White House trade and manufacturing policy advisor Peter Navarro appears on Fox News to discuss the status of the U.S-China trade negotiations and the reason for a USTR delay on some product tariffs.

Peter Navarro confirms what we noted from the office of USTR Robert Lighthizer yesterday.  On December 15th “the tariffs will go on.”   While the statement flies over the head of Stuart Varney, Navarro confirms the “next step” process that Lighthizer implied.

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More below

The U.S. stock market continues reacting to an unusual dynamic. 50% of all companies manufacturing in China are U.S. owned multinational corporations. Those companies don’t want tariffs to succeed in disrupting their supply chain. As a consequence those Wall St. Corps also don’t want lower U.S. Fed interest rates designed to combat China’s currency devaluation.

Normally Wall St. would like lower rates (cheap money), but in this dynamic the U.S. multinationals are against it. Wall Street is schizophrenic. Domestic U.S. companies benefit from the lower rates; however, now, lower rates are adverse to the interests of the multinational companies.

It was Albert Einstein who aptly stated:

“The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.”

The same basic principle applies to those who are trying to understand and evaluate current economic activity yet failing to disengage themselves from their historic economic frames of reference.

Minds who are framed around thirty years of financial/monetary political policy; intended to influence the U.S. economy and created by vested interests who were building out the legislative priorities based on Wall Streets’ best interests; will struggle to understand the new landscape which is entirely formulated to benefit Main Street.

There are two economic engines: Wall Street and Main Street.

The two economic engines are divergent and detached. Time (30+ years), along with monetary focus only on Wall Street interests (multinationals), pushed those two economic engines further apart. The same monetary policies which worked in the immediate past will not work in the immediate future.

We are now in the economic space between both engines. The traditional cause and effect (Fed) is now uncoupled.  The administrators of the economy are perplexed; this is unfamiliar terrain.

The exact same areas of the country which have gone through three decades of economic contraction are now seeing economic expansion and revitalization. The Fed policy which influences Wall Street was not, and is not, domestic centric. The fed policy was corporate driven monetary policy and globalist in influence.

Until the two economies gain parity in value – any fed activity, taken as a consequence to their familiar traditional measurements (interest rates etc.), will have minimal to negligible impact on Main Street.

The situation in Hong Kong is a geopolitical dynamic that will likely become much more volatile in the next few weeks, months and/or years.  One constant in an ever-changing universe is how the UniParty in DC will attempt to drag the U.S. into the issues.

First, Hong Kong is China.  Whether a generation of people look back with regret to the time when Great Britain ceded the territory to Beijing is irrelevant.  China has, and will have, full control over Hong Kong; and that’s the way it is.  This will not be reversed.

Any effort for the people within Hong Kong to reverse the situation and escape the clutches of oppressive communism while retaining their liberty will only lead to massive bloodshed.

Unfortunately for Hong Kong, as President Trump decouples the U.S. economy from the duplicitous communist Chinese enterprise, Beijing will grasp more control over the heavily Western-influenced economic strata in/around Hong Kong.

Stand back and look at the bigger picture.  President Trump has neutralized, essentially made irrelevant, Beijing’s use of their proxy province, North Korea.  President Trump has embraced Kim Jong-un, not as much out of a position of warmth – but rather as a tactic to block China from weaponizing the DPRK as leverage during the U.S-China trade confrontation.

Beijing still uses their influence to shoot rockets, test missiles etc and president Trump ignores it now.  Why?  Because North Korea already has nuclear missiles; they’re the same nuclear missiles China has… and it is silly now to think China will remove their nuclear missiles to gain an economic benefit.

If U.S. policy isn’t trying to remove nuclear weapons from China, then why would U.S. policy try to remove nuclear weapons from the DPRK.?  They’re the same nukes.

Losing their DPRK leverage, and understanding Beijing has no direct tools to defeat the U.S. in an direct economic confrontation, means China will look elsewhere. That’s where Hong Kong comes into play.

[Always remember, despite the U.S. tariffs on China, there are no tariffs on Hong Kong]

Do we feel sympathy watching a once free society slip into the grips of an oppressive and totalitarian system now ruled by a communist dictator for life in Chairman Xi Jinping?  Sure we do.  But they made these choices decades ago… now they have the consequences.

