The passage of the defense spending portion of the Omnibus bill ultimately means there will be increased demand for U.S. steel and aluminum within new defense equipment. The contracts within the procurement process will predictably require the use of U.S. parts.

Add the increase in defense spending with the pending global tariffs on steel imports, and the environment is created for foreign investment in domestic steel and metal manufacturing…. Then add into the mix the geopolitical economic relationship developed between India’s Prime Minister Modi and President Trump… And you discover the backdrop for this announcement from India owned JSW Steel:

(Reuters) – India’s JSW Steel Ltd said on Monday it would spend $500 million to build out its U.S. operations in Texas, amid heightened global trade tensions following U.S President Donald Trump’s decision to pursue steep import tariffs.

The company has signed an agreement with the Texas governor’s office, under which the governor has approved a grant worth $3.4 million to the company’s unit, the steelmaker said in a statement here.

The unit, JSW USA, sells high-quality carbon plates to the energy, petrochemicals, defense and other heavy equipment industries.

The company will use $150 million of the funds to improve and modernize its plant in Baytown, Texas, while the rest will fund a new facility, it said.  (read more)

.

Remember, a key part of MAGAnomics is changing the investment dynamic where the ‘best play’ is to invest in the U.S.

The entire landscape of modern geopolitics is an assembly of various nations specifically focused on their economic interests.  Fundamentally, the economics of a nation is the cornerstone for their ability to hold, advance, influence and present their ideology.

Without the underlying economic capability to provide sustainability and stability, the nation, any nation, cannot maintain itself regardless of the underlying political outlook.  In short, as the old verse presents: “money makes the world go ’round“.  Everything boiled down to it’s essential core – is about economics.

The shock to the system of modern multinational financial interests was created by an earthquake known as Trump; which created a seismic shift via the 2016 U.S. presidential election outcome.

The tectonic political and economic shift was so unsettling to the global elites -who created a decades-long system of global financial interests- they have been thrashing around desperate to regain footing ever since.

All modern political alliances are based on this economic reality, and every single action taken by every member within each grouping is based on their affiliated and interconnected self-interest in the underlying economic equation.

At first, every nation positioned themselves to push-back against a realignment in geopolitical power based on the nationalistic economic shifting created by U.S. President Donald J. Trump.  However, as time progresses, and the clear strategy of President Trump begins to take shape, allies and adversaries have begun to accept that POTUS Trump is not going to retreat.  Access to a $20 trillion U.S. market is the biggest economic leverage in the world.

It doesn’t matter which continent you point to. If you pull back to the larger view and overlay the economic maneuvering you will find the reason behind the strategic relationship always revolves around economics.  War or peace, it’s all about the economics within the equation.

If you scale market economies on a linear continuum according to freedom (size of government in their economic market), and line up the individual nations as flags according to their political outlook on the same linear scale, you will quickly see how the groups cluster in both political ideology and similar economics. [Big government communist nations cluster together; big government socialist nations cluster together; and smaller government fair markets cluster together.] It has always been thus.

The scale of market freedom, in direct proportion to the wealth of the individual within each nation, is the one constant in an ever changing universe.

This is the essential issue with global trade agreements which seek to enjoin free/fair market nations within larger trade deals that also encompass more socialistic political forms of governance. It simply doesn’t work. Generally speaking the free/fair market nations get screwed because they are forced to acquiesce to the insufferable dictates -and rules- of the big government institutional nations. (TTIP and TPP examples)

President Trump has assembled economic SME’s (Subject Matter Experts)to deal with this geopolitical dynamic.  Each person specifically skilled to navigate this complex network of internal interests.  Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer, AG Secretary Sonny Perdue, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and more recently Trade Adviser Peter Navarro.

Each cabinet member has a role within the larger dynamic that is a policy of economic patriotism benefiting the U.S.A.

New trade deals are being negotiated; NAFTA (Canada and Mexico), Vietnam, South Korea, Australia, ASEAN nations, and then China and the EU [with U.K. coming as soon as Brexit negotiations are complete].

All of the currently visible political alliances, like those witnessed within the G20, are based on their positioning for these upcoming trade deals.  Every supportive or antagonistic expression by each of these nation states is directly tied to their positioning for trade leverage and negotiation with the U.S.

The MSM will sell visible and spoken differences of opinion, differences of political ideologies, and newly formed alliances around a narrative of nations being anti-Trump.  The media like to focus on the cult of personality to create their discussion segments; but that’s nowhere near the full measure of what’s behind international alliances. The actual motives are the underlying economic determinations within each nation.

It has been so long since U.S. economic power was used to the benefit of the U.S., there’s an entire generation that has no concept of this underlying reasoning for national friendliness, or lack thereof, toward each other.  We have given away so much national economic wealth many people have forgotten how to accumulate or compete for it.

