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.

Thank you all.

[Transcript End]

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.”…

[Nelson Dong, a senior partner at Dorsey & Whitney]

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 the President 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:

UPDATE: Video Added

WH Livestream Link – RSBN Livestream Link – Fox News Livestream Link

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:

Responding to a request from Chairman Jerry Nadler, Attorney General William Barr has sent a letter (full pdf below)explaining the scope of the DOJ review of intelligence activities in the 2016 presidential campaign.  According to the letter AG Barr says the review is “broad in scope and multifaceted,” and includes examining actions by US and foreign intelligence agencies, “as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals.”

Here’s the letter:

(Source pdf)

Here’s the embed version:

.…“It is now well established that, in 2016, the U.S. government and others undertook certain intelligence-gathering and investigative steps directed at persons associated with the Trump Campaign. … There remain open questions relating to the origins of this counter-intelligence investigation and the U.S. and foreign intelligence activities that took place prior to and during that investigation.”

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, aka “JOLTS report“, lags behind monthly employment reports by a month as the ‘hires‘ and ‘quits‘ are contrast against available job openings.

In the latest JOLTS report we find evidence why the May employment numbers were less than expected. The data shows the economy is expanding; businesses are hiring; and the reason for lower new hires has nothing to do with an economic slow-down. In essence, the labor market is tight, very tight, and Main Street businesses are having a hard time finding qualified workers.

According to the BLS stats overall job hiring in April was 5.9 million. That’s the largest number of people hired in the history of the JOLTS record-keeping (started in 2000). There are 7.45 million current job openings and only 5.82 million workers identified as unemployed. That means there are 1.63 million more jobs than available workers.

This is a clear indication expanding economic conditions and a near ‘full-employment‘ position for the overall labor market. Additionally the quits rate is 2.3 percent, reflecting that workers are: (a) being recruited away from current employment to jump to other businesses; and (b) worker are confident about getting a job, and jumping into new jobs for higher wages/benefits. As a result, the strong ‘quits’ rate has historically been a precursor KPI for future wage growth stats.

(via CNBC) The total number of workers hired rose to a new high in April, according to Labor Department data released Monday. But despite this, the amount of available jobs still vastly outnumbers unemployed workers.

Hirings increased to 5.9 million for the month, a gain of 240,000 from March, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey indicated. The hiring rate rose to 3.9%, an increase of one-tenth of a percentage point. The total hirings was the most recorded in the data series’ history going back to December 2000.

On the openings front, the gap between vacancies and available workers continued to be huge.

Openings for the month actually decreased slightly, falling 25,000 to 7.45 million. However, workers that the Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies as unemployed declined by 387,000 to 5.82 million, leaving the gap at about 1.63 million. (more)

There has never been a better time for middle-class U.S. workers to explore a new job.

Many companies are adding incentives for new workers with a strong work ethic, including: higher wages, sign-on bonuses, higher benefits, work-time flexibility and training programs for qualified candidates.

The wage gains for blue-collar non-supervisory workers are far exceeding the wage growth for supervisory positions.  This Main Street economic growth is specifically benefiting workers without college degrees; and in many cases the financial opportunity for skilled blue-collar jobs is far exceeding the benefits of college debt.

Despite the professional doomsayer predictions from the professional financial class of Wall Street investment punditry, Main Street is upbeat and consumer confidence is strong.

Never is the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street more visible than in the predictions -vs- reality for the growing/strengthening American middle-class.

The professional financial punditry can’t explain it.  Flummoxed academics run around bumping into walls amid economic numbers that continue to defy expectations.  All caused by a simple return to common sense ‘America First’ MAGAnomics.

Low unemployment (3.6%); wages growing (+3.2%); inflation stable (1.6%). These measures all have a cumulative impact on paycheck-to-paycheck Americans. Prices for durable goods are stable and wage growth is exceeding inflation. That means more disposable income in the middle-class…DUH. When combined with the increased take home pay from lower tax rates, is exactly the intended outcome of MAGAnomics.

Earlier this morning President Donald Trump called in to CNBC to discuss a variety of subjects including: the ongoing trade negotiations with China; the threat of tariffs on Mexico over illegal immigration; the federal reserve; the status of the economy; the duplicity of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; collusion by democrats; the upcoming G20 summit in Japan, and much, much, more.

During the interview President Trump directly calls out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for their anti-American position and self-interested advocacy for Wall Street multinational corporations. Additionally, President Trump pushes back against the claim that tariffs lead to higher U.S. prices, citing examples of China subsidizing their exports and low U.S. inflation.  Must Watch:

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(LOL… POTUS Trump chomping-at-the-bit to get tariffs on the EU.)