This has to be one of the single funniest French retorts in the history of commerce.  If President Trump follows through on auto tariffs, France will strike back.  Let that sink in.

Oh noes,… your next Peugeot, Citroen or Renault purchase might cost more.  D’oh.

PARIS (Reuters) – Europe will hit back if U.S. President Donald Trump follows through with a threat to slap import tariffs on European-made cars, France’s finance minister said on Monday. Trump escalated already burning trade tensions on Friday by threatening to hit all imports of cars assembled in the European Union (EU) with a 20 percent tariff.   (more)

The EU is the most protectionist trade bloc in the world.  The German auto-sector is the most protected trade sector inside the EU.  The hypocrisy is silly.

The EU, Germany specifically, needs access to the U.S. market to survive.  Angela Merkel has already conceded this point in the EU concessionary position to abandon all auto tariffs; in exchange for removal of Steel and Aluminum tariffs.

The only reason Merkel was so quick to the trigger is because without access to the U.S. market, the German economy begins the contraction cycle currently being experienced by Canada.   It’s the same reason why Germany abandoned the Paris Climate Treaty within weeks of the official U.S. withdrawal.

President Trump doesn’t want to necessarily tax German auto imports, but he is more than willing to use the tariff hammer to crack the protectionism within the EU market.

[Harley Davidson] said on Monday it would move production of motorcycles shipped to the EU from the United States to its international facilities and forecast the retaliatory tariffs would cost the company $90-100 million a year.

Reacting to the news, Le Maire said: “Whatever allows jobs to be created in Europe goes in the right direction. We don’t want a trade war, but we will defend ourselves.” (link)

Note the hypocrisy.  EU trade positions to protect their jobs is “going in the right direction“, but Trump trade positions to protect U.S. jobs is, well, not ok?

Harley Davidson is doing what companies and manufacturers should do, build within the market they are selling to.   If the EU applied the same standard they cheer Harley Davidson for, Germany would immediately begin expanding auto production facilities inside the U.S.   See how that works.

Drop all restrictive trade barriers and no country can compete on an even playing field with the U.S.  We lead the world in innovation; we have lower energy costs, abundant raw materials; highest returns on investment; and with organic upward pressure on wages, we will once again achieve the worlds fastest growing skilled labor force.

CNBC – […] Fifty-four percent of Americans say the economy is good or excellent, the highest recorded by CNBC in the 10 years of the survey. Just 43 percent say the economy is fair or poor, the lowest in the history of the survey. Positive views on the economy have surged 20 points since the election. And for the first time, the percentage of Americans saying the economy is excellent outstrips the percent saying it is poor. Americans look for a strong 4 percent gain in their home values in the next year, equaling the highest percentage previously recorded in 2007.

The president’s economic approval numbers come with some support from Democrats, said Jay Campbell with Hart Research Associates, the Democratic pollster for the survey. “There is component of Democratic base that’s willing to acknowledge the improving economy and willing to give Trump a certain amount of credit for it,’’ Campbell said. “A large number still disapprove of Trump on the economy but 30 percent of Democrats is not nothing.”  (read more)

Tonight President Trump heads to West Columbia, South Carolina for a campaign event supporting Henry McMaster. President Trump’s remarks at the joint MAGA rally are anticipated for 7:00pm EDT.

Fox News Livestream Link – NBC Livestream Link – Alternate Livestream Link

Earlier today President Trump and First Lady Melania welcomed King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein and Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan back to the White House.  This is the second official visit of King Abdullah and Queen Raina.

In the background it is likely much of the executive conversation surrounds the current issues with Iran, the state of Syria, Israel and the Palestinian Authority as it pertains to regional stability overall and Jordan specifically.   In the quiet distance, and entirely overlooked by Western -mostly U.S. media, President Trump has been positioning the EU via economic leverage against Iranian influence.

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[Transcript] PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. It’s a great honor to have the King and Queen of Jordan with us. They’re friends. We’ve known each other now for quite a while. Long before this.

But you have done an incredible job on the refugees and the camps and taking care of people. And I just want to say while our nations have a very good relationship, we now have a great relationship. But the job you do on a humanitarian basis is fantastic. And I would like to thank you very much.

KING ABDULLAH II: Thank you. And if, sir, I could thank you and the United States and the people of America for all the support you’ve given our country. If the rest of the world just took a little bit of your humility and your grace to help us, we’d be in a lot better position.

