.

The accidental video snippet was also captured and tweeted:

Two words:…. “Wilbur Ross”

Seek first to understand.  During an assembly of Canadian left-spectrum pundits the U.S. and Canada relationship is the topic; the backdrop is the economic consequences, trade and NAFTA.   In this group the high-minded Canadians express their views, their wounded sensibilities, and yet simultaneously highlight an important strategic flaw.

Within their political frame-of-reference, they cannot fathom the tenuous nature of their dependency.  They think they are more important than they are. Their inability to accept the weakness of their economic position is based on their feelings. Pride is very dangerous in negotiations amid apex predators. If you are prideful you provide a strategic advantage for the opposition.  In negotiations, President Trump doesn’t care about ‘feelings’ or opinions toward his approach.

The Canadian economic position is ‘not to lose‘, the Trump position is to win.  There is a huge strategic difference within those two perspectives.

President Trump is hosting a roundtable MAGAnomic meeting in Las Vegas with business leaders and professionals.  The discussion centers around ongoing benefits from the tax reform initiative; the administration policy toward trade rebalancing; and the ongoing America-First investment and business development plans.

UPDATE: Video Added

Anticipated start time 4:20pm EDT:

WH Livestream Link – RSBN Livestream Link – Alternate Livestream Link

President Trump discusses the need to stronger enforcement and immigration reform in this weekly address:

JSW Steel has announced an agreement to purchase Acero Junction facility in Mingo Junction, Ohio. Thanks specifically to the Trump administration economic plan, it is investing upwards of $500 million in the old Ohio steel plant that was built in 1929, instead of constructing a new facility in India.

The project is expected to generate an estimated 300 permanent jobs in a town of just 3,400 people.  “We are going to revitalize that facility and that entire community,” CEO John Hritz said:

Earlier today President Trump held a working lunch with multiple governors and officials. The majority of the discussion focused on economic policies, job growth, vocational training, and the larger American economy.

It has long been suspected; the footprints and fingerprints were always present; McCain repeatedly denied it…. now the evidence surfaces.

For those who remember the issues when the IRS, White House and DOJ organized the post 2010 election “shellacking” targeting of Tea Party groups, the latest discovery from Judicial watch is confirmation of a long-held opinion.  John McCain was instrumental in supporting the weaponization of the IRS to target tea party groups.

WASHINGTON DC – […]  In the full notes of an April 30, 2013, meeting, McCain’s high-ranking staffer [Henry] Kerner recommends harassing non-profit groups until they are unable to continue operating. Kerner tells Lerner, Steve Miller, then chief of staff to IRS commissioner, Nikole Flax, and other IRS officials, “Maybe the solution is to audit so many that it is financially ruinous.” In response, Lerner responded that “it is her job to oversee it all:”

Henry Kerner asked how to get to the abuse of organizations claiming section 501 (c)(4) but designed to be primarily political. Lois Lerner said the system works, but not in real time. Henry Kerner noted that these organizations don’t disclose donors. Lois Lerner said that if they don’t meet the requirements, we can come in and revoke, but it doesn’t happen timely. Nan Marks said if the concern is that organizations engaging in this activity don’t disclose donors, then the system doesn’t work. Henry Kerner said that maybe the solution is to audit so many that it is financially ruinous. Nikole noted that we have budget constraints. Elise Bean suggested using the list of organizations that made independent expenditures. Lois Lerner said that it is her job to oversee it all, not just political campaign activity.

Judicial Watch previously reported on the 2013 meeting.  Senator McCain then issued a statement decrying “false reports claiming that his office was somehow involved in IRS targeting of conservative groups.”   The IRS previously blacked out the notes of the meeting but Judicial Watch found the notes among subsequent documents released by the agency.  (Read Full Article)

The motives were simple.  The GOPe leadership were being challenged by Tea Party primary candidates.  Power was being confronted.  The professional republican party was in full alignment with the Obama administration in removing the existential threat represented by the challenge to their political power and incumbency.  McConnell, Hatch, Burr, Graham, McCain, Cornyn, Corker et al, were willing to do anything and everything to get rid of the challenges to their political power.   Hence, the term “Decepticons” was born.

In October 2015 the DOJ announced it was dropping the investigation into the IRS, Lois Lerner, and the unlawful sharing of taxpayer data in the IRS targeting investigation surrounding True The Vote et al.

As a direct consequence of the DOJ decision, congressional inquiry into the IRS targeting matter seemingly dropped from the radar.

However, if you draw a line from the original intent of the entire enterprise, the post-2010 mid-term “shellacking”/”secret research project“, forward to the 2016 election cycle an interested observer might still be left asking:

“why did the IRS, through Lois Lerner, deliver the 1+ million pages of tax filings, to include the entire donor list of Tea Party and patriot groups, through 21 CD-ROMs and not by electronic data transfer.  Information that was specifically sent to Eric Holder and the U.S. Department of Justice”?

