Kentucky Senator Rand Paul becomes the fourth republican to announce he will support a resolution to rebuke President Trump’s national security declaration at the Southern border.

Paul’s vote puts the Democrat measure over the threshold of 51 votes for passage in the Senate. For Senator Paul it is a matter of ‘muh principle’:

Kentucky – […] In a speech to the crowd of nearly 200 Republican officeholders and supporters at Western Kentucky University’s Augenstein Alumni Center, Paul interjected, in a speech devoted largely to praising the work of President Donald Trump, his opinion that Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the Mexican border is a dangerous precedent.

Senator Paul joins republicans Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Thom Tillis.  There could possibly be more.  The senate still doesn’t have the votes to overcome a veto threshold. However, that’s not the really frustrating issue here.  There’s something being entirely overlooked, likely intentionally overlooked.

President Trump isn’t doing anything new or unprecedented with the National Security declaration at the border.  In fact, back in July 2014 President Obama did the exact same thing.

President Obama and DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson were rebuked by congress when they asked for $4 billion in emergency appropriations for the southern border.  Sound familiar? Oh yeah, the parallels are striking. Because President Obama couldn’t get the funding for the border “crisis”, he declared a national security emergency and shifted funds from the Obamacare budget into the UAC program.  Here’s the fully cited reminder:

April 2009 – After a Mid-East trip to Egypt to deliver his Cairo speech, President Barack Obama travels to South America for the “Summit of the Americas“. The summit included thirty-four South American countries. Obama wanted to promote his point that relations in North and South America can be heavily improved, especially after age old ideals on immigration and commerce are dropped. Hugo Chavez warmly embraced Obama and provided a gift, a book titled “The Open Veins of Latin America“. (link)

December 2009 – November 2010 – 100% of all political effort was leveraged to create and institute the ACA or ObamaCare. All media oxygen is focused on ObamaCare 24/7.

November 2010 – President Obama is “shellacked” in Mid-Term elections. Loses control of the House of Representatives to Republicans. Biggest electoral defeat since 1918.

January 2011 – Emphasis, and political strategy changes. “Comprehensive Immigration Reform“, ie. “amnesty” becomes the mainstay approach toward retention of political power. Throughout a contentious Republican primary season, to assist their ideological traveler, the U.S. media kept the issue on the front burner.

May 2011 – President Obama travels to the Rio Grande sector of the border to push for his immigration platform (ie. Amnesty). He proclaims the border is safe and secure and famously attacks his opposition for wanting an “alligator moat”.

November 2012 – Election year campaign(s). Using wedge issues like “War on Women”, and “Immigration / Amnesty”, candidate Obama promises to push congress for “amnesty”, under the guise of “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”, if elected. President Obama wins reelection.

December 2012 – Immediately following reelection President Barack Obama signs an Executive Order creating the “Deferred Action Program“, or DACA. Allowing millions of illegal aliens to avoid deportation. (link)

According to their own documents and research, this Deferred Action Program is what the Central American communities are using as the reason for attempted immigration. In both the border control study and the DHS intelligence report the DACA program is mentioned by the people apprehended at the border in 2013 and 2014.

Chart Source: 2013 DHS Yearbook of Immigration Statistics – Enforcement Analysis – Table 39:

May 2013 – President Barack Obama visits South America. Following a speech Mexican entrepreneurs, Obama then travelled to Costa Rica, his first visit as president. In addition to meetings with Costa Rican President Laura Chincilla, Obama attended a gathering of leaders from the Central American Integration System, (CAIS). The regional network includes the leaders of Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. (link) President Obama meets with the leaders of the Central American Countries.