But if it wasn’t for the United States — just on behalf of myself and my people, thank you so much for all that you’ve done.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Remember, he used the word “humility” with respect to me, so I am very happy with that word. That’s probably the nicest compliment I’ve been given in a long time.

No, the job you do is fantastic. And yes, we do — we spend a lot of money, but we spend a lot of money in a lot of places. And people don’t do the job that you do, so I want to thank you very much.

KING ABDULLAH II: Thank you, sir. Thank you.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Okay. Thank you very much, everybody.

Q Mr. President, do you regret signing the executive order?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, no. The executive order was great. It was something that I felt we had to do. We want children staying together. The law has been this law for a long period of time. You would understand this better than most because of the great job you do in your country.

No, it was — there was a false story, fake news in the New York Times. Just the opposite: I wanted to sign that. In fact, I was saying yesterday, before I read this phony story in the New York Times, that I was very, very happy that I signed that.

And it also — it shows. You know, we’re all talking about humanity, whether it’s what you’re doing in Jordan or whether it’s what we’re doing here. The laws are obsolete. The laws are horrible having to do with the border, both in terms of security and in terms of taking care of people.

President Obama had a big problem. In fact, a lot of the pictures used they thought would be — I guess, I don’t know what you folks did. You used pictures from 2014. They were all taken during the Obama administration. But the Bush administration had the same. It’s the same laws. They’re a disaster. The laws have to be changed. And whether it’s North Korea or whether it’s so many different things like trade, we’re taking care of a lot of problems that should have been taken care of over the years.

Well, one of the highest on the list is immigration. And we have to change our laws. We have to make them sensible. They came in to see me last week; they said, “We’d like to hire 5,000 more judges.” Five thousand. You ever hear of thing like that? Judges. Well, we’re appointing 145 judges here, and everyone goes through this extreme vetting process. You’re talking about 5,000. Where do you find 5,000 people to be judges? And you know what it leads? It leads to graft. It leads to a lot of other things.

We want a system where, when people come in illegally, they have to go out. And a nice simple system that works. You know, Mexico holds people for four hours, for five hours, for two hours, and they’re gone. We have people for four, five, six years and they never leave. So we want to have a great immigration.

What we have is very simple. We want strong borders and we want no crime. Strong borders. We want no crime. The Democrats want open borders and they don’t care about crime, and they don’t care about our military. I care about our military. That’s what we want and that’s what we’re going to get. And we’re going to get it sooner than people think.

Thank you very much. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you all very much.

Q What about the Middle East? Chances of peace better in the Middle East?

THE PRESIDENT: We’re doing very well in the Middle East. We’re doing very well in the Middle East, yes.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Q When do you want to release the Middle East peace plan?

THE PRESIDENT: I can only say this — and His Majesty knows we’re doing very well in the Middle East. A lot of progress has been made in the Middle East. A lot. And it really started with the end of the horrible Iran deal. That deal was a disaster, and things are a lot different since we ended that. A lot different.

Thank you all very much.

END 2:14 P.M. EDT

Those who know how to notice the Trump Doctrine at work will clearly see a very familiar pattern amid the latest geopolitical strategy currently underway by President Trump.

The president is using economic leverage against the majority EU influence agents, vis-a-vis EU trade positioning within the auto-sector which directly targets Germany¹. The Trump Doctrine as currently deployed is structuring a two-fold win/win. Leveraging EU auto-sector trade tariffs will likely end up with Germany removing all trade restrictions.

The removal of a looming 20% trade tariff benefits the German auto-sector; secondarily it reaches the economic goal of the administration to remove all trade barriers, ie reciprocity. Win #1 (majority benefit EU, minority benefit U.S).

However, in exchange for that benefit President Trump will likely request full EU (France and Germany specifically) support toward renewed and increased sanctions against Iran. Win #2 (majority benefit U.S. foreign policy).

¹ What is particularly interesting about this approach, in this instance, is how President Trump actually created leverage from nothing.  The “threat of” the 20% reciprocal auto tariff is leverage.  The threat would not have as much predictive authority if the Steel and Aluminum tariff did not precede it.  The EU is now forced to accept that even when President Trump proposes something (previously under any other administration they would have ignored), under President Trump it *could* likely happen.  So they must arrange their affairs accordingly.