During a surprise event on Friday President Trump invited the press into the oval office where Guatemalan Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart and acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan were signing a joint asylum agreement.  The President then held a press conference filled with lots of news.

[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much for being here. We appreciate it.  I’m thrilled to be with a very important man in Guatemala, the Minister Enrique Degenhart. And we are doing a very important signing. It’s a historic asylum, or safe third, agreement between our two countries. A very important event.

We’ve long been working with Guatemala, and now we can do it the right way. It’s going to be terrific for them and terrific for the United States.

This landmark agreement will put the coyotes and the smugglers out of business. These are bad people. These are very, very bad, sick, deranged people who make a lot of money off other people’s miseries. It’s going to provide safety for legitimate asylum-seekers, and stop asylum fraud and abuses system.

This is also transformative in the step it will take, and the many, many steps it will take for security and safety. For Guatemala, it signifies the incredible bright future for their country. This agreement will usher in a new era of investment and growth for their nation, and sets the stage for cooperation between our countries and expanding access to the H-2A visa, which is your agricultural workers and farm workers.

We’re going to have them coming into our country in a easier fashion than even before. It’s very important for our business, for our farms, for our ranches. And we are going to make that a very, very much easier, less cumbersome program. And further bilateral investment will take place.

But the H-2A is really going to be streamlined. And all of those workers that come in, we want them to continue to come in. As you know, we have a very low rate of unemployment — record-setting. We’re at about 3.5, maybe 3.6. I hear it’s going down — probably will — because the country is doing tremendous business. Had another record stock market.

Today, we’re sending a clear message to human smugglers and traffickers that your day is over. And we’re investing in the future of Guatemala, the safety of migrants and their families. We’ll protect the rights of those with legitimate claims, and we’ll end the widespread abuse of the system and the crippling crisis on our border.

I want to thank Mexico. As you know, Enrique, the Mexican government, the President of Mexico, has now 21,000 troops on our double borders — on their border. By you, they have about 6,000. And then, on our southern border, they have — getting close to 20,000 by itself. It’s going to probably be about 26,000 people total — soldiers. And very good ones. It’s had a tremendous impact. Really an incredible impact.

So, Kevin, if you look at what’s happened over the last short period of time, it’s really been great. Now, if the Democrats would sign something, it would be a lot easier. But we have to do it around the Democrats because they refuse to want to close up the border. They want open borders. That means smugglers, it means hijackers, it means drugs, it means crime. It’s frankly, a disgrace.

But with Guatemala and with Mexico, and with other countries that will be signing safe third agreements very shortly, we’re doing really well.

I want to thank — if I might, Enrique — the President of Guatemala, President Morales. Please give him my regards.

MINISTER DEGENHART: Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. He’s a terrific guy. We like him very much. And we’ve worked together really, really well.

So if you two gentlemen would sit down, Kevin and Enrique, and you’ll sign. I’ll stand right behind you. This way, I’ll confirm it.

(The safe third country agreement is signed.)

THE PRESIDENT: That’s a very big thing. It’s a very important signature. Never been done before. Thank you very much, Enrique.

MINISTER DEGENHART: Mr. President, thank you very much. Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much.

Q What was the breakthrough that led to this?

THE PRESIDENT: Look, we’ve been dealing for many years, I would say, with Guatemala and with other countries. And we are now at a point where we are — we just get along. And they’re doing what we’ve asked them to do. And I think it’s going to be a great thing for Guatemala. They don’t want these problems either. So we were able to get this done, and we got it done fairly quickly. But this is after many, many years.

Mexico also is working along with us very nicely. I mean, tremendously, actually. You’ll see a chart where the numbers are really through the — through the floor, I should say, because they’re going down.

Kevin, maybe you want to speak to the numbers, how well we’re doing in terms of apprehensions.

ACTING SECRETARY MCALEENAN: Absolutely, Mr. President. Since the agreement was signed with Mexico that you energized and drove, we’ve had 28 percent reduction in June, and we’re headed toward another 22 percent reduction in July in crossings. So 43 percent overall thanks to the effort on the government of Mexico’s side and the implementation of our Migrant Protection Protocols border-wide.

THE PRESIDENT: And the fact that they do have, really, a big slowdown coming in from Guatemala at the border, because we have, again, 6,000 Mexican troops at the border of Guatemala. So that helps. But this will really help. This is something that’s going to be rather incredible. So the numbers are going down.

We — we could really do this in a much easier fashion if we had cooperation from the Democrats. We have absolutely no cooperation. Nobody can understand them. Most of these people, five years ago, they all wanted a wall.

