Prior to the G7 meeting in Canada, President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are holding discussions at the White House.  Both are anticipated to deliver remarks at a 2:00pm EDT joint news conference.

UPDATE: Video Added

WH Livestream Link – GST Livestream Link – Fox News Livestream Link

There are visible economic indicators today that positive U.S. MAGAnomic results are overwhelming the voices of purchased political leaders trying to sell a narrative of doom around President Trump’s tariff proposals and reciprocal trade reset. A key point is the U.S. stock market growth amid tariff, trade and NAFTA withdrawal discussion. As CTH has discussed the eventual trade outcomes appear baked into the latest market analysis.

Bolstered by election results showing increased momentum for team MAGA, and decreased likelihood for a Democrat wave, the overall economic news -and factual corporate bottom line results- are flooding the zone with optimism. Amid the strong foundation for U.S. investment and economic growth, the reciprocal trade strategy is no longer heavily feared. Simply put, the ‘America First’ policies are working.

Not only are Trump’s economic policies working (jobs, wages, investment growth), but they are gaining massive momentum as analysts begin to quantify the possibilities of expanded economic growth well beyond the -formerly outrageous- 3% GDP target. The ceiling is being raised faster than the winnamins can be digested.

Amid this U.S. MAGAnomic environment, threats of counter-tariffs by Mexico, Canada and the EU are as useless as feathers in a hurricane:

(Reuters) […] EU members have given broad support to a European Commission plan to set 25 percent duties on up to 2.8 billion euros ($3.3 billion) of U.S. exports in response to what is sees as illegal U.S. action. EU exports that are now subject to U.S. tariffs are worth 6.4 billion euros. (link)

Consider the EU $3 billion tariff threat against this:

On a $20 trillion economy 3% growth = $600 billion in economic expansion.

Note: EU Tariff Feathers and U.S. Economic Hurricanes.

The best play for return-on-investment is INTO the U.S.  Exactly as planned.

This MAGAnomic win shows up in narrowing trade deficits:

(Via PPD) The Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis said the U.S. trade deficit narrowed sharply to $46.2 billion in April. That’s down $1.0 billion from a revised $47.2 billion in March and far under the $53.1 billion monthly average of the first quarter 2018 (1Q).

The 3-month average goods and services deficit decreased $2.2 billion to $49.6 billion for the three months ending in April. Average exports increased $2.9 billion to $209.3 billion and average imports increased $0.7 billion to $259.0 billion.

The report indicates a big net-positive for second-quarter (2Q) gross domestic product (GDP), which the Atlanta Federal Reserve currently forecasts at a whopping 4.5%.  (more)

This is the domestic background for President Trump, Commerce Secretary Ross, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to confront the aggregate trade issues with China, the EU and NAFTA.

As an outcome of the growth dynamic, the U.S. leverage carried into the trade-reset discussions is much larger than any threats made by opposition.  President Trump is likely to have fun at the G7, though I can also see him taking a few share-the-wealth “lumps out.”

Well,…. then again,…

…Maybe.

Killers.

President Donald Trump granted clemency today for Mrs. Alice Marie Johnson, a week after Mrs. Kim Kardashian West advocated on her behalf during an Oval Office meeting with the President.

Mrs. Johnson, a 63-year-old great-grandmother is a first-time nonviolent drug offender who was given a life sentence without parole. She will be released from a federal prison in Aliceville, Alabama, where she has been serving her sentence since 1996.

White House – Today, President Donald J. Trump granted a commutation to Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old great-grandmother who has served almost 22 years in Federal prison for a first-time criminal offense.

Ms. Johnson has accepted responsibility for her past behavior and has been a model prisoner over the past two decades. Despite receiving a life sentence, Alice worked hard to rehabilitate herself in prison, and act as a mentor to her fellow inmates.

Her Warden, Case Manager, and Vocational Training Instructor have all written letters in support of her clemency. According to her Warden, Arcala Washington-Adduci, since [Ms. Johnsons] arrival at this institution, she has exhibited outstanding and exemplary work ethic. She is considered to be a model inmate who is willing to go above and beyond in all work tasks.

