QUESTION: You always mention how there were defaults and suspension of debt during the Great Depression by states and municipals. Was this also true in Canada?
JRT
ANSWER: Oh, yes. Whenever commodities have collapsed, Alberta finds itself in trouble. Central banks look to the national market and not to the regional sectors.
Mrs. Michelle Malkin delivered a strong call-to-arms at CPAC surrounding the insufferable Big Club’s republican corporate agenda toward immigration.
Wolverine Speech and Transcript Below:
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[Transcript] Good afternoon. Thank you to CPAC for the invitation. My name is Michelle Malkin. I identify as an American. A proud, unhyphenated, unapologetic, fully assimilated American. My pronouns are U.S.A.
America is good and America is great. Of these basic truths, there is or should be little dispute among us here. But two questions loom large: 1) For how long will the America we grew up in remain good and great? And 2) To whom shall we entrust the existential responsibility of securing the goodness and greatness passed down peacefully for generations?
I wish I could stand here and chirp happily to you about positive news. Yes, unemployment rates are at historic lows, regulations and taxes are being cut, some stellar judges have been confirmed, and the reckless, feckless liberal media has finally, finally self-immolated like a slow-motion downing of the Hindenburg.
Yes, we have much to thank President Trump for as he battles the Beltway swamp, the deep state, the administrative state, and the fake news fourth estate. But there is no sugarcoating America’s long-term forecast. We face fearful odds. The game is rigged. The playing field is manifestly unlevel.
My first book Invasion in 2002, exposed how border failures and systemic non-enforcement of our visa program rules created a national security crisis that led to 9/11. My last book, Sold Out, which I co-authored in 2015 with former American computer programmer-turned-labor lawyer John Miano, documented how Big Business and Big Government created an economic crisis by exploiting the H-1B tech worker visa program and other foreign employment visas for cheap labor.
I’ve been accused of being a grifter for wanting to inform and educate citizens about these destructive rackets. But it’s the GOP sellouts in bed with open borders – like the ones who hijacked the tea party movement to shill for amnesty – who are the real grifters cashing in and practicing deceit at the expense of their base.
Our shining city on a hill has become a much-abused doormat to the world. Building the border wall is just half the battle. The numbers tell all. Our future is dimmed. The odds are fearful.
We currently grant one million legal permanent residencies to people from around the world every year. The number of green card holders is expected to increase by 10 million by 2025. That’s more than the current combined population of Dallas, St. Louis, Denver, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. Now multiply that number by at least three and a half.
Thanks to our chain migration system, created in 1952 and expanded exponentially by Congress in 1965 and 1990, these new immigrants can sponsor their entire extended families: parents, spouses, adult children and their children, and siblings and their children. Princeton University researchers found that recently admitted immigrants sponsored an average of 3.45 additional relatives each.
An estimated 85,000 refugees and 20,000-plus asylees enter the country annually through an overwhelmed system so rife with fraud and abuse that the process is jokingly dubbed “refugee roulette” by immigration lawyers. In total, from fiscal year 2008 to 2017, the U.S. gave green cards to more than 2 million migrants for various humanitarian claims – a population larger than the city of Philadelphia.
Nearly half a million more immigrants in that time frame got in through the diversity visa lottery. Illegal aliens are eligible if a legal family member wins the jackpot. Tens of thousands are pouring in from terrorism breeding grounds through the lottery unvetted, unmonitored and unassimilated. Thanks again to chain migration, immigration lotto winners’ spouses and unmarried children under 21 all get passes into the country, too.
Nearly half of all illegal aliens in the country have violated the terms of their short-term visitor or work visas. More than 10.8 million people received such visas alone in fiscal year 2015, including 500,000 foreign university and graduate students on academic visas and nearly 700,000 total foreign guest workers (both skilled and unskilled, not to mention their spouses, many of whom are allowed to work here as well).
Congress has repeatedly mandated a nationwide visa entry-exit system to track legal short-term visa holders. But one has yet to be built—even in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which were perpetrated in part by several illegal alien visa overstayers. E-verify has been stalled. Sanctuary cities metastasized. And BOTH parties are to blame – yeah I’m looking at you, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, the Bush family, Mitt Romney and the ghost of John McCain.