Summer 2013 – Numbers of Illegal Unaccompanied Minors reaching the Southern U.S. border from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua doubles. 20,000+ reach U.S. Southern border by travelling through Mexico. Media primarily ignores. (link)

October 2013 – At the conclusion of the immigrant travel season. White House receives notification that tens of thousands of illegal Unaccompanied Minors should be anticipated to hit the Southern U.S. border the following Summer [2014]. An estimated 850% increase in the number of UAC’s (from 2012’s less than 10,000) was projected. (link)

January 2014 – In response to the projections, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posts a jobs notification seeking bids to facilitate 65,000 Unaccompanied Alien Children. The posting outlines DHS and Health and Human Services (HHS) requirements for contractors to fulfill the job. (link)

February 2014 – President Obama visits Mexico for “bilateral talks”, in an unusual one day visit (link):

Spring 2014 – With a full year of successful transport and border crossing without deportation – DHS begins to notice a significant uptick in the number of criminal elements from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua; which have joined with the UAC’s to gain entry. Internal DHS documents reveal the “refugee” status is now being used by both criminal cartels, and potentially by Central American government(s) to send prison inmates into the U.S. (link)

June 2014 – As expected tens of thousands of Unaccompanied Alien Children from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua hit the border and the headlines. Despite the known planning, and recently discovered prior internal notifications, the White House claims it did not see this coming. However, internal documents including a –DHS Border Security Alert– show that in March, fully three months earlier, the White House was aware of what was coming in June.

June 20th 2014 – Congressional leadership and key Latino Democrats from the Democrat Hispanic Caucus meet with representatives from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

[…] “As long as (U.S.) immigration reform is not approved, the exodus of children to the United States will continue,” Jorge Ramon Hernandez, the senior representative of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, said at the talks. (link)

June/July 2014 – By the end of June the media have picked up the story and it’s called “A Border Crisis”. However, the White House is desperate to avoid exposure to the known criminal elements within the story. (link)

July 3rd, 2014 – President Obama requests $3,700,000,000 ($3.7 billion) in supplemental budget appropriations to deal with the border crisis. Only $109 million is for actual border security or efforts to stop the outflow from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Growing concern amid Democrats brings out a defense position that George Bush created the crisis in 2008.

Hidden inside a massive budget request is President Obama seeking legal authorization to spend taxpayer funds for lawyers and legal proceedings on behalf of the UAC’s and their families.

In essence congress is being asked to approve the executive branch’s violation of previous immigration law. Section 292 of the Immigration and Nationality Act prohibits representation of aliens “in immigration proceedings at government expense“. President Obama is seeking authorization to use taxpayer funds to provide the Illegal Aliens with government lawyers.

It becomes increasingly obvious the spending request is to facilitate President Obama in expanding the services toward ALL illegal immigrants throughout the U.S.

The stealth nature of the request is brilliant. Once the funds are established and appropriated the administration can then use millions of taxpayer funds to essentially integrate not only the UAC’s but any illegal alien currently within the system.

The $3.7 Billion becomes the amnesty program Obama has sought but been blocked from achieving.

July 9th 2014 – Fearful that U.S. political interests might bring a halt to the outflow already in place, and/or actually result in a backlog of traveling migrants stuck at the border inside Mexico:…

[…] Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina held a joint press conference in Playas de Catazaja, Mexico, to officially announce an agreement to make it easier for those making the illegal journey to the United States from Central America, to cross into Mexico.

The Southern Border Program to Improve Passage, will provide for more border checkpoints along Mexico’s border with Guatemala, and offer more protection and even emergency medical care to those making their way north. The illegal aliens will receive a so-called Regional Visitor’s Card, according to El Universal. (link)

July 10th, 2014 – Facing pushback from congress as well as sticker shock at the amount he is requesting, President Obama sends his DHS team to Capitol Hill to ramp up anxiety, and threats of consequences:

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Thursday that as many as 90,000 unaccompanied child migrants could cross the southwest border before the end of this fiscal year in September.

That will place a huge strain on immigration agencies, which will badly need new money to get through the summer, Johnson says.

The 90,000 number — the highest yet given by the administration — is spelled out in written Senate testimony by Johnson as well as Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who must also deal with the border crisis.