The ‘We-Are-The-World‘ type leftist globalism (fair share economics) has been pushed for so long, that many people have completely forgotten what it looks like when nations look out for their own unique economic best interests, and actually strive to achieve them.

Heck, many younger Americans may never have seen the competition at all.

Economic competition, territorial economics, is what drives each nation to excel and innovate.  The unexpected aspect, buried by almost all media, is how President Trump is empowering all nations to reevaluate their trade status by confronting a global trade system that was diminishing sovereignty.

And the WINNING is the best part of M.A.G.A !

“KORUS”

Perhaps as early as this week we should anticipate hearing about completion a significant trade agreement with South Korea.  The deal is known as “KORUS” (KOR+U.S.), and has been in negotiations for over a year.

Part of the recent agreement within the auto-sector of the deal, between Moon Jae-in and President Donald Trump, via Lighthizer and Ross, is an exemption of U.S. steel tariffs for South Korea in exchange for a doubling of U.S. auto exports; from 25,000 to 50,000 American made cars, per U.S. automaker, per year.  (link)

The results within KORUS exhibit the intended outcome of the global tariff proposal from President Trump as leverage to enhance the administration policy of reciprocity.  The world is taking notice, and China is now beginning to signal their understanding of President Trump leading the international discussion of reciprocal trade.

The unspoken background is that all nations, who have acquiesced to the overwhelming demands of China’s trade position, are now beginning to reassess the value of President Trump confronting the equation head-on.  Ultimately it is beginning to sink-in that all nations can benefit from correcting a trade imbalance within their own position.  In essence, U.S. President Trump is moving the entire global trade dynamic.

The timing for a U.S. leveraged KORUS deal could not be better.  On the geopolitical stage President Trump, through his sheer will, has thrown open the doors to a denuclearized Korean peninsular and is about to engage in direct discussions with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The ramifications for peace on the Korean peninsular, and the economic outcomes therein, are seismic for South East Asia.  Thus we see today stunning reports of Kim Jong-un heading to Beijing for discussions of unknown substance.

There is no doubt both Kim Jong-un (DPRK) and Chinese President/Chairman Xi Jinping must engage in talks about the ramifications.  China has long used the DPRK as a proxy province for their own geopolitical strategy against the U.S. and western interests.

POTUS Trump using economic leverage to break down the walls of totalitarian regimes is a stunning position for two nations (China and DPRK) who must have thought such an action would be unconscionable a mere eighteen months ago.

Incredible times of jaw-dropping consequence.  Because, ‘His Excellency’ Trump.

The Era of the Economic Titan is Back!

PS. A U.S./South Korea trade deal enhances the backdrop, and leverage, of U.S. position toward NAFTA. Canada and Mexico have aligned with the TPP multilateral trade deal.  POTUS Trump is negotiating bi-lateral deals with nations within TPP (Japan, Australia, Vietnam, South Korea all ongoing).

Oh, here we go. Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch has a decades-earned nickname, “Mr. Wall Street”, Chris Wallace is the insufferable media mouthpiece for the financial interests of the guy who signs the front of his paycheck.  This is Wall Street -vs- Main Street.

.

When Main Street economic principles are applied Wall Street will initially lose. There’s no way for this not to happen. Most of Wall Street is built on the Multinational platform of economic globalism. Weaken the grip of the multinational corporations and financial interests on the U.S. economy and Wall Street will drop… this is not difficult to predict. This is also necessary.

U.S. stocks, centered around U.S. domestic companies, will go up. U.S. stocks, centered around multinational companies -invested heavily overseas, and dependent on exploitation of the U.S. trade deficit- will go down.

As Secretary Wilbur Ross, U.S.T.R. Robert Lighthizer and U.S. President Trump have previously affirmed, they are going to restore the U.S. manufacturing base or lose office trying.

Additionally, the U.S. GDP is measured by deducting the value of imports from the value of everything produced domestically.  Therefore, initially as the economy expands, and as more Americans have more money to buy more stuff, lots of the things they buy will come from overseas.  This increase in purchasing of imports drives down the GDP despite the overall economic activity expanding.

I hope everyone has been prepared with prior information on how the economic system works so we can understand this weird and predictable dynamic.  Increased consumer spending can actually drive down the GDP if the stuff we are buying is imported.

National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo for a discussion of ongoing trade initiatives.

Keep in mind, while simultaneously confronting China head-on, USTR Lighthizer has current trade deals, centered around reciprocity, being negotiated with: NAFTA [Mexico and Canada (round #7)], the EU, South Korea (almost done), Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Australia and Japan (almost done).

.

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

Maria Bartiromo has an interview with Devin Nunes encompassing multiple topics from China and Trade to the FBI/DOJ investigation.

.

HPSCI recommendations below:

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/374810422/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-GIc3EXLab0ZWrW92UfKg