If Hong Kong tries to resist Beijing, they will be crushed.  Hundreds more will be arrested and disappeared.  Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, will be killed.  There is already a ongoing flight of wealth out of Hong Kong as the smart and wealthy position their assets overseas to survive the arrival of Beijing’s storm troopers.

The future for Hong Kong is dark.  It is not going to end in anything resembling what exists today.  Hong Kong will be Beijing 2.0, and will be entirely dominated by Chinese authoritarian rule.  The difference in 2019 is the speed at which it is happening.

Things are speeding up now in direct proportion to the severity of the U.S. decoupling our economy from China.   As the Chinese economy weakens, Beijing will get more desperate.

Many voices around President Trump will cry out for intervention.  The UniParty will demand intervention and decry President Trump’s instinct to stay away from the self-made crisis.

It is not our issue; and engaging in Hong Kong only opens up another pathway for China to play the duplicitous leverage game…. Beijing will play the “we’ll spare, delay, or dilute the Hong Kong absorption, if you agree to our trade terms” game. [lies, lies, lies]

President Trump needs to engage with China and Hong Kong as one nation, under one rule, with one motive and intent.   Trying to win a Chinese trade conflict while parsing the economy of China from the economy of Hong Kong, is like trying to parse the nukes in China from the nukes in North Korea.

Hong Kong is lost.  Hong Kong belongs to China.  Thousands of Hong Kongers will be killed or disappeared into camps as Beijing absorbs the region.  The U.S. cannot continue to engage globally in an effort to protect nations from the consequences of their own decisions.

If Great Britain wants to send an armada of battle ships to warn Beijing against aggression with Hong Kong, then we should support.  Wait… wha?  Oh, Great Britain no longer has a Navy because the high-minded EU collective wanted to hold hands and sing ‘we-are-the-world’ instead of planning to defend its interests for the past twenty years….  I digress.

Hong Kong is not our issue.

The CIA will try to make it our issue.  The State Department will try to make it our issue.  The UniParty in DC will try to make it our issue.  John Bolton will try to make it our issue. Activists in Hong Kong will try to make it our issue.  All of the far-left globalists will try to make it our issue….  Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney will try to make it our issue; but it’s not our issue.

We pray for peace and send our prayers, but we cannot succeed in the larger economic confrontation with cunning China if we attempt to ignore the direct connective tissue between Beijing and Hong Kong.

Instead, start applying the Chinese tariffs on Hong Kong as soon as Beijing tanks arrive.

Tough love.

Chopper pressers are the best pressers.  Earlier today President Trump delivered remarks and held and impromptu press conference from the airport in Morristown, NJ, prior to departing for Pennsylvania.  [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: The stock market continues to do very well. We have very, very strong numbers. We have a lot of artificial numbers from other countries because they’re all devaluing their currencies. They’re really doing things that aren’t very good for their countries, in my opinion. But, short term, it’s very good for their countries. Long term, possibly not.

And we’re not following suit. We have a Fed that decides not to cut interest rates, which is a very bad thing. Because, right now, we have to follow suit; we should be following suit. But we have a very powerful country, a very strong economic and military country. We’ve never been better. The stock market is way up today for various reasons, including tariffs.

I just see where we’ve collected close to $59 billion in tariffs so far. And, in my opinion, the consumer has not paid for it because of the devaluation by China. They devalued and they pumped a lot of money into their system. So, it’s really been an amazing — it’s been an amazing period of time.

Yeah.

Q Why did you make the decision on the tariffs, to delay the implementation of the tariffs?

THE PRESIDENT: Only to help, I think, a lot of different groups of people. And we had a very good talk yesterday with China — a very, very productive call. I think they want to do something. I think they’d like to do something dramatic. I was not sure whether or not they wanted to wait until a Democrat has a chance to get in. Hopefully that’s not going to happen because the economy would go to hell in a handbasket very fast.