This unrelenting inflow of new green card holders, short-term foreign visa holders, legal temporary workers, refugees and asylees is supplemented by 13 to 30 million illegal aliens who expect amnesty and chain migration privileges from Washington despite breaking immigration laws governing everything from border jumping to ID fraud, benefits fraud, tax fraud, and marriage fraud, to human and drug trafficking, to employment rules, deportation orders, and visa overstays.
The feds have proved themselves serially unwilling and incapable of handling the lapses, backlogs, overload, and yes, invasion. The numbers tell all. Open borders anarchy, multiplied by endless chain migration, amnesty, and cheap labor pipelines, endangers our general welfare and the blessings of liberty. By every clear measure, the war is not on immigrants but on American sovereignty.
I’ve been called white for stating the facts. I’m not white. I’m just right. Both native-born and immigrant families like mine, which revere the rule of law, common traditions, constitutional principles, one identity and one tongue, have been replaced by militantly unassimilable and hostile generations…of future Democrat voters whose tribal allegiance to the Left has only hardened over time.
It’s insane that we have elected Republicans on Capitol Hill doing the bidding of the illegal alien DREAMer racket. Until and unless we reclaim the right of self-determination over the numbers, we are doomed.
My fellow Americans, we stand at the bridge as Horatius stood at the narrow bridge over the Tiber River alone facing fearful odds as hordes of Etruscans marched towards him and cowards cut and run behind him. Like his enemies, our enemies are both foreign AND domestic.
Inside are flimsily defended borders, we are not at peace, or rather, the radical Left is not at peace with us. From the comfort of TV green rooms, Beltway backrooms, corporate boardrooms, and conference ballrooms, it may not look like civil war is imminent. But threats and outright violence against ordinary, law-abiding people are now regularized features, not random bugs, of political life in these dis-United States.
College students are being punched, elderly citizens are being harassed, MAGA hat wearers are being kicked off planes and assaulted in school hallways and restaurants, conservative speakers are being mobbed and Molotov cocktailed, ICE agents and their families are being targeted, pro-lifers are being kicked and menaced, pro-Trump, anti-jihad moms on social media are being monitored and doxxed.
The madness is beyond parody.
Last week, social justice media warriors whipped up hysteria over a Mar a Lago pastry chef’s Instagram posts. Where are the sanctuary spaces for law-abiding conservatives who simply want to exercise their rights to free speech and peaceable assembly?
The divide in this country is between decent people who stand up for America and dastardly people who want to bring America to its knees.
We certainly should make common cause with others across the aisle who shares our values, but we should not rush to embrace those whose fundamental aim is to smear and destroy us all. That’s suicidal. Which is why I cannot stand here and stay silent about the role Van Jones has played in attempting to silence the Right.
My objection is not to his support for criminal justice reform. I have dedicated much of my own time, energy, and money to fighting wrongful convictions, false allegations, and prosecutorial and forensic misconduct. Next time you need a conservative to talk about criminal justice reform, call me. You don’t need someone who’s going to spew fake news pro illegal alien propaganda to talk CJR to conservatives.
Fact check: The most recent research by the Federation for American Immigration Reform found that illegal aliens are up to 5.5 times more likely than Americans to be incarcerated in state prisons compared to Americans and legal residents.
But my most vehement objection is to this stage being used to lend legitimacy to the George Soros-funded organization Color of Change, which dedicated to censoring and sabotaging right-leaning groups for championing the free market, opposing radical Islam, and exposing open borders.
Seven years ago, Van Jones’ group pressured Pepsi, McDonald’s, Intuit and other companies to cut ties to the mainstream American Legislative Exchange Council(ALEC), a half-century-old association of state legislators who believe in “the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty.” What was ALEC’s crime? Crafting model legislation on voter ID to protect election integrity, immigration enforcement measures and self-defense legislation to strengthen Second Amendment rights.
Color of Change and the smear machine racket known as the Southern Poverty Law Center use the same playbook to marginalize and criminalize mainstream conservatives, anti-jihad groups, and immigration hawks as “hate groups” and push us out of the public square.
They conspire with payment processors and Silicon Valley to deprive the Right of our voices and our ability to make a living. So many speaking up and fighting on the front lines for liberty and security are being detwittered depaypaled defacebooked deplatformed – people like Laura Loomer and Gavin McInnes and the Center for Immigration Studies and Robert Spencer and so many others.