And we’re building a lot of wall right now. A lot of it. We’ve ripped down old wall and we’ve ripped down wall that didn’t even exist which was — it had bad footings, bad foundations. It was — there used to be a wall there; there wasn’t. It was gobbled up by the people that crossed. And we’re building beautiful, new wall. A lot of it. And it’s getting built rapidly.

So a lot of things are happening. But this is a very — this is a very big day.

John?

Q Mr. President, the big focus of the Democrats today was to say that they are going to continue and expand your investigations. They’re looking through the grand jury testimony behind the Mueller report. They want to try to enforce the subpoena against Don McGahn. What do you say?

THE PRESIDENT: I think it’s a disgrace what the Democrats are doing. It’s so sad to see what their — how they’re impeding all of the good things that we’re doing. Like, as an example, today it’s the border. We’re strengthening up our border with a great country. And we have other great countries that are going to be signing on also.

And we’re doing this all because the Democrats won’t give us what we need. So simple: Get rid of the loopholes; work on asylum. It would take a very short period of time. They won’t do it. All they want to do is impede. They want to investigate. They want to go fishing.

And I watch Bob Mueller, and they have nothing. There’s no collusion, there’s no obstruction. They have nothing. It’s a disgrace.

We want to find out what happened with the last Democrat President. Let’s look into Obama the way they’ve looked at me. From day one, they’ve looked into everything that we’ve done. They could look into the book deal that President Obama made. Let’s subpoena all of his records. Let’s subpoena all of the records having to do with Hillary Clinton and all of the nonsense that went on with Clinton and her foundation and everything else. We could do that all day long.

Frankly, the Republicans were gentlemen and women. When we had the majority in the House, they didn’t do subpoenas all day long. They didn’t do what they — what these people have done.

What they’re doing is a disgrace. So destructive to our country. And I think that’s why we’re going to take back the House. That’s why we’re easily going to hold the presidency and we’re going to continue to hold the Senate.

And you know, people don’t say it, but we picked up two seats in the Senate. We went from 51 to 53 in the ’18 election. Nobody says it. They talk about the House. And I didn’t get to campaign very much for the House. I couldn’t because we were campaigning for the Senate. We almost picked up five seats. You know that very well.

So it’s a disgrace that they’re doing it. They’re doing it for political reasons. And most of them, many of them, are admitting that. It’s politics. And frankly, it’s a very sad thing for our country.

Yes.

Q What’s your thinking now about sanctions on Turkey? You had that meeting with the Republican senators the other night.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re looking at the whole Turkey situation. You know, they’ve ordered 125 F-35 fighter jets. Billions and billions of dollars. They’ve paid some of it. The planes are being made. They’re easily sold to other nations because they’re the greatest fighter jet in the world. And we have a backlog of orders.

But it’s a tough situation. They’re getting the S-400 and the — our statutes, and everything else. As you do that, you just can’t order this equipment. And generally speaking, you can’t order equipment, period.

I don’t blame Turkey because there are a lot of circumstances and a lot of — a lot of problems that occurred during the Obama administration. This dates back to the Obama administration, which was a disaster, okay?

Yes, John.

Q May I come back to Guatemala, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Please.

Q Earlier this week, it looked like things were not going in the right direction. You were even threatening tariffs against Guatemala. What turned around in the last couple of days?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think I’d ask maybe Kevin and Enrique to answer. The relationship has been very good.

ACTING SECRETARY MCALEENAN: We stayed at the table. We’ve been working on it throughout. Enrique has demonstrated a tremendous commitment, the Minister of Government for Guatemala, helping lead the region to take responsibility for migration flows, to work together with the United States on how we can take the power away from the criminal organizations that are exploiting these vulnerable migrants. And we just stayed — we stayed with it and got over the line.

MINISTER DEGENHART: And I would say that Guatemala is definitely clear on the responsibility that it has. We are clear that we have to make changes. And the way to do it is working together with our best ally. That’s what we’re showing here today, and we are definitely committed to continue doing and improving what we have.

Q Your court said that this was not possible to do. How did you get around that?

MR. DEGENHART: No, they didn’t say that.

Q Well, I thought that — it looked like the courts were saying that you could not sign an asylum agreement with the United States.

MINISTER DEGENHART: So what the court said, which is a provisional injunction, was basically define the process that had to be followed. As Secretary McAleenan mentioned a little while ago, define how to do that procedure and we are going to implement it.

Q Can you explain how this will work? If someone leaves Guatemala and —

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q — walks through Mexico into the U.S., what happens? Are they turned around and (inaudible)?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. A lot of good things happen. Go ahead, Kevin.

ACTING SECRETARY MCALEENAN: So this is a return to the appropriate approach under international law to protecting asylum seekers at the earliest possible point in their journey.