But they really would like to make a deal. The call itself was very productive. I’m not sure if it was the tariffs or the call, but the call was very productive. Again, they’ve said this many times; they’ve said they’re going to buy farm products. So far, they’ve disappointed me with the truth. They haven’t been truthful, or, let’s say, they’ve certainly delayed the decision. But it’s their intention to buy a lot of farm product.

And we did — we had a very good call with China. I mean, they would really like to do — as you know, they have a problem in Hong Kong, but they would like very much to do something.

Q Would you consider moving the tariffs, even? Delaying them even further, past December 15?

THE PRESIDENT: No, we’re doing this for Christmas season, just in case some of the tariffs would have an impact on U.S. customers, which, so far, they’ve had virtually none. The only impact has been that we’ve collected almost $60 billion from China — compliments of China. But just in case they might have an impact on people, what we’ve done is we’ve delayed it so that they won’t be relevant for the Christmas shopping season.

Q Mr. President, can you please explain your decision to retweet that comment about Jeffrey Epstein and the —

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, he’s a very highly respected, conservative pundit. He’s a big Trump fan. That was a retweet. That wasn’t from me; that was from him. But he’s a man who has half a million followers. A lot of followers. And he’s respected.

And, as you know, Bill Barr wants to do an entire investigation of the whole Epstein matter, what happened. He’s been going on for a long — that’s been going on for a long time, the whole Epstein episode. And I know it’s under investigation by Attorney General Barr, and I’m sure he’s going to be handling it.

The retweet, which is what it was — it was a retweet — was from somebody that’s a very respected, conservative pundit. So I think that was fine.

Yeah.

Q But is it appropriate for you to be spreading that kind of conspiracy theory? I presume you don’t know that that’s true.

THE PRESIDENT: No, basically what we’re saying is we want an investigation. I want a full investigation, and that’s what I absolutely am demanding. That’s what our Attorney General — our great Attorney General — is doing. He’s doing a full investigation.

Q Are you concerned about what you’re seeing in Hong Kong? Do you want China to exercise restraint?

THE PRESIDENT: The Hong Kong thing is a very tough situation. Very tough. We’ll see what happens. But I’m sure it’ll work out. I hope it works out for everybody, including China, by the way. I hope it works out for everybody.

Q Have you seen the gathering of military troops, apparently close to protestors? And there’s worries about that.

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, it’s a very tricky situation. I think it’ll work out. And I hope it works out for liberty. I hope it works out for everybody, including China. I hope it works out peacefully. I hope nobody gets hurts. I hope nobody gets killed.

Q Mr. President, are you more optimistic now that there’s a chance of getting a deal between China on trade?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’ve always been optimistic. My only question is whether or not they were willing to wait and take the chance on winning the election and deal with somebody who’s weak and ineffective and doesn’t know what he’s doing or she’s doing, like they’ve had in the past.

This should have been done 25 years ago. It should have been done 10 years ago or 5 years ago. This should have been done a long time ago. This should have been done by Biden and Obama. China is taking out $500 billion a year, and much more than that, if you include the theft of intellectual property. What I’m doing now should have been done many years ago.

Q On another issue: Ken Cuccinelli today said, on NPR, that maybe there ought to be a different poem on the Statue of Liberty that says immigrants who come can stand up for themselves and take care of themselves. Do you think that should be changed?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don’t think it’s fair to have the American taxpayer — you know, it’s about “America First.” I don’t think it’s fair to have the American taxpayer paying for people to come into the United States.

So what we’ve done is institute what took place many, many years ago — at our founding, virtually. But we are just reinstituting it. And I think it’s long overdue.

I am tired of seeing our taxpayer paying for people to come into the country and immediately go onto welfare and various other things. So I think we’re doing it right.

Q Mr. President, you tweeted about a word that Chris Cuomo found racially offensive. Even Sean Hannity defended him. Is that appropriate for you to tweet about that?

THE PRESIDENT: I think that what Chris Cuomo did was horrible. His language was horrible. He looked like a total, out-of-control animal. He lost it. And, frankly, I don’t think anybody should defend him because he spews lies every night. So I don’t know why anybody would defend him. But Chris Cuomo was out of control. I watched it. I thought it was terrible.