Many are in this room. Stand up if you are one of them. Many have been forced to beg for money to help them fight in court to restore their reputations. Many have been barred from this room.
Nice is not enough. Logic and facts and appeals to decency and fairness are not enough. Bemoaning double standards is not enough. Ultimately our future will not be secured in a Fox News anchor chair or a think tank office or on a cruise ship or at a cushy GOP retreat. The future is on the frontlines. At the edge of the bridge.
Then out spake brave Horatius, the captain of the Gate. To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his Gods.
Instead of throwing allies under that bridge, movement conservatives who have preached so comfortably here in the Beltway about defending America while preserving the status quo need to help provide financial and moral support to the disrupters willing to fight fire with fire.
Maybe it’s providence that I am privileged to speak here on the 7th anniversary of Andrew Breitbart’s death. He was a disrupter. We need more disrupters. We need legislative action at the local and state level.
We need politicians who will DO SOMETHING to stop the sowers of hate and their handmaidens. Use the tools at your disposal. Don’t just stand there. DO SOMETHING.
Diversity is NOT our strength. Unity is. Our common purpose is the common defense of our nation. Good people make America great.
Good people: Stand and fight.
The Canadian government shocked the professional financial and economic media with their latest fourth quarter GDP release showing the economy has essentially come to a grinding halt at 0.1% growth. [Compare to U.S. GDP growth of 3%]
The Canadian Q4 GDP growth isn’t one percent, it’s one-tenth of one percent: 0.1%, essentially halted; but everyone discussing this is missing something very important.
First, The Financial Post headline:
[FP] Canada’s economy practically came to a halt in the final three months of 2018, in a much deeper-than-expected slowdown that brings the underlying strength of the expansion into doubt.
The country’s economy grew by just 0.1 per cent in the fourth quarter, for an annualized pace of 0.4 per cent, Statistics Canada said Friday from Ottawa. That’s the worst quarterly performance in two and a half years, down from annualized 2 per cent in the third quarter and well below economist expectations for a 1 per cent annualized increase.
While a slowdown was widely expected in the final months of the year due to falling oil prices, it’s a much bleaker picture than anyone anticipated with weakness extending well beyond the energy sector. Consumption spending grew at the slowest pace in almost four years, housing fell by the most in a decade, business investment dropped sharply for a second straight quarter, and domestic demand posted its largest decline since 2015. (read more)
The financial punditry go on to give multiple reasons for the drop and all of them are factually accurate. However, there’s a key aspect that I cannot find discussed in any analysis of the data.
A very specific key aspect.
First, let me say CTH does not want to see the Canadian economy falter; not even a little bit. By disposition CTH wants to see economic abundance for everyone, especially our close friends and allies. But stand back, look at the bigger, BIG, picture, the media always avoid discussing…. you’ve got to ask yourself how can Canada be slowing down at the exact same time the USA economy is skyrocketing?…. There’s a connection.
Again, all of the currently expressed financial reasons for the slowdown are accurate; I am not disputing them. However, it’s what they are not discussing that really matters.
In the third paragraph of the FP article I highlighted a partial sentence: “business investment dropped sharply for a second straight quarter.” That means sharp drops in business investment for Canada in the time-frame July 2018 through December 2018.
Now pause, and reference the U.S. fourth quarter: “Consumer spending continued to grow solidly and, most encouragingly, business investment growth recovered sharply after a dip in the third quarter. Despite big external headwinds and financial market volatility in the fourth quarter, U.S. firms are not retrenching sharply on capex.”
Astute economic followers will note what the background is.
♦In July, August, September (Q3) of 2018 the new NAFTA negotiation was in the final stages. The U.S. and Mexico had already come to the terms; Canada was the outlier having to re-join an agreement in September where they previously abandoned negotiations.
♦On October 1st, 2018, the first day of Q4, the USMCA was unveiled. Now the U.S., Mexico and Canada were all committed. Throughout the fourth quarter, all business interests had an opportunity to review the much anticipated USMCA outcome and details.
Multinational corporations, domestic corporations, U.S. and Canadian businesses were all looking for the same very specific detail: What happened with the NAFTA loophole?
Within the new USMCA the critically important NAFTA loophole was closed.
Over the past three decades both Canada and Mexico structured key parts of their independent trade agreements to take advantage of their unique access to the U.S. market. Under the existing NAFTA, Mexico and Canada generate billions in economic activity through exploiting the NAFTA loophole.