If you have a Honduran family or an El Salvadorian national, instead of having them pay a smuggler, come all the way to our border to seek asylum — when they arrive in Guatemala, they’re in a country that has a fair proceeding for assessing asylum claims, and that’s where they should make that claim; not returns at understanding under international law.

Q Make a claim to stay in Guatemala or claim to the U.S.?

ACTING SECRETARY MCALEENAN: They can make a protection claim, if they would like, in Guatemala. So if they arrive in the U.S. not having availed themselves of that opportunity, they’ll be returned to Guatemala.

Q And that’s a claim to stay in Guatemala at that point?

ACTING SECRETARY MCALEENAN: It’s a claim for protection under international law for asylum.

THE PRESIDENT: Which we’ve never had before and which is something that’s so good — good for everybody, but it’s so good.

Q Are tariffs off the table now, sir?

Q Are you going to sign a border agreement soon? And who with?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have a great agreement with Mexico, but we’re going to probably do some additional work on it because we can’t get anything from the Democrats. Dealing with Mexico is really — what Mexico is doing for us at the border is far greater than what the Democrats have done.

You know, the amazing thing about the Democrats: It was all fine, everything was great, four or five years ago, before I was President. And now they think we’re going to win, so they’re doing everything they can — with the impeachment nonsense, where you had no obstruction, you had no collusion.

You know, obstruction is sort of interesting. They’ve interviewed 500 people. They’ve interviewed lawyers. They’re interviewed everybody that they wanted to interview; people that have — I could have kept back by using presidential privilege. I could’ve kept back everybody. They didn’t have to interview anybody.

I gave them a total — and they say “obstruction.” These people are clowns. The Democrats are clowns. They’re being laughed at all over the world. And I watched this morning — I watched Nancy Pelosi trying to get through that, with the performance that Robert Mueller put on, where — I don’t think he ever read the agreement or the document. And the document said, “No collusion.” They don’t even talk about that. So there was no crime. They said, “Well, there was no crime but he obstructed.” How do you obstruct if there’s no crime? But, actually, it was worse than that because it was a phony crime that they put on. The crime was what they put on.

But I watched Mueller — for two and a half years, we’ve watched this. And that’s the best they have, and it’s a disgrace. And the world is laughing at them. And unfortunately, it’s so bad for our country. It’s bad in our relationships with other countries, including Russia. There’s no reason we shouldn’t get along with Russia. There’s no reason we shouldn’t get along with other countries.

And one of the things that’s nice about Guatemala is we’ve never had a better relationship. Right now, they’ve agreed to do something that’s very good for the United States. And we’re going to work with them also. We’re going to be — it’s going to be a partnership. And it’s happening with Mexico too. We never had any kind of cooperation with Mexico ever, until this President, frankly, and my presidency, where you have maybe 21,000 — could be 26,000 — soldiers.

And it’s still good for Mexico because they’re killing — they’re getting rid of the cartels, which everybody knows they’ve been running big portions of Mexico — and the coyotes and all of these terrible people. Mexico has done a great job for their people. The President has done a great job for his people. And President Morales has done a great job by doing this, because now he has a friend in the United States instead of an enemy of the United States.

Yes, John.

Q Mr. President, are you going to slap tariffs on French wine?

THE PRESIDENT: I might. I might. So, France put on a tax on our companies. You know that. And — wrong. Wrong thing to do. They should not have done it. So I may do that. I may — I’ve always liked American wines better than French wines, even though I don’t drink wine. (Laughter.) I just like the way they look, okay? But American wines are great. American wines are great. And they didn’t do the right thing, when they start taxing our companies. We tax our companies; they don’t tax our companies.

So France did that. I told him — I said, “Don’t do it, because if you do it, I’m going to tax your wine” — tariff, or tax — call it whatever you want. So, yeah, we’re working on that right now.

Q You were critical of Macron’s decision to do this. How is that relationship between you and Macron?

THE PRESIDENT: Good. I just spoke to him.

Q You used to be very close.

THE PRESIDENT: No, I just spoke to him. I have a good relationship with President Macron. But they shouldn’t have done this. They’re used to taking advantage of the United States, but not with me as President.

Look, I look at deals that were done with other Presidents and this country, and it’s a disgrace that our country has allowed this to happen — where China, for years and years and years was making from $300 billion to $507 billion a year, okay? Now we’re taking in billions of dollars from China, and it’s all turning around.

Whether a deal is made — you know, they’re going next week; they have more meetings. Meeting after meeting. I don’t think, personally, China would sign a deal if I had a 2 percent chance of losing the election. I think China would probably say, “Let’s wait. Let’s wait. Maybe Trump will lose and we can deal with another dope or another stiff,” like the people that allowed these deals to happen, this horrible thing to happen to our country. Because what’s happened to our country — the money that China has taken out of the United States has rebuilt China. And I don’t blame China. I blame the United States for allowing that to happen.

