U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross discusses the recently imposed steel and aluminum tariffs and America’s future trade relationships with all nations including the very protectionist European Union.

“Economic security is national security” ~ Secretary Wilbur Ross

Reminder: Regarding ‘European Union (EU) retaliation’, forget it; they won’t.

The protectionist EU hypocrites simply cannot afford to go toe-to-toe with the U.S. on trade. The UK is in the process of formalizing their Brexit terms; the EU (essentially ‘Germany’) needs to find a way to make up for the lost revenue (billions in taxes) from the UK economy. Currently the UK pays Brussels approximately a billion per month on a $2.5 trillion economy; that will stop.

Brexit reduces the overall EU GDP by $2.5 trillion. German Chancellor Angela Merkel cannot -and will not- challenge President Trump. In addition to being politically weak, Merkel has attached her economy to expansive environmental regulations (Paris treaty), though she is now attempting to pale down those regulations. Chancellor Merkel cannot afford to run the risk of losing any access to the U.S. market.

This is just too rich. Seriously.

From the insufferable Iran deal… to the appeasement “Russian Reset”… to the Libya fiasco… to the rise of ISIS… to installing the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt… to the explosion of terrorism in Yemen… to civil war in Syria… to the crisis in Ukraine… to the 2010 State Department apology tour (WikiLeaks cables scandal)… to their inability to stop North Korean nuclear ambitions and the rise of China as an influential power… there were/are zero foreign policy successes in eight years of the Obama administration.

There was not a single Obama foreign policy initiative that had any success. Every single place where the prior administration put their attention, the results were complete failure, crisis, chaos and worse conditions in the aftermath. That’s the 2009-2017 reality.

Today it is discovered that fifty of the most well known Obama foreign policy officials  have come together to form a think-tank group called “National Security Now“. Their singular mission is to be the “resistance” to the Trump administration’s foreign policy. You have to see the names to recognize how bad these people were at policy:

♦Ben Rhodes ♦Susan Rice ♦Samantha Power ♦Denis McDonough ♦Tom Donilon ♦Tony Blinken ♦Jen Psaki and more. The list is a veritable ‘who’s-who’ of short-sighted foreign policy, ineptitude and diplomatic failure. There’s literally not a success between them, and they are uniting together to advocate against President Trump.

These Obama Officials are opposing the same President Trump who:

•put the plan in place to destroy ISIS and carried it out in the first year; •initiated massive change in the mid-east which saw Arab countries confronting extremism (including Qatari funding of the Muslim Brotherhood); •expanded international energy partnerships to remove the influence of Russia; •confronted China’s expansive economic agenda and halted it; •smartly used economic influence to bring North Korea to the point of accepting ‘denuclearization’; and •leveraged Pakistan to influence the Taliban to the negotiation table in Afghanistan…

…All of this in the first 14 months of his administration; while simultaneously dealing with three U.S. land-falling hurricanes and numerous national disasters and downsizing the U.S. State Department by 30%.

Go figure.

It must be pointed out; it is up to us to do so. The corporate media are hopelessly deficient in their coverage and explanations of how strategic objectives for national security are being delivered through a geopolitical Trump Doctrine via economic leverage. The results are stunningly effective, yet few have noticed and even fewer seem willing to articulate; perhaps their inability is because they simply just don’t get it.

It must be said, the U.S. is a long way from success in the goal of a denuclearized Korean peninsular; however, where we are today is closer to achieving that goal than ever before. And ultimately where we are is entirely because of President Trump’s strategic economic approach toward national security.  The U.S., heck the entire world, is positioned for a BIGLY security victory; and the anti-Trump media apparatchik continues to ignore how we got here.

What President Trump was able to do with the approach he took with North Korea is jaw-droppingly smart. Stunningly so.  Economic leverage works.  We have been led by “stupid people” who never applied economic leverage in a way that would ultimately matter to secure the best interests of the United States.