While this Administration will always be very tough on crime, it believes that those who have paid their debt to society and worked hard to better themselves while in prison deserve a second chance.  (WH LINK)

National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow conducts a press conference to discuss the upcoming G7 summit in Canada; the pending North Korea Summit; and the current U.S. trade initiatives.

President Trump participates in the signing ceremony of the VA Mission Act of 2018, a bill that will introduce sweeping reforms to the Veterans Affairs healthcare system.  Anticipated start time 12:15pm EST

WH Livestream Link – Fox News Livestream Link

There are Trillions At Stake.   There is no upper limit to what congress is willing to do to stop President Trump from turning off the lobbyist funding.  Without influence in DC there can be no affluence in DC.  That’s why McConnell cancelled the recess.

If the president continues to remain focused exclusively on what is in the U.S. best interests, he must be stopped.  Politicians in DC cannot just sit-by and allow the U.S. economy to be based on the interests of Americans; it would mean the destruction of years of central planning by DC Lobbyists, multinational banks, Wall Street and multinational corporations.

WASHINGTON DC – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he will not bring up a freestanding bill to push back on President Trump’s trade agenda, but that GOP senators might be able to add it as an amendment to other legislation.

Support among Republicans has grown for legislation backed by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that would give Congress power to authorize or reject any new tariffs imposed because of national security concerns.

GOP senators says McConnell doesn’t want to risk a confrontation with the president but also wants to be responsive to the concerns of colleagues who think Trump’s trade agenda has run amuck.  (read more)

♦POTUS Trump is disrupting the global order of things in order to protect and preserve the shrinking interests of the U.S.  He is fighting, almost single-handed, at the threshold of the abyss.  Our interests, our position, is zero-sum. Our opposition seeks to repel and retain the status-quo. They were on the cusp of full economic victory over the U.S.

In these economic endeavors President Trump is disrupting decades of financial interests who use the U.S. as a host for their ideological endeavors.  President Trump is confronting multinational corporations and the global constructs of economic systems that were put in place to the detriment of the host (USA) ie. YOU.  There are trillions at stake; it is all about the economics; everything else is chaff and countermeasures.

Familiar faces, perhaps faces you previously thought were decent, are now revealing their alignment with larger entities that are our abusers.

We are already familiar how China, Mexico and ASEAN nations export our raw materials (ore, coking coal, rare earth minerals etc.).  The raw material to manufacture goods are then trans-shipped back into the U.S. for purchase.

It is within this decades-long process where we lost the manufacturing base, and the multinational economic planners (World Trade Organization) put us on a path to being a “service driven” economy.

The road to a “service-driven economy” is paved with a great disparity between financial classes. The wealth gap is directly related to the inability of the middle-class to thrive.

Elite financial interests, including those within Washington DC, gain wealth and power, the U.S. workforce is reduced to servitude, “service”, of their affluent needs.

The destruction of the U.S. industrial and manufacturing base is EXACTLY WHY the wealth gap has exploded in the past 30 years.

With that familiarity, did you think the multinationals would stop with only “DURABLE GOODS”?

They don’t.

They didn’t.

The exact same exfiltration and exploitation has been happening, with increased speed, over the past 15 years with “CONSUMABLE GOODS“, ie food.

Raw material foodstuff is exported to China, ASEAN nations and Mexico, processed and shipped back into the U.S. as a finished product. This is the same design-flow with food as previously exploited by other economic sectors, including auto manufacturing.

Multinational corporations, BIG AG, are now invested in controlling the outputs of U.S. agricultural industry and farmers. This process is why food prices have risen exponentially in the past decade.

The free market is not determining price; there is no “supply and demand” influence within this modern agricultural dynamic. Food commodities are now a controlled market just like durable goods.  The raw material (harvests writ large) are exploited by the financial interests of massive multinational corporations.

Again, if we were to pull out of NAFTA our food bill would drop 25% (or more) within the first year. Further, if U.S. supply and demand were part of the domestic market price for food, we would see the prices of aggregate food products drop by half almost immediately. Some perishable food products would predictably drop so dramatically in price it is unfathomable how far the prices would fall.