So if I’m President Xi, or if I’m, frankly, Iran — and Iran wants to make a deal; I can tell you that right now. But if I’m Iran, I’ll probably say, “Man, if I can hold out, I’m going to wait for Sleepy Joe Biden instead of Trump, because Sleepy Joe, we can make any deal we want with him. He doesn’t know what’s happening.”

So, what else?

Q Back to the tariffs on French wine. When?

THE PRESIDENT: We’ll be announcing it sometime fairly soon. We’ll see what happens. But they put a tax on. We said, “Don’t do it. We tax our companies. You don’t tax our companies.” And we’ll be announcing something. It might be on wine; it might be on something else. But we’ll be — it’s called “reciprocal.” It’s a reciprocal tax. And we’ll be announcing that fairly soon, John.

It makes sense, John. Do you agree with that? You’re a man — you’re a man that enjoys wine. You just won’t enjoy French wine anymore.

Go ahead, Steve.

Q I would agree that American wines are very, very good.

THE PRESIDENT: They are great.

Q I think Mnuchin and Lighthizer are going to Shanghai next week for those trade talks. Are —

THE PRESIDENT: They will be going.

Q You don’t sound optimistic that they’re going to come out with a deal.

THE PRESIDENT: No, I’m never — look, look, look: I think that China will probably say, “Let’s wait. It’s 14, 15 months until the election. Let’s see if one these people that give the United States away, let’s see if one of them could possibly get elected.” And I’ll tell you what: When I win, like almost immediately, they’re all going to sign deals, and they’re going to be phenomenal deals for the country.

But — so I don’t know that they’re going to — I don’t know if they’re going to make a deal. Maybe they will; maybe they don’t. I don’t care, because we’re taking in tens of billions of dollars’ worth of tariffs. And the farmers are happy because I gave them $16 billion out of the tariffs and had tremendous — you know, much more than that left over, as you know. Tremendous amount of money left over, like by three times. And we haven’t even taxed China yet, compared to what I could do. So we have tens of billions of dollars rolling in from China. We never had 10 cents coming in.

And again, I don’t blame President Xi. I blame our past leaders for allowing it to happen for so many years with the World Trade Organization. China was totally flat-lined. And when the World Trade Organization came about and China joined the World Trade, they became a rocket ship, because, you know, it’s a very unfair situation that took place at the World Trade Organization, as are many of them.

So they’re going to go and we’ll talk. We’ll see. I don’t personally care that much because we’re getting billions and billions. Remember this: The people aren’t paying for it. Everyone says people pay for it. China has devalued the currency, and they’re putting money in — they’re pumping money into their society, into their country, like you wouldn’t believe. You call it “quantitative easing.” With us, we have a Fed that does quantitative tightening and they raise interest rates.

So we have a normalized rate. President Obama had no rates and he had no tightening. And we still have a much better economy than in his wildest dreams.

So — and there is something okay about that, but we — look, the Fed acted too soon. I turned out to be right. They acted too soon and too violently. We’ve had nine increases, I believe — you’ll check that — but I believe it’s nine increases. A couple of under — a couple under her and a lot under Powell. I’m not a fan.

Okay, what else?

Q The U.S. dollar, sir. The U.S. dollar. It is too high? Too low? (Inaudible.)

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, the dollar is very strong. The country is very strong. The dollar is a — it’s a beautiful thing in one way, but it makes it harder to compete. And despite that — but we have a very powerful dollar. So that’s the good news.

Despite that, we’re doing really well. The country is doing well. It’s really become, more than ever before, the currency of choice. You know, you have the euro that tried to cut in. Well, the euro is now not doing so well. Europe is not doing so well. China is not doing very well. You look at other countries — we’re the hottest economic country in the world. There’s nobody close. Even Guatemala wants to do business with us now. So, we’re happy. Right?

MINISTER DEGENHART: Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.

Q On the dollar valuation, why did you not consider a proposal that was floated on Tuesday here in the Oval Office to devalue it?

THE PRESIDENT: I could do that in two seconds if I wanted.

Q But why did you not want to entertain it then?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I wouldn’t say I’m not going to do something, but I’m — you know, look, having a strong dollar — there’s a reason that it sounds so good. And having a strong dollar is having a strong dollar.

We have an amazing country. We have a very strong country. That’s why our country has a strong currency. Other countries have a currency that’s down the tubes. It’s a currency that’s weak. China’s currency is very low. You look at other countries — look at the euro; the euro is so low. I mean, Germany is paying almost no interest. We’re paying 2.1 percent. We’re paying a lot of interest. That’s because we have a strong currency.