“We are preparing for a scenario in which the number of unaccompanied children apprehended at the border could reach up to 90,000 by the end of fiscal 2014,” Johnson’s testimony reads, and he bluntly warns that without an infusion of new funds, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will run out of money in August. (read more)

Not only did the White House know what was going to happen in 2014 as far back as 2012; but the White House actually appears to have constructed the events to fall into a very specific pattern and done NOTHING to stop the consequences from the DACA executive order issued in December 2012.

In response to the refusal of congress to allocate additional funding for the border crisis, President Obama declared the UAC issue a national emergency and diverted billions of allocated HHS funds to the border.

Yes, that’s right, President Obama did exactly the same thing in 2014 that President Trump is doing in 2019.

There is no greater disconnect from ordinary Americans on any singular issue than the policy positions of Democrats and Republicans in Washington DC surrounding immigration. President Donald Trump is confronting their unified interests.

The amount of U.S. taxpayer money spent on the Illegal Alien Children, through HHS and DHS grants, since 2010 is staggering:

The resulting crisis is useful for them; therefore they fuel the crisis.

(LINK To Data)

Do you know why kids are targeted for smuggling?

They are worth more money; that’s why.

(Lutheran Immigration – Grant Link)

So when you’ve got each individual immigration business making multi-hundreds of millions; and politicians getting kick-backs (lobbyists); and bribes to Mexican government officials; and payments to smugglers; who do you think actually wants the business to stop?

(Data For Catholic Bishops – FY 2018)

The Wall Street, big GOPe, U.S. Chamber of Commerce crew doesn’t want it to stop because they benefit from it (cheap labor), and the taxpayers -not them- are the ones funding it.

(Baptist Child and Family Services – BCFS – FY 2018)

Sad thing is, it’s you and me that are paying the South American human smugglers through U.S. taxpayer funds. Laundered through the immigration business bagmen at U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and/or, U.S. Catholic Charities, or Southwest Key Programs Inc; or Baptist Child and Family Services Emergency Management Division (BCFS-EMD), just to name a few.

These immigration groups, get *MASSIVE* HHS grants and then pay-off the DC politicians and human smugglers, including MS13.  Billions of dollars are spent, and the business has exploded in the past six years.

It’s a vicious cycle.  Trafficked children are more valuable than adults because the organizations involved get more funding for a child than an adult. Each illegal alien child is worth about $56,000 in grant money.   The system is full of fraud.

President Trump is not only threatening to secure the border, he’s threatening a Washington DC-based business model that makes money for a lot of interests.  The operation also has side benefits for the participants; child sexploitation, child labor, and yes, much worse (you can imagine).

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/232945505/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-Rx2npBWF0rY1oa4cU97E

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/233623001/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-6BoLveAdM49o00gpO2GC

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/230531475/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-qdAPr7bCS4GiurBiL7QH

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/232955489/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-ZBwduStWm11DkKHhjixc

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/232909314/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-Y0a1KprYeHjT9h9RnsQj

PS. Am I the only one to remember Rand Paul shooting at targets made to look like Donald Trump?

It’s funny, the stuff people forget…. I digress.

The administration’s media point person for discussions following the Hanoi Summit between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un is National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Ambassador Bolton appears on the Sunday talk circuit to discuss the ongoing negotiations. As anticipated none of the interviewers focused on the Chinese aspect at all.  Don’t look for President Trump to respond to Chairman Kim directly; instead watch how President Trump’s entire team responds to China.  Chairman Xi Jinping controls Kim Jong-un.

Likely Treasury (Mnuchin) and State (Pompeo) will focus on DPRK sanctions violations; likely USTR (Lighthizer) and Commerce (Ross) focus on hard-line trade position; likely USTR, Commerce and State focus on tech issues (Hauwei and 5G) and pressure allies.  All of these targeted approaches rightly focus on China (cause), not North Korea (symptom).