Behind this dynamic we find the international corporate and financial interests who are inherently at risk from President Trump’s “America-First” economic and trade platform. Believe it or not, President Trump is up against an entire world economic establishment.

When we understand how trade works in the modern era we understand why the agents within the system are so adamantly opposed to U.S. President Trump.

♦The biggest lie in modern economics, willingly spread and maintained by corporate media, is that a system of global markets still exists.

It doesn’t.

Every element of global economic trade is controlled and exploited by massive institutions, multinational banks and multinational corporations. Institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Bank control trillions of dollars in economic activity. Underneath that economic activity there are people who hold the reigns of power over the outcomes. These individuals and groups are the stakeholders in direct opposition to principles of America-First national economics.

The modern financial constructs of these entities have been established over the course of the past three decades. When you understand how they manipulate the economic system of individual nations you begin to understand understand why they are so fundamentally opposed to President Trump.

In the Western World, separate from communist control perspectives (ie. China), “Global markets” are a modern myth; nothing more than a talking point meant to keep people satiated with sound bites they might find familiar. Global markets have been destroyed over the past three decades by multinational corporations who control the products formerly contained within global markets.

The same is true for “Commodities Markets”. The multinational trade and economic system, run by corporations and multinational banks, now controls the product outputs of independent nations. The free market economic system has been usurped by entities who create what is best described as ‘controlled markets’.

U.S. President Trump smartly understands what has taken place. Additionally he uses economic leverage as part of a broader national security policy; and to understand who opposes President Trump specifically because of the economic leverage he creates, it becomes important to understand the objectives of the global and financial elite who run and operate the institutions. The Big Club.

Understanding how trillions of trade dollars influence geopolitical policy we begin to understand the three-decade global financial construct they seek to protect.

That is, global financial exploitation of national markets.

FOUR BASIC ELEMENTS:

♦Multinational corporations purchase controlling interests in various national outputs (harvests an raw materials), and ancillary industries, of developed industrial western nations.  {example}

♦The Multinational Corporations making the purchases are underwritten by massive global financial institutions, multinational banks.  (*note* in China it is the communist government underwriting the purchase)

♦The Multinational Banks and the Multinational Corporations then utilize lobbying interests to manipulate the internal political policy of the targeted nation state(s).

♦With control over the targeted national industry or interest, the multinationals then leverage export of the national asset (exfiltration) through trade agreements structured to the benefit of lesser developed nation states – where they have previously established a proactive financial footprint.

Against the backdrop of President Trump confronting China; and against the backdrop of NAFTA being renegotiated, likely to exit; and against the necessary need to support the key U.S. steel industry; revisiting the economic influences within the modern import/export dynamic will help conceptualize the issues at the heart of the matter.

There are a myriad of interests within each trade sector that make specific explanation very challenging; however, here’s the basic outline.

For three decades economic “globalism” has advanced, quickly. Everyone accepts this statement, yet few actually stop to ask who and what are behind this – and why?

Influential people with vested financial interests in the process have sold a narrative that global manufacturing, global sourcing, and global production was the inherent way of the future. The same voices claimed the American economy was consigned to become a “service-driven economy.”

What was always missed in these discussions is that advocates selling this global-economy message have a vested financial and ideological interest in convincing the information consumer it is all just a natural outcome of economic progress.

It’s not.

It’s not natural at all. It is a process that is entirely controlled, promoted and utilized by large conglomerates, lobbyists, purchased politicians and massive financial corporations.

Again, I’ll try to retain the larger altitude perspective without falling into the traps of the esoteric weeds. I freely admit this is tough to explain and I may not be successful.

Bulletpoint #1: ♦ Multinational corporations purchase controlling interests in various national elements of developed industrial western nations.

This is perhaps the most challenging to understand. In essence, thanks specifically to the way the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in 1995, national companies expanded their influence into multiple nations, across a myriad of industries and economic sectors (energy, agriculture, raw earth minerals, etc.). This is the basic underpinning of national companies becoming multinational corporations.

Think of these multinational corporations as global entities now powerful enough to reach into multiple nations -simultaneously- and purchase controlling interests in a single economic commodity.