It’s a very complicated formula for some people. It’s not complicated for me. The Federal Reserve raised the rates too fast and too soon, and they shouldn’t have done quantitative tightening, which they did. If they didn’t do that, we would be at 4.5 percent instead of 2.1. Everybody is so thrilled with 2.1. We could have had it much more, except for the Federal Reserve. And we could have been five- to ten thousand points higher in the Dow.

Now, I don’t want to sound too upset about it because we just broke the all-time record in the history of our country on the Dow. But we could have been higher, right? Could have been a contender. Could have been higher, as Marlon would say. Marlon Brando. The great Marlon Brando.

Yes, Steve.

Q Are you okay with North Korea firing off these short-range missiles?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you said it: They’re short-range missiles. And my relationship is very good with Chairman Kim. And we’ll see what happens. But they are short-range missiles, and many people have those missiles.

Q You don’t sound too spun up about it.

THE PRESIDENT: Nope. Not at all.

Q They’re describing those short-range as a warning, and “short-range” is short-range for the United States but not short-range for our allies, right? South Korea, Japan.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, he didn’t say — he didn’t say a warning to the United States, I can tell you that. He didn’t say a warning to the United States. But they have their disputes. The two of them have their disputes. They’ve had them for a long time. But he didn’t say that. But they are short-range missiles and very standard missiles.

Q Mr. President, have you spoken with Boris Johnson yet?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Very good question.

Q And what did you have to say?

THE PRESIDENT: That’s the best question you’ve ever asked.

Q I asked it the other day, and you said, “no.”

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know why your timing is good? Because I spoke to him about — how long have you been here? Sixteen minutes. I spoke to him 17 minutes ago. I hung up the phone as you were coming in.

And he’s a good guy. He’s a friend of mine. I think we’re going to have a great relationship. And Boris is going to be a great Prime Minister. I predict he will be a great Prime Minister. He has what it takes. They needed him for a long time. UK needed him for a long time. And —

Q Would you — would you invite him here?

THE PRESIDENT: — let’s see what happens. Yeah, he’ll – he and I will spend a lot of — we just spent a lot of time when I was with the Queen in one of the great, most beautiful couple of days that I’ve ever experienced. She’s a tremendous woman. Incredible woman. We get along very well.

So, Boris and I just spoke. I congratulated him. And he’s all set to go. He’s going to be — I think he’ll do a great job.

We’re working already on a trade agreement. And I think it will be a very substantial trade agreement. You know, we can do with the UK — we can do three to four times. We were actually impeded by their relationship with the European Union. We were very much impeded on trade. And I think we can do three to four, five times what we’re doing.

We don’t do the kind of trade we could do with what some people say is Great Britain, and some people remember a word you don’t hear too much is the word, “England,” which is a piece of it.

But with the UK, we could do much, much more trade. And we expect to do that, okay?

Q Apple. You just warned Apple about tariff. So —

THE PRESIDENT: Apple?

Q Yeah, Apple. And they’re saying they don’t have skilled labor in the U.S.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I want Apple to build their plants in the United States. I don’t want them to build them in China. So when I heard they were going to build in China, I said, “No, it’s okay. You can build in China, but when you send your product into the United States, we’re going to tariff you.” But we’ll work it out.

A man I have a lot of liking for and respect is Tim Cook. And we’ll work it out. I think they’re going to announce that they’re going to build a plant in Texas. And if they do that, I’m starting to get very happy. Okay?

Q Mr. President, do you expect to get some more agreements, like the one signed today, with Honduras and El Salvador? And are you working on doing that?

THE PRESIDENT: I do. I do. I do indeed.

Q Will you get them soon?

THE PRESIDENT: Pretty soon. I mean, we get quick agreements.

So I just want to end up by saying that Guatemala has been really a pleasure to deal with, and we’re going to have a great relationship for many years to come.

And I’d like you, please, extend my warmest regards to the people of Guatemala.

MINISTER DEGENHART: Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.

Q When are you planning your working vacation in Bedminster?

THE PRESIDENT: What?

Q Are you planning a working vacation in Bedminster this year?

THE PRESIDENT: By the way, Bedminster is not a vacation. I don’t go to —

Q That’s why I said, “working.”

THE PRESIDENT: — Manhattan because when I go to Manhattan, I — you know, I stay at Trump Tower and I have to close up the whole city of Manhattan. So I go to Bedminster, which is a beautiful place, but it’s never a vacation. It’s working, mostly.

Q Are you planning a trip to Bedminster over an extended period of time in August?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I hope not because I like working. I’d rather be right here. You know, but probably over a short period of time.

A lot of times you go and they do a lot of work in the White House. For instance, the Obama administration worked out a brand-new air conditioning system for the West Wing and it was so good before they did the system. Now that they did the system, it’s freezing or hot in here.