China, Asia (writ large), and the EU enter into trade agreements with Mexico and Canada as back-doors into the U.S. market. So long as corporations can avoid U.S. tariffs (and rules of origin that pertain to those tariffs), by going through Canada and Mexico they would continue to exploit this approach.
By shipping parts to Mexico and/or Canada; and by deploying satellite assembly facilities in Canada and/or Mexico; China, Asia and to a lesser extent EU corporations exploited a NAFTA loophole for rules of origin on finished goods.
Through a process of building, assembling or partially manufacturing their products in Mexico/Canada those foreign corporations could skirt U.S. trade tariffs and direct U.S. trade agreements. The finished foreign products entered the U.S. under NAFTA rules.
Why deal with the U.S. when you can just deal with Mexico, and use NAFTA rules to ship your product directly into the U.S. market?
This exploitative approach, a backdoor to the U.S. market, was the primary reason for massive foreign investment in Canada and Mexico; it was also the primary reason why candidate Donald Trump, now President Donald Trump, wanted to shut down that loophole and renegotiate NAFTA.
At the conclusion of Round #6, just before giving up on Chrystia Freeland for good, this was the direct issue at the heart of a very frustrated U.S.T.R. Lighthizer’s strongly worded response to Canada:
[…] In another proposal, Canada reserved the right to treat the United States and Mexico even worse than other countries if they enter into future agreements. Those other countries may, in fact, even include China, if there is an agreement between China and [Canada]. This proposal, I think if the United States had made it, would be dubbed a “poison pill.” We did not make it, though. Obviously, this is unacceptable to us, and my guess is it is to the Mexican side also. (read full remarks)
This loophole was the primary reason U.S. manufacturers relocated operations to Mexico. Corporations within the U.S. Auto-Sector could enhance profits by building in Mexico or Canada using cheap parts imported from Asia/China. The labor factor was not as big a part of the overall cost consideration as cheaper machined parts and imported raw materials.
If the U.S. applied the same tariffs to Canada and Mexico we apply to all trade nations, then the benefit of using Canada and Mexico -by those trade nations- is lost.
Corporations will no longer have any advantage, and many are likely to just deal directly with the U.S. This was the reason Trump, Lighthizer and Ross to retained Steel and Aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico until they agreed to the new USMCA rules.
When Trump took away the flawed NAFTA market access; and when Trump removed the ability of Mexico and Canada to broker themselves for economic benefit; there was no longer a financial benefit behind corporations investing in Canada. Under a binding trade pact between the USMCA partners, the NAFTA flaw is closed.
As a direct outcome billions of investment dollars are now being removed from any future consideration into Canada.
That’s the overarching reason for the Canadian GDP to halt.
Here’s the proverbial $64,000 question: Can Canada re-engineer their economy and actually begin to “make” products again, not just simply “assemble” foreign products from other nations?
See the problem?
The Canadian economy is not likely going to get better without a radical shift in Canadian political perspectives and outlook(s).
Then again, perhaps that’s really why Justin and Chrystia were so damned set on protecting their “cultural industries” (ie. media) from competition.
Think about it.
President Donald Trump delivered a two-hour speech today at CPAC.
Here’s the video, the transcript will follow later.
COMMENT: Marty,
You have to help us out here. California tried to tax text messages. The feds stopped that.
Now, LA county wants to tax Uber and lyft. They’re already taxing us, I think, for mosquito control. The mosquito control only hands out info too. It does no real work.
This is crazy. Everywhere in California, they’re trying to shake us out of every cent. Is there anything we can do to stop this?
P
REPLY: Sorry. This is how governments commit suicide. Instead of dealing with the problem and looking at this from the long-term view, all they care about is what is in front of their nose. The attitude is to just raise some tax to meet the next expenditure. They do not look at this and where it ends up. Historically, if Rome had taxed people at 50%, it would have never lasted 1,000 years.
There is no hope in sight. The people are complacent and until they realize that all of these taxes are reducing their standard of living, then and only then will change unfold in the form of massive civil unrest, overthrowing governments, and the end of career politicians. Tax rebellions have been the source of revolution since the 14th century. Governments never learn. They always have to oppress people to expand their own greed and power.