A historic reference point might be the original multinational enterprise, energy via oil production. (Exxon, Mobil, BP, etc.)

However, in the modern global world, it’s not just oil; the resource and product procurement extends to virtually every possible commodity and industry. From the very visible (wheat/corn) to the obscure (small minerals, and even flowers).

Bulletpoint #2 ♦ The Multinational Corporations making the purchases are underwritten by massive global financial institutions, multinational banks.

During the past several decades national companies merged. The largest lemon producer company in Brazil, merges with the largest lemon company in Mexico, merges with the largest lemon company in Argentina, merges with the largest lemon company in the U.S., etc. etc. National companies, formerly of one nation, become “continental” companies with control over an entire continent of nations.

…. or it could be over several continents or even the entire world market of Lemon/Widget production. These are now multinational corporations. They hold interests in specific segments (this example lemons) across a broad variety of individual nations.

National laws on Monopoly building are not the same in all nations. Most are not as structured as the U.S.A or other more developed nations (with more laws). During the acquisition phase, when encountering a highly developed nation with monopoly laws, the process of an umbrella corporation might be needed to purchase the targeted interests within a specific nation. The example of Monsanto applies here.

Bulletpoint #3 ♦The Multinational Banks and the Multinational Corporations then utilize lobbying interests to manipulate the internal political policy of the targeted nation state(s).

With control of the majority of actual lemons the multinational corporation now holds a different set of financial values than a local farmer or national market. This is why commodities exchanges are essentially dead. In the aggregate the mercantile exchange is no longer a free or supply-based market; it is now a controlled market exploited by mega-sized multinational corporations.

Instead of the traditional ‘supply/demand’ equation determining prices, the corporations look to see what nations can afford what prices. The supply of the controlled product is then distributed to the country according to their ability to afford the price. This is essentially the bastardized and politicized function of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This is also how the corporations controlling WTO policy maximize profits.

Back to the lemons. A corporation might hold the rights to the majority of the lemon production in Brazil, Argentina and California/Florida. The price the U.S. consumer pays for the lemons is directed by the amount of inventory (distribution) the controlling corporation allows in the U.S.

If the U.S. lemon harvest is abundant, the controlling interests will export the product to keep the U.S. consumer spending at peak or optimal price. A U.S. customer might pay $2 for a lemon, a Mexican customer might pay .50¢, and a Canadian $1.25.

The bottom line issue is the national supply (in this example ‘harvest/yield’) is not driving the national price because the supply is now controlled by massive multinational corporations.

The mistake people often make is calling this a “global commodity” process. In the modern era this “global commodity” phrase is particularly nonsense.

A true global commodity is a process of individual nations harvesting/creating a similar product and bringing that product to a global market. Individual nations each independently engaged in creating a similar product.

Under modern globalism this process no longer takes place. It’s a complete fraud. Massive multinational corporations control the majority of production inside each nation and therefore control the global product market and price. It is a controlled system.

EXAMPLE: Part of the lobbying in the food industry is to advocate for the expansion of U.S. taxpayer benefits to underwrite the costs of the domestic food products they control. By lobbying DC these multinational corporations get congress and policy-makers to expand the basis of who can use EBT and SNAP benefits (state reimbursement rates).

Expanding the federal subsidy for food purchases is part of the corporate profit dynamic.

With increased taxpayer subsidies, the food price controllers can charge more domestically and export more of the product internationally. Taxes, via subsidies, go into their profit margins. The corporations then use a portion of those enhanced profits in contributions to the politicians. It’s a circle of money.

In highly developed nations this multinational corporate process requires the corporation to purchase the domestic political process (as above) with individual nations allowing the exploitation in varying degrees. As such, the corporate lobbyists pay hundreds of millions to politicians for changes in policies and regulations; one sector, one product, or one industry at a time. These are specialized lobbyists.

EXAMPLE: The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)

CFIUS is an inter-agency committee authorized to review transactions that could result in control of a U.S. business by a foreign person (“covered transactions”), in order to determine the effect of such transactions on the national security of the United States.