Q Can I rephrase my question?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q Will you be spending an extended period of time working in Bedminster during the month of August?

THE PRESIDENT: Not extended, but for a short period of time. You know, meaning like less than a week.

But again, I don’t — I do that, just officially — just to put that on record — I do that because when I go into Trump Tower, they close up 10 blocks around the building. And it’s Manhattan, New York City. It’s a big — I don’t want to inconvenience people. I don’t get any credit for that, but that’s okay.

Whereas Bedminster, everybody — you know, it works out very easily. It’s a much easier — it’s a much easier thing. It’s a great place. But I would love to go to Manhattan. I just don’t like seeing the city closed up.

I’ve had to suffer — living in Manhattan, I’ve had to suffer gravely as Presidents would come in and come out. And the entire city would be shut down. So I guess I understand it better than most, right? Thank you.

Q You got the G7 summit coming up after that.

THE PRESIDENT: We have the G7 coming up. Yes. We look forward to it. It will be in France.

Q Any other stops planned?

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know. This was a stop which — this is a stop that we didn’t have planned, right here in the Oval Office — (laughter) — with Guatemala.

And again, thank you very much, Enrique. Thank you everybody.

Q Would you put tariffs on wine before the G7, or would you wait to negotiate with Macron?

THE PRESIDENT: Maybe before.

Q Maybe before?

THE PRESIDENT: Maybe before.

END 4:17 P.M. EDT

Here’s The Video:

President Trump ‘unexpectedly‘ negotiated a major asylum deal with the government of Guatemala.  In a surprise announcement on Friday President Trump invited the press into the oval office where Guatemalan Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart and acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan were gathered in advance.

It’s important to remember that President Trump spoke about this on Wednesday during an impromptu presser.  In essence President Trump delivered an offer/threat at the end of several months of negotiations.  REMINDER:

Q What are you going to do about Guatemala? Guatemala. What are you going to do about Guatemala?

THE PRESIDENT: So, Guatemala gave us their word. We were going to sign a safe third agreement and then, all of a sudden, they backed up. They said it was their supreme court. I don’t believe that. But they use their supreme court as the reason they didn’t want to do it.

So we’ll either do tariffs or we’ll do something. We’re looking at something very severe with respect to Guatemala. I’ve already cut all payments; I did that a year ago. I cut all payments going to Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. We used to send them $500 million for nothing. For nothing. They didn’t do anything except set up caravans.

So, Guatemala we’re going to take care of and it won’t even be tough. We’re going to do — we’re looking at a couple of different things. ~ Wednesday July 24th, 2019.

Apparently against the backdrop of the tariff threat President Trump is holding over the Mexican economy; and considering the Mexican economy has stalled [literally a zero percent growth rate]; Guatemala decided it was better, safer and wiser to cut a deal with President Trump.

After President Trump invited the media into the oval office, he announced Guatemala was signing a “safe third country” asylum agreement with the United Stated. Effectively blocking Central American asylum seekers from reaching the United States and filing asylum applications.  [As an outcome of the agreement asylum seekers who travel through Guatemala can no longer seek U.S. asylum.]

In addition, following the signing ceremony, President Trump held a full press conference  on a variety of subjects from the oval office.  [Video below – Transcript to follow]

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A major win for the Trump administration as the Supreme Court has just ruled to stay a lower court ruling that blocked the President from using $2.5 billion in defense funds to build border security wall.   This means the Department of Homeland Security can now use $2.5 billion in defense appropriations to build the border wall.  A massive win!

The ruling was 5-4 with the liberal justices in the minority.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to move forward with plans to build a wall along parts of the Mexican border while litigation over paying for it proceeds.

A trial judge had prohibited the administration from transferring $2.5 billion from the Pentagon’s budget to fund the effort, and an appeals court had refused to enter a stay while it considered the administration’s appeal.

The Supreme Court entered a stay, allowing construction to proceed while the litigation continues.

[…]  In urging the Supreme Court to intercede, Noel J. Francisco, the solicitor general, wrote that the plaintiffs’ “interests in hiking, bird watching and fishing in designated drug-smuggling corridors do not outweigh the harm to the public from halting the government’s efforts to construct barriers to stanch the flow of illegal narcotics across the southern border.”

Mr. Francisco argued that the lower courts had misread two provisions of a federal law in concluding that the transfer was not authorized. The law allows reallocation of money to address “unforeseen military requirements” where the expenditures had not already been “denied by Congress.” Mr. Francisco wrote that the drug enforcement measures were unforeseen when the Defense Department made its budget request and that Congress had never addressed the particular narcotics measures. (more)

(pdf of ruling here)

CNBC pundits use the drop in exports to attack the GDP result as Larry Kudlow appears to discuss the overall picture. The knuckleheaded pundits point to tariffs as the reason for the drop in exports without even contemplating (Mamet Principle) the devaluation and subsidies from foreign countries that have driven up the value of the dollar.