Politicians keep blaming the rich. But no matter what they force the rich to pay, politicians will spend more. Their own pension systems where their state employees never contributed anything are collapsing. There is no possible way to prevent this economic disaster at the state/province and municipal levels. They cannot create money as the federal level can so all they can do is tax people into poverty.
So enjoy life while you can. Governments only look at the immediate future and never tomorrow. Hence, they are doing their best to ensure the decline and fall of everything thanks to their complete mismanagement and self-interest. Representative governments have never worked for once you have career politicians, they will never place the interests of the people before their own.
I am writing from Frankfurt here for meetings ahead of the chaos awaiting the May elections. In Frankfurt, while the economy is clearly slowing, the financial capital is booming. New skyscrapers are rising to join those of Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank, Helaba and others on Frankfurt’s skyline. This is another sign that there is a disparity between the financial world and the main street.
Nevertheless, behind the facade is a weakening banking sector that the ECB seems to be inspiring. Forcing negative interest rates where the banks must pay the ECB 0.4%, their rate of return on equity has fallen into a crash mode. The German banks’ average earnings have dwindled from once 4% back in 2010 to barely 1% into last year. Deutsche Bank, the biggest, tried to compete with Wall Street and paid the price. After four years of losses, finally, in 2018, Deutsche Bank made its first annual profit which was just a 0.4% return on equity.
As always, politics enters the game rather than logic. The German government wanted to see a Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank merge and offered some undisclosed assistance. That assistance would most likely be writing off a portion of the 15% the German government still owns of Commerzbank, which is the legacy of a bail-out and a merger with the stricken Dresdner Bank back in 2008-2009. The government does not own shares in Deutsche Bank.
The books of Commerzbank show the same problems as in Deutsche Bank so a merger between the two does not appear to solve any crisis. There are in addition rumors that Commerzbank is being considered by both French and Italian banks for a takeover. The prospects of a merger with Deutsche Bank from a non-German bank may be too ambitious politically speaking.
The German government is coming under great stress for the two biggest banks are not really very healthy at this moment and suitors are foreign – not German. Deutsche Bank could be merged with the French BNP, but that would be a loss of pride. Meanwhile, the management at Deutsche Bank would prefer a deal with Switzerland’s UBS. A previous German bank, HVB of Munich, was taken over by Italy’s UniCredit. That was one embarrassment politicians seem reluctant to repeat. The bail-in policy was devised because politicians did not want to have to contribute to bank failures they saw as inevitable in Southern Europe. To have foreign banks eying up German banks, the pillar of the EU, somehow strike a deep blow into the political heart of the EU.
The ECB’s negative interest rate policy is seriously harming European banks yet they cannot figure out an alternative without having to admit there is a major flaw in the entire structural system in Europe. Forcing banks to pay the ECB to deposit reserves is really absurd.
What is most interesting is that the emotions are running high over issues such as BREXIT and the Euro Crisis. It appears that analysts from major institutions are not allowed to discuss anything to do with debt consolidation. This appears to be off the table for discussion. The proposals to create a Euro Bond are separate and distinct leaving the current national debts to be held by each member state. That hardly removes the threat of one member failure impacting the whole of the EU.
Meanwhile, there is a silent move to reduce exposure to Italian debt held by non-Italian institutions. There remains a concern that Italy could possibly follow Britain. There is growing respect that even the hint of such a possibility that Italy would withdraw from the Eurozone can result in a sharp decline in the value of Italian debt even if they never move to actually exit the Eurozone. Italy was one of the original founders of the Euro.
Overall, there appears to be a general consensus that everyone should just keep the Euro at all costs. However, without major structural reforms, it is hard to see how the problems will not take on a life of itself. The refusal to consider a debt consolidation leaves the Euro vulnerable to the politics of each member with rising popular trends in politics.
The Eurozone’s third-largest economy, Italy, already has debts of about €2.3 trillion euros, which is the equivalent to 132% of its GDP. However, it takes more than 4% of Italy’s GDP is now being used to service its debt load and this is with historically low interest rates. There are concerns behind the curtail that Italy can play a game of chicken. If they decide to leave the Eurozone, what about all the Italian debt held by the ECB? Who will lose? The Italians, Brussels or the financial markets as a whole?