This is an obvious question which, despite the numerous congressional hearings on the matter, was never asked – nor answered.

The entire scheme is riddled with complexity; almost too complex for the average person to understand, and seriously difficult to summarize.  However, when you boil it down here’s the essential components that are no longer suspicion or supposition, but factually provable:

As a result of a trillion dollar stimulus filled with scheme and graft; and as a result of Obamacare being similarly schemed in backroom deals and late night votes;  President Obama was “shellacked” in the November 2010 election.

The White House didn’t see the defeat a flawed policy issue; rather as the entrenched ideologues they are, they saw the SCOTUS case “citizens united” as the principle tool used by the White House opponents to organize and fund political movements, ie. the tea party.

The Obama Team response to the 2010 Shellacking was to use the Dept. of Justice (AG Eric Holder) to weaponize the IRS and go after groups -like Tea Party Groups- organized under the financial umbrella of 501(c)(4) donation structuring.

Years later, when the scheme was discovered – the White House denied knowledge (“not even a smidgen of corruption”), the DOJ feigned ignorance, and the IRS began working overtime trying to hide the construct of the prior communication, planning and strategy.

• The head of IRS tax exempt division, Louis Lerner, pled the Fifth.
• Obama’s Chief of Staff Jack Lew was made Treasury Secretary (IRS is sub division of Treasury Dept.) where he was/is able to continue hiding information.
• And Eric Holder constructed a team of DOJ lawyers to isolate, hide and manipulate the trail of evidence within the DOJ.

Just before the IRS targeting scheme was fully discovered/comprehended, and seemingly overlooked by any curious media enterprise, in February 2013 representative Maxine Waters said:

“The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life. That’s going to be very, very powerful. That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it’s never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. They’re going to go down with that database and the concerns of those people because they can’t get  around it. And he’s [President Obama] been very smart. It’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place.” (link)

Loose Lips Sink UniParty Scheme Ships

Against, the backdrop of new information which proves the UniParty, both dems and republicans, benefited from the targeting of the Tea Party and oppositional forces; and with the full comprehension that Mitch McConnell and the republican leadership organized a post Citizens United strategy to work around their financial dependency on the electorate via Super-PACs; aren’t you just a little bit curious what the purpose was to assemble a data-base or “Secret Research Project“?

Lois Lerner’s and other IRS officials’ concerns about how to handle these donor lists came on the heels of an advisory from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) to her and other IRS officials in late March 2012 of “an audit we plan to conduct of the IRS’s process for reviewing applications for tax exemption by potential section 501(c)(4), 501(c)(5), and 501(c)(6) organizations.”

March 2012 “audit we plan to conduct” was the IG notification for a pending investigation of IRS.  Specifically of their handling of Conservative Groups filing applications and status.

We all know the result of that investigation was a finding the IRS was indeed targeting conservative groups – hence the IRS scandal erupted in the headlines.

However, far more troubling were later discoveries into the internal communications which suggested much more nefarious activity regarding the assembly of secret lists, the “Secret Research Project”.

An undertaking by both the Obama Administration and the DOJ together with the IRS began to surface.

The American Center for Law and Justice put it thusly:   We know the IRS unconstitutionally targeted conservative groups.  We know they illegally demanded, obtained, and held the donor lists of these conservative organizations.  Now we learn that in 2012, the height of the targeting, the IRS was involved in a “secret research project” with this confidential, illegally obtained donor information.

That’s more than a big deal.  It’s potentially criminal.

The very fact that the IRS was using the phrase “secret research project” should give every American pause.  But the fact that this project was conducted as part of a well-orchestrated effort to target and silence conservative Americans is utterly disturbing.

Now, again, ask yourself:  Why would Lois Lerner be delivering 21 CD-ROMs of data, lists of every American who joined arms with the Tea Party, to Eric Holder in the DOJ instead of just transferring that data over their internal computer systems?

WASHINGTON […] “After the Justice Department turned over the database to the Oversight Committee this month in response to a subpoena, the Justice Department says it was informed by IRS officials that it contains legally protected taxpayer information that should not have ever been sent to the FBI and it now plans to return the full database to the IRS,” a statement from the oversight committee said.

According to material obtained by the committee, the IRS sent the FBI “21 disks constituting a 1.1 million page database of information from 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

The transaction occurred in October 2010.  (link)

Overlay this Machiavellian web of deceit and power against the latest understandings of how John McCain dispatched another member of his staff, David Kramer, to act as a go-between and facilitator for the Christopher Steele dossier use against candidate Trump; and factor in how the entire intelligence apparatus was weaponized; and consider that both Democrat and Republican leadership were willfully blind in this effort; and a very clear picture emerges.

If you wonder why the entire corrupt DC political class is openly in opposition to President Donald J Trump…. well,…

Once you see the strings on the marionettes, you can never go back to a time when you did not notice them…