President Trump and his team did.  And they are winning… and as a consequence, we are winning…. and the ‘Deep State’ institutions along with their media cohorts are desperate to stop the American electorate from seeing and understanding the path to victory.

The professional global policy think-tanks will never give President Trump credit for securing a national security victory, via strategic policy initiatives that are fundamentally against the 50+ year worldview of U.S. foreign policy “experts”, ie. elites.

President Trump, his strategic economic policy and national security team has done something every think tank said was impossible.  Look at the narrative from the pundits and policy officials in the past year.  At the beginning of 2017 the ‘experts‘ all said China and Russia would be thorns in the Trump approach toward North Korea and they could not be moved.  In essence, they said President Trump would  never succeed.

But Trump did succeed.

Bigly.

“The impossible is just the starting point”.

What CTH wants to emphasize here is how the ‘Deep State’, and their media co-horts, are positioned against the Trump administration, and by extension against the America people, regardless of the scale of accomplishment – no matter what.  Bastards.

Again, for emphasis, here’s how President Trump did it. Here’s how Trump pulled it off:

♦ First, any review of the enhanced sanctions against N-Korea should be incorporated with the larger issue of policy toward the DPRK’s enabler, China.  From the outset President Trump, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Ross positioned a severely consequential trade reset between the U.S. and China.

♦Second: The enhanced U.S. energy export initiatives, in conjunction with lower oil prices, an outcome of U.S. energy policy and a mutually beneficial relationship between President Trump and Arab states in the GCC, severely weakened the economic position of Russia.

Russia’s energy export economy is dependent on energy prices remaining high. President Trump brilliantly worked the geopolitical economic relationships to leverage influence over a large portion of the Russian economy.

♦Third: By focusing on the utilization of economic influence over Russia and China, President Trump set the stage for U.S. led United Nations sanctions that would isolate Kim Jong-Un and cut off his previously utilized financial escape routes.

♦Fourth: While no-one was paying attention to the real end-goal; President Trump instructed Defense Secretary James Mattis to send the largest ever U.S. naval fleet into Southeast Asia in preparation for a naval blockade around North Korea.  The U.S. military is not the leverage, the military helps create leverage. The leverage itself is economic. Financial interests are always the best leverage to use because inherent within the fundamental principles of economics is “self-interest”.

Each of these four elements was independent; each of these moves was a long-term strategy; each of these four elements built upon the step that preceded it.  When we combine these four strategic points we discover the leverage President Trump created (economic), and the enforcement mechanism he deployed to ensure success (sanctions).

President Trump began by creating a situation where China and Russia’s best economic interests were enmeshed with supporting U.S. sanctions against the DPRK.  The Bear (Russia) and Red Dragon (China) were drawn into an economic battle space controlled by entirely the Eagle (Trump-USA).

We have often noted that President Trump is seemingly one man, yet he finds a way to surround multiple enemies simultaneously.  China, Russia and North Korea is one such visible example.

Ultimately President Trump offered a ‘better’ trade outcome (definitions variable, yet all defined by him) for China if they complied with Nikki Haley’s sanctions. Similarly President Trump positioned negotiations with Russia on ‘better’ or “more favorable’ terms (again, definitions variable) for U.S. energy shipments to Eastern Europe, if Russia complied with Nikki Haley’s sanctions.

You might remember President Trump visited Poland and the Three Seas Summit (Baltic, Black and Adriatic Sea States), on the sideline of his engagements with France (Emmanuel Macron) and the G20 members.  President Trump and Wilbur Ross established economic relationships and agreements for energy export between the U.S. and Eastern Europe.  In essence, Russia’s exploitative energy influence over the EU was diminished.

Immediately after taking office President Trump began establishing a positive relationship between his administration and the Mid-East Gulf Cooperation Council.  This set the cornerstone for the larger geo-strategic economics.  Add the EU positioning to the relationship with Trump and the GCC and you see the leverage needed over Russia on issues unrelated to the EU, vis-a-vis North Korea.  Trump’s foresight on this was incredible.