The lira was the official unit of currency in Italy until January 1, 1999, when it was replaced by the euro (euro coins and notes were not introduced until 2002). Old lira-denominated currency ceased to be legal tender on February 28, 2002. Beginning on January 1, 1999, all bonds and other forms of government debt by Eurozone nations were denominated in Euros. The value of the Euro, which started at USD 1.1686 on December 31st, 1998, rose during its first day of trading, Monday, January 4th, 1999, closing at approximately US$1.18. The Euro replaced the former European Currency Unit (ECU) at a ratio of 1:1 (US$1.1743).
Converting its national debt at 1.18, only resulted in economic chaos that devasted Italy. Whatever it owed previously in lira was suddenly now Euro. They experience their national debt doubling in real value the same as if you borrowed in Swiss franc for a mortgage that saw the Swiss franc double in value. With the Euro trading in the 1.13 level, it is finally below the original conversion rate but even that ignores all the costs of services at high price levels.
By no means did Italy benefit from joining the Eurozone. To participate in the new currency, member states had to meet strict criteria such as a budget deficit of less than 3% of their GDP, a debt ratio of less than 60% of GDP, low inflation, and interest rates close to the EU average. Both France and Germany have been over that 60% level. France’s debt is currently at 97% of GDP while Germany is at 64% of GDP. Italy is 138% of GDP and Greece is at 178%. The Netherlands is at 56.7% of GDP, Austria is at 78.4%, Belgium is at 103% while Spain is at 98%. For comparison, the USA stands at 78%. This strict criterion has really failed to work and it was all mandatory simply because they refused to consolidate the national debts from the outset.
Greece failed to meet the criteria and was excluded from participating on January 1st, 1999. Eventually, Greece joined the Euro with the help of manipulations by Goldman Sachs on June 19th, 2000 when the drachma was fixed at 340.75.
This tour here in Europe is most interesting for the concerns are rising and there is a clear flight from Italian debt. Some of the most conservative portfolios in Europe have raised their exposure to the dollar from 5% to 30% which was attributed to the significant rally in the Dow since December. We even have central banks buying gold in search of diversification and a hedge against the uncertainty on the horizon come May. Needless to say, we have selected Rome for this year’s midterm WEC for this is the center of political attention behind the curtain.
We have a very interesting crisis building in addition to the political chaos we see coming in 2020. By the time we reach 2021, we will have over $2 trillion in investment grade corporate debt maturing. This is going to present some very interesting problems. Up to now, we have advised our corporate clients to borrow at these rates and lock it in for 30 to 100 years. The bulk of corporations, who we do not advise, funded themselves short-term. With about $2 trillion maturing by 2021, they will end up pushing interest rates higher from there onward.
Okay, now USTR Robert Lighthizer’s cautiously worded enforcement testimony starts to take on a fuller context. When Ambassador Lighthizer was testifying before the mostly decepticon House Ways and Means Committee, he started to outline his newly designed trade enforcement mechanism… but he stopped; he didn’t want to reveal too much.
Now listen to Larry Kudlow describe “enforcement”. WATCH:
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If you watched the USTR testimony you would have seen how the “enforcement” mechanism within the U.S-China trade negotiations was the priority for Lighthizer’s focus; and he specifically mentioned “layered” enforcement triggers, specific to each sector, and issue.
CTH has never seen a U.S. Trade Representative so structurally willing to clear-cut the entire bamboo forest if needed. Lighthizer is intensely focused on enforcement.
Congressional reps were focusing most questions around Chinese purchases of U.S. goods. Lighthizer was blowing through those questions like annoying gnats. That’s not the focus of his structural engagement with the Chinese team. Lighthizer is going much deeper, into issues of much greater consequence than simply purchases via imports/exports.
While increased Chinese purchases to lower the deficit are a part of the goal, they are a very small part of the goal. The protection of U.S. intellectual property; the removal of non-tariff trade barriers; the protection of U.S. ownership rights as Americans operate inside China; the confrontation of currency manipulation, and the sector by sector enforcement provisions are Lighthizer’s primary objective.
If you overlay the comments by NEC Chairman Larry Kudlow (above), with the insightful commentary about ‘enforcement’ by USTR Lighthizer earlier, we can see the picture emerging.
Lighthizer wasn’t specific, Kudlow gave more detail.
What Kudlow is outlining is what Lighthizer hinted toward.