So I don’t know who’s defending him. Maybe they didn’t see it. Maybe they haven’t gotten a full picture. But I think anybody that would have seen Chris Cuomo would have said that was a disgrace. You’ve never seen me do that.

Q But you wound up tweeting in response to it, saying that maybe he should be flagged by a “red flag” list. Doesn’t that sort of undermine the whole argument that’s going on right now and the push for that?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think Chris Cuomo was so out of control that I would not have wanted to see a weapon in his hand. I guess his fist is not a weapon or he would have done something. You know, he talked about it but he didn’t do anything.

But I think Chris Cuomo was very much out of control, actually.

Q Mr. President, Anthony Scaramucci today is calling on Republicans to challenge you in 2020, saying that you’ve “gone off the rails.” Do you have a response?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Anthony was a guy who worked for me, who really didn’t have a clue. He worked for 11 days. He made terrible statements and gestures and everything to people that worked in the office. I think you’ve heard Mercedes Schlapp talk about it in great detail.

Anthony didn’t support me at the beginning; he was with somebody else and then he went to somebody else. And he only supported me after it was a foregone conclusion that I was going to win.

I’m not a fan of Anthony. I haven’t been for a long time. I think Anthony is really somebody that’s very much out of control. And he doesn’t have what it takes. I mean, he really doesn’t.

He wanted to come back into the administration for the last five months, begging me to come back in. I said, “Anthony, I can’t take you in. I’m sorry.” He called so much. He’s a nervous, neurotic wreck. He called so much, and I said, “Anthony, I’m sorry. I can’t do that. I can’t take you in.” And I said, “You got to stop all these phone calls. Too many calls, Anthony.” And I wouldn’t take his call. And lo and behold, now he feels differently.

But Anthony is upset because he wanted certain things. The main thing he wanted was to come back into the administration. And as you remember better than I do, he was a disaster for the 11 days.

Q Mr. President, the factory you’re going to today is going to make plastics. You must be aware of all the reports that say the world is awash in plastic and the last thing it needs is more plastic. What’s your feeling on that?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have tremendous plastics coming over from Asia, from China, and various others. It’s not our plastic. It’s plastics that’s floating over in the ocean and the various oceans from other places.

No, plastics are fine, but you have to know what to do with them. But other countries are not taking care of their plastic use and they haven’t for a long time. And the plastic that we’re getting is floating across the ocean from other places, including China.

Q How is the progress going on background checks? Are you convinced that Mitch McConnell is going to put that up for a vote?

THE PRESIDENT: I am convinced that Mitch wants to do something. I’ve spoken to Mitch McConnell. He’s a good man. He wants to do something. He wants to do it, I think, very strongly. He wants to do background checks, and I do too, and I think a lot of Republicans do. I don’t know, frankly, that the Democrats will get us there.

But I spoke with Chris Murphy, Senator. We had a very good conversation. We’ll see what happens. But I believe that Mitch — and I can tell you, from my standpoint, I would like to see meaningful background checks. And I think something will happen.

Look, it’s very simple: There is nobody more pro-Second Amendment than Donald Trump, but I don’t want guns in the hands of a lunatic or a maniac. And I think if we do proper background checks, we can prevent that.

Q And back on the tweet question: Do you really think the Clintons are involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s death?

THE PRESIDENT: I have no idea. I know he was on his plane 27 times and he said he was on the plane 4 times. But when they checked the plane logs, Bill Clinton — who was a very good friend of Epstein — he was on the plane about 27 or 28 times. So why did he say “four times”?

And then the question you have to ask is: Did Bill Clinton go to the island? Because Epstein had an island that was not a good place, as I understand it. And I was never there. So you have to ask: Did Bill Clinton go to the island? That’s the question. If you find that out, you’re going to know a lot.

Thank you very much everybody.

END 12:03 P.M. EDT

President Trump travels to Pittsburgh, PA, today to tour the Shell cracker plant and deliver remarks on “America’s Energy Dominance and Manufacturing Revival.” The anticipated start time is 2:10pm EST. [Update – Video Added]

The GST Livestream is active now – all others will activate closer to speech time.

White House Livestream – Fox News Link – RSBN Link – GST Link (active now)

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