CFIUS operates pursuant to section 721 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended by the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 (FINSA) (section 721) and as implemented by Executive Order 11858, as amended, and regulations at 31 C.F.R. Part 800.

The CFIUS process has been the subject of significant reforms over the past several years. These include numerous improvements in internal CFIUS procedures, enactment of FINSA in July 2007, amendment of Executive Order 11858 in January 2008, revision of the CFIUS regulations in November 2008, and publication of guidance on CFIUS’s national security considerations in December 2008 (more)

Bulletpoint #4 ♦ With control over the targeted national industry or interest, the multinationals then leverage export of the national asset (exfiltration) through trade agreements structured to the benefit of lesser developed nation states – where they have previously established a proactive financial footprint.

The process of charging the U.S. consumer more for a product, that under normal national market conditions would cost less, is a process called exfiltration of wealth. This is the basic premise, the cornerstone, behind the catch-phrase ‘globalism’.

It is never discussed.

To control the market price some contracted product may even be secured and shipped with the intent to allow it to sit idle (or rot). It’s all about controlling the price and maximizing the profit equation. To gain the same $1 profit a widget multinational might have to sell 20 widgets in El-Salvador (.25¢ each), or two widgets in the U.S. ($2.50/each).

Think of the process like the historic reference of OPEC (Oil Producing Economic Countries). Only in the modern era massive corporations are playing the role of OPEC and it’s not oil being controlled, thanks to the WTO it’s almost everything.

Again, this is highlighted in the example of taxpayers subsidizing the food sector (EBT, SNAP etc.), the corporations can charge U.S. consumers more. Ex. more beef is exported, red meat prices remain high at the grocery store, but subsidized U.S. consumers can better afford the high prices.

Of course, if you are not receiving food payment assistance (middle-class) you can’t eat the steaks because you can’t afford them. (Not accidentally, it’s the same scheme in the ObamaCare healthcare system)

Agriculturally, multinational corporate Monsanto says: ‘all your harvests are belong to us‘. Contract with us, or you lose because we can control the market price of your end product. Downside is that once you sign that contract, you agree to terms that are entirely created by the financial interests of the larger corporation; not your farm.

The multinational agriculture lobby is massive. We willingly feed the world as part of the system; but you as a grocery customer pay more per unit at the grocery store because domestic supply no longer determines domestic price.

Within the agriculture community the (feed-the-world) production export factor also drives the need for labor. Labor is a cost. The multinational corps have a vested interest in low labor costs. Ergo, open border policies. (ie. willingly purchased republicans not supporting border wall etc.).

This corrupt economic manipulation/exploitation applies over multiple sectors, and even in the sub-sector of an industry like steel. China/India purchases the raw material, coking coal, then sells the finished good (rolled steel) back to the global market at a discount. Or it could be rubber, or concrete, or plastic, or frozen chicken parts etc.

The ‘America First’ Trump-Trade Doctrine upsets the entire construct of this multinational export/control dynamic. Team Trump focus exclusively on bilateral trade deals, with specific trade agreements targeted toward individual nations (not national corporations).

‘America-First’ is also specific policy at a granular product level looking out for the national interests of the United States, U.S. workers, U.S. companies and U.S. consumers.

Under President Trump’s Trade positions, balanced and fair trade with strong regulatory control over national assets, exfiltration of U.S. national wealth is essentially stopped.

This puts many current multinational corporations, globalists who previously took a stake-hold in the U.S. economy with intention to export the wealth, in a position of holding contracted interest of an asset they can no longer exploit.

Perhaps now we understand better how massive multi-billion multinational corporations and institutions are aligned against President Trump.

RELATED:

♦The Modern Third Dimension in American Economics – HERE

♦The “Fed” Can’t Figure out the New Economics – HERE

♦Proof “America-First” has disconnected Main Street from Wall Street – HERE

♦Treasury Secretary Mnuchin begins creating a Parallel Banking System – HERE

♦How Trump Economic Policy is Interacting With The Stock Market – HERE

♦How Multinationals have Exported U.S. Wealth – HERE

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has cancelled the August recess.

(LINK)

Co-Dependent No More