Ambassador Bolton appears on Fox News:

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Ambassador Bolton also appeared on CBS (below):

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Ambassador Bolton also appeared on CNN:

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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.

[Transcript Link]

President Donald Trump delivered a two-hour speech today at CPAC.

Here’s the video, the transcript will follow later.

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.

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.

White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Kevin Hassett discusses the U.S. economy’s 2.6 percent growth in the fourth quarter, and the outlook for the U.S. economy through the rest of 2019.

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Notice how most of the financial pundits are focusing on what the “global economy” needs; specifically what the EU and China need to do to gain economic growth.  From that position, the U.S. trade reset is adverse to their financial interest; those financial interests are driven by Wall Street not Main Street.

Economic nationalists who understand the concept of ‘America First’ focus on what the USA economy needs, and do not accept a position that the U.S. should acquiesce our position to benefit the economic needs of other nations.  That’s the primary difference.

Few understand the MAGAnomic reset and what was predicted to happen in the space between disconnecting a Wall Street economic engine (globalism and multinationals) and restarting a Main Street economic engine (nationalism/America-First).  In 2016 CTH explained where we would be today.

President Trump’s MAGAnomic trade and foreign policy agenda is jaw-dropping in scale, scope and consequence. There are multiple simultaneous aspects to each policy objective; however, many have been visible for a long time – some even before the election victory in November ’16.

♦ When U.S. banks were allowed to merge their investment divisions with their commercial banking operations (the removal of Glass Stegal) something changed on Wall Street.

Companies who are evaluated based on their financial results, profits and losses, remained in their traditional role as traded stocks on the U.S. Stock Market and were evaluated accordingly. However, over time investment instruments -which are secondary to actual company results- created a sub-set within Wall Street that detached from actual bottom line company results.

The resulting secondary financial market system was essentially ‘investment markets’. Both ordinary company stocks and the investment market stocks operate on the same stock exchanges. But the underlying valuation is tied to entirely different metrics.

Financial products were developed (as investment instruments) that are essentially wagers or bets on the outcomes of actual companies traded on Wall Street. Those bets/wagers form the hedge markets and are [essentially] people trading on expectations of performance. The “derivatives market” is the ‘betting system’.

♦Ford Motor Company (only chosen as a commonly known entity) has a stock valuation based on their actual company performance in the market of manufacturing and consumer purchasing of their product. However, there can be thousands of financial instruments wagering on the actual outcome of their performance.

There are two initial bets on these outcomes that form the basis for Hedge-fund activity. Bet ‘A’ that Ford hits a profit number, or bet ‘B’ that they don’t. There are financial instruments created to place each wager. [The wagers form the derivatives] But it doesn’t stop there.

Additionally, more financial products are created that bet on the outcomes of the A/B bets. A secondary financial product might find two sides betting on both A outcome and B outcome.

Party C bets the “A” bet is accurate, and party D bets against the A bet. Party E bets the “B” bet is accurate, and party F bets against the B. If it stopped there we would only have six total participants. But it doesn’t stop there, it goes on and on and on…

The outcome of the bets forms the basis for the tenuous investment markets. The important part to understand is that the investment funds are not necessarily attached to the original company stock, they are now attached to the outcome of bet(s). Hence an inherent disconnect is created.

Subsequently, if the actual stock doesn’t meet it’s expected P-n-L outcome (if the company actually doesn’t do well), and if the financial investment was betting against the outcome, the value of the investment actually goes up. The company performance and the investment bets on the outcome of that performance are two entirely different aspects of the stock market. [Hence two metrics.]

♦Understanding the disconnect between an actual company on the stock market, and the bets for and against that company stock, helps to understand what can happen when fiscal policy is geared toward the underlying company (Main Street MAGAnomics), and not toward the bets therein (Investment Class).

The U.S. stock markets’ overall value can increase with Main Street policy, and yet the investment class can simultaneously decrease in value even though the company(ies) in the stock market is/are doing better. This detachment is critical to understand because the ‘real economy’ is based on the