The Outcome – China and Russia holstered their U.N. Security Council veto power, and actually supported sanctions against N-Korea because it was in their economic interests not to oppose the U.S. led sanctions. Brilliant strategy.

To complement the August 2017 U.N. sanctions, in September President Trump and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin structured an executive order in such a way that the downstream consequences from any economic engagement with the DPRK effectively cuts off that entity or nation from engaging in ANY commerce or economic activity with the United States.  The result was immediate:  Beijing took action with their central bank instructions and told all institutions to stop engaging in any financial transactions with North Korea.

Five days later President Trump and U.S. Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin used the newly constructed sanctions authority to punish eight North Korean banks and 26 bank workers living abroad.

The Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctions {deep dive} relied on the executive order President Trump signed to target North Korea’s access to the international banking system. The Trump/Mnuchin action came as as a separate outcome from the United Nations sanctions package targeting North Korea.

When it comes to the use of economic leverage to create U.S. national security outcomes, well, we are learning at the knee of an economic master player. The media will now do everything they can to stop people from realizing how effective President Trump is…

…”complicated business folks,…. complicated business”…

CIA Director Mike Pompeo appears on CBS Face the Nation to discuss the possibility of negotiations with North Korea and other issues around the globe.

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the latest stunning announcements from North Korea.  The mustache aligns with those who say the talks between Kim Jong-un and President Trump should begin ASAP to see if the DPRK is really serious about denuclearizing the Korean peninsular.

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Maria Bartiromo talks about the steel and aluminum tariffs recently announced by the Trump administration along with the shifted trade perspectives of the Trump administration with White House Trade Policy Adviser Peter Navarro.

While the current trade focus centers around steel and aluminum tariffs, Mr. Navarro expands the discussion when asked about China as a trade target specifically.  Within the expanded discussion Navarro highlights U.S.T.R Robert Lighthizer’s pending 301 review of intellectual property theft by the Chinese government.

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Regarding ‘European Union (EU) retaliation’, forget it; they won’t.

The protectionist EU hypocrites simply cannot afford to go toe-to-toe with the U.S. on trade.  The UK is in the process of formalizing their Brexit terms; the EU (essentially ‘Germany’) needs to find a way to make up for the lost revenue (billions in taxes) from the UK economy.  Currently the UK pays Brussels approximately a billion per month on a $2.5 trillion economy; that will stop.

Brexit reduces the overall EU GDP by $2.5 trillion.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel cannot -and will not- challenge President Trump.  In addition to being politically weak, Merkel has attached her economy to expansive environmental regulations (Paris treaty), though she is now attempting to pale down those regulations.  Chancellor Merkel cannot afford to run the risk of losing any access to the U.S. market.

A 25% decrease within the German auto sector alone would be enough to throw the entire nation of Germany into a recession; and functionally Germany is the EU.   President Trump holds all the leverage within the trade discussions with the EU…

…. WE ARE THE CUSTOMER in this equation.

White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short appears on Fox News to discuss the Steel and Aluminum tariffs being implemented by President Trump to protect the U.S. steel and aluminum manufacturing industry.

The Wall Street antagonists together with politicians purchased by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and K-Street lobbyists (working on behalf of Wall Street),  have vowed to fight President Trump’s trade initiatives.   The steel and aluminum tariffs are the first in a series of trade actions by President Trump that he outlined during his candidacy.

Wall Street politicians (globalists) are now engaged in a fight against Main Street economic and trade policy (nationalists). There are trillions at stake. The anger against the President over the steel/aluminum tariffs is nothing in comparison to what lies ahead; with a likely NAFTA withdrawal and other MAGAnomic trade initiatives looming on the horizon.

Kristian Saucier was a former Navy submariner who was arrested (age 22) for taking a photograph of his work station while on duty. He was prosecuted for the photograph as distribution of classified information. Mr. Saucier spent a year in prison for his photograph. Yesterday President Trump pardoned Mr. Saucier.