While currency manipulation/devaluing (EU and China) drops the prices of their export goods, their devaluation drives up the value of the dollar.  The first impact from a high valued dollar is that it causes our export products to increase in price.  This drops our exports, and can be a drag on the GDP growth rate.  Pundits are intentionally obtuse.

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My advice to President Trump: “Tariff the bastards; all of them” !!

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appears with Charles Payne to discuss the latest economic data and the Q2 GDP release.  Within the interview Secretary Ross explains the information behind the data; the status of the USMCA and Pelosi’s motives to delay ratification; the baseline for the U.S-China trade discussions, and the position of the administration to advance the economic interests of the U.S. above all others.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has released the data for the second quarter of 2019.  The Q2 GDP growth rate of 2.1 percent beat all economic expectations, and highlights strong consumer spending throughout the U.S. economy.

The two primary drags on the Q2 release are also the most volatile: Export/Import contributions (-.65%), and Inventory contributions (-.86%) [table 2]. However, consumer spending was much stronger than anticipated (+4.3%) showing the internal strength of the U.S. labor market and the impact of wage growth which still exceeds 3.6 percent.

The inflation index is still low at 1.5 percent year-over-year, and highlights a point all economic pundits overlook.  With countries attempting to stop the impact of tariffs on their exports they are devaluing their currency (EU and China) and subsidizing their export industries (China).  This has the cumulative effect of lowering their price. As a consequence, and with a strong dollar, the U.S. is importing deflation.

The Fed can do nothing of substance to impact low price inflation because the causes are external to the U.S. economy.  CTH predicted this in 2016, and we stand by that assertion today because we now have almost three years of empirical data to prove it.

Wall Street wants bad news because Wall Street wants a lower fed rate.  As a direct consequence Wall Street’s multinational corporate media bias over the GDP data release is hilarious. The headline from NBC is typical: “Economic Growth Slows Less Than Expected in Second Quarter”….    Sometimes you just have to laugh.

When you boil it all down you see the same battle continues: Wall Street -vs- Main Street.

We are in the space of flux where President Trump’s economic policy and trade reset is favoring Main Street blue-collar workers and companies.

Another way to look at it is where the multinationals (Wall St) are Globalists and fighting the economic Nationalists (Main Street).  This really is the heart of the back-n-forth, and there are trillions at stake.

Right now the U.S. middle-class is driving the economy, bigly.  Meanwhile the investment class is trying to keep their old globalist process in place.  Wall Street wants the U.S. to be a “service driven” economy.  President Trump wants the U.S. to be a “balanced production” economy, with an expanding middle-class.

The Wall Street economy generates a wealth disparity; rich and poor with little room in the middle [a limited pie].  A Main Street economy closes the wealth gap by expanding the wealth of the middle-class through higher wages and opportunity [unlimited pie making].

Overall the 3.1% GDP growth in the first quarter and 2.1% GDP growth in the second quarter, puts us on track for typically stronger Q3 to generate a higher than 3.0 percent average.

All of the internals, measurable stats centered around Main Street, are excellent.  It is the externals, measurable stats centered around Wall Street multinational interests, that are weak.  This is exactly what we would expect to see as President Trump focuses on Main Street USA.

It is not a coincidence that the U.S. and Japan are the world’s two strongest economies as the dynamic of Globalists -vs- Nationalists continues.

Don’t forget to take your Winnamins!

President Trump called-in to Sean Hannity’s TV show tonight to discuss his perspective on the Robert Mueller testimony and current DC events.

The second quarter Gross Domestic Product growth result will be released tomorrow.  The Q2 GDP growth rate is historically the worst quarter of the year.  A growth rate higher than 1.5 percent will be a strong indicator the U.S. economy remains on track for a cumulative year of around three percent.

In the latest economic releases the orders for durable goods “unexpectedly” jumped in June [2 percent], again indicating the overall strength of the U.S. economy and strong consumer purchasing.  Additionally the trade in goods deficit “unexpectedly” declined 1.2 percent in June as more manufacturers “surprisingly” shift production back to the U.S, and domestic consumers are “unexpectedly” loyal to USA.

Every economic indicator is positive, and each series of released data shows the U.S. economy is increasingly strong.  Despite the empirical data, media reporting on economic forecasts continue to convey a negative slant disconnected from what is happening.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New orders for key U.S.-made capital goods surged in June, suggesting some improvement in business investment, but economic growth is still expected to have slowed sharply in the second quarter amid weaker exports and a smaller inventory build.