Each of the sectors within the U.S-China trade agreement will have their own specific multi-staged enforcement mechanism that triggers one-way tariffs if China violates the terms; and China cannot retaliate.
Each trade sector will be protected on: [1] intellectual property rights (copyright, patents etc); [2] non tariff barriers (artificial Chinese regulatory hurdles); [3] private ownership external to the controlling reach of Chinese state-owned dictates; [4] as well as financial access and larger currency manipulation schemes.
Within each trade sector; and upon each protected aspect; Lighthizer is building-in a multi-tiered tariff system that would immediately punish the Chinese State-Owned system (all companies therein) with staged, one-way tariffs and countervailing duties that cannot be avoided and China cannot retaliate against.
In essence, and in practice, it sounds like the sector-specific American product protection means: if China violates the sector-specific terms, any terms, the equivalent (or closest equivalent) Chinese product would automatically cost more…. and the U.S. product would cost less. An enforcement system giving U.S. producers and owners an immediate benefit; and giving China an immediate punishment.
[This would also likely apply to U.S. companies with Chinese controlling interests.]
This sounds like the enforcement framework within a heavy MOU; that is then guaranteed to transfer into the final, legal and binding agreement; and be applied to every element, within every sector, across the entirety of the U.S. commerce relationship with China.
Lighthizer described “steps” and “layers” of this protection at every level, and across every element, of commercial engagement with China. However, Lighthizer didn’t describe the punishment; it sounds like Larry Kudlow did.
Justin from Canada is in very serious legal jeopardy after recent revelations that he interfered the Canadian Attorney General’s office regarding the prosecution of a Quebec engineering firm SNC-Lavalin surrounding bribes to Libyan government officials.
Canadian political pundit from Rebel Media, Ezra Levant, tweeted out an excellent summary, and then provided a very well organized video to highlight stunning testimony from the former Canadian AG. Here is Mr. Levant’s explanation:
For my American and British friends: Canada’s Justin Trudeau is done. He might try to fight on; I personally think he’s too damaged. He’s irreparably damaged. Here’s what happened in a few short tweets.
Trudeau was detonated today by his former Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould, Canada’s first Aboriginal A-G. She just testified in Parliament, in meticulous detail, how Trudeau and his staff tried to get her to drop criminal charges against a corrupt company that he liked.
She refused to bend the law for Trudeau’s cronies. But they didn’t stop. Trudeau; his chief of staff; his principal secretary; even the finance minister. They met her ten times, phoned her ten more. trying to get the charges dropped. She wouldn’t. So Trudeau fired her as A-G.
The story leaked out earlier this month, but it was all anonymous sources. The former A-G herself didn’t say a word, saying she was bound by attorney-client privilege and cabinet confidences. She was effectively gagged; so Trudeau was the only one talking.
Trudeau took advantage of her enforced silence to claim she supported him and everything was fine. After all, when he fired her as A-G, he appointed her to the minor post of veterans minister.
When she heard him make that boast, she quit as veterans minister. He was shocked.
Then suddenly Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s right hand man — his best friend since college — resigned, claiming he had done nothing wrong. Which is odd. It looked like a compromise — Butts left, so Wilson-Raybould met with the cabinet and the caucus again.
Wilson-Raybould still didn’t say anything publicly. She hired a retired Supreme Court judge as her lawyer, to advise her on what she could say. Under pressure, the Liberal dominated Parliamentary committee invited her to testify, and Trudeau grudgingly waived some privilege.
So today she testified. In great detail. Exactly who pressured her. Exactly how. Exactly when. She named names. Including the prime minister himself. Here’s her statement: (LINK)
It’s against the law to pressure the Attorney General to obstruct a criminal prosecution. Here’s Canada’s Criminal Code. Section 139(2) is obstruction — it carries a 10-year prison term. (LINK)
Last detail. Jody Wilson-Raybould’s father was an Aboriginal activist who butted heads with Justin Trudeau’s father. Here they are bantering. Bill Wilson tells Pierre Trudeau that his daughter Jody wants to be PM one day. Maybe she will be?
Here’s a great video breakdown:
En route to the White House from Hanoi, Vietnam, Air-Force One stopped in Alaska for refueling. During the stopover President Trump delivered remarks to U.S. troops stationed at Elmendorf AFB.
President Trump was greeted by Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy who accompanied the president to a base hangar where U.S. troops were gathered.
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