Still, the longest U.S. economic expansion on record remains supported by a strong labor market. Other data on Thursday showed the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a three-month low last week.

The economy has been hurt by the U.S.-China trade war and slowing growth overseas. These factors are expected to encourage the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates next Wednesday for the first time in a decade.

The Commerce Department said orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, jumped 1.9% last month after rising 0.3% in May.

Orders for these so-called core capital goods in June increased across the board, with demand for machinery rising by the most in nearly 1-1/2 years. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast core capital goods orders would gain 0.2% in June.

“The stronger-than-expected orders are a positive sign that business investment and manufacturing sector activity have not weakened substantially further following softness earlier in the year,” said Veronica Clark, an economist at Citi in New York.

Core capital goods orders rose 1.9% on a year-on-year basis. Core capital goods shipments, which are used to calculate equipment spending in the government’s gross domestic product measurement, increased 0.6% in June after advancing 0.5% in the prior month.

[…] Overall orders for durable goods, items ranging from toasters to aircraft that are meant to last three years or more, increased 2.0% in June, the most since August 2018, after declining 2.3% in the prior month. Unfilled orders fell for a second straight month. (read more)

President Trump has tweeted support for an American artist A$AP Rocky after Swedish authorities file formal charges which may result in a two-year prison term.

It seems remarkable that a street fight, which did appear to be validly self defense, could result in such a serious situation for this young American musician. President Trump has attempted to help the artist who remains in detention, and expresses disappointment in the status.

ABC News – Rapper A$AP Rocky was charged with assault in Sweden on Thursday over a brawl in the streets of Stockholm on June 30, according to prosecutors.

“I have today commenced criminal proceedings against the three individuals suspected of assault causing actual bodily harm, having come to the conclusion that the events in question constitute a crime and despite claims of self-defence and provocation,” said public prosecutor Daniel Suneson, of the City Public Prosecution Office in Stockholm.

“In reaching this conclusion, I have studied the videos made available to the inquiry,” he added. “It is worth noting that I have had access to a greater amount of material than that which has previously been available on the internet. In addition to video material, the injured party’s statements have been supported by witness statements.”

The rapper’s Swedish attorney Slobodan Jovicic reiterated his argument that his client was acting in self defense and told ABC News on Thursday that while the decision to charge him was “expected,” A$AP Rocky is in “disbelief” and feeling “very disappointed because now it is black and white.”

[…] The trial will take place July 30 and Aug. 1 and 2, the prosecutor’s office said. Suneson added that those who were injured in the fight will testify and that new footage of the assault will be played in court as well. Cameras are not allowed in court. A$AP Rocky faces a maximum sentence of two years in prison if found guilty. (more)

The U.S. worker initiative is one of the least discussed success stories in the landscape of MAGAnomics.  At the heart of the program is a new-era retraining program through a partnership between private companies and the education sector.  There are programs ongoing throughout the nation and it really is a remarkable success.

UPDATE: Video Added

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[White House] Today, President Trump, Vice President Pence, Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump and members of the Cabinet will host an event at the White House with workers and CEOs to celebrate the one year anniversary since the launch of the Pledge to America’s Workers.

Over the course of the last year, Ivanka Trump has spearheaded a call-to-action for States and the private sector to create new education and training opportunities to better serve the American worker and encourage private investment in workforce development. On the first day of this month, President Trump signed a proclamation for Pledge to America’s Workers Month, 2019 and over the past few weeks Administration officials have crisscrossed the country to more than 17 cities to encourage this critical workforce development investment.

The White House is thrilled to announce that since President Trump signed the Executive Order, more than 300 companies and organizations have signed the Pledge, contributing to over 12 MILLION new opportunities for American students and workers over the next five years. Included in that is a huge commitment announced by NAM today that they have signed the Pledge to offer training opportunities to 1.2 Million American workers.

The celebration event is a culmination of the year-long effort, intended to highlight workers’ stories and the role of the private sector in workforce development. Employees and CEOs of companies from around the country that have signed the Pledge to America’s Workers will be in attendance. Members of Congress and local legislators will also be participating in the event.

“Our mission is straightforward: to ensure inclusive growth and opportunity in our booming economy by creating pathways for all Americans, regardless of age or background, to acquiring the skills needed to secure and retain high-paying jobs,” said Ivanka Trump, Advisor to the President.

By the Numbers – As of July 25, 2019:
NEWS: Total # of Pledges (individuals impacted) – 12,730,505
-Total # of Companies/Associations – 335
-Total # of States – 35 states + the District of Columbia
-Total # of Governors – 37 Governors
-Total # of Countries – 12 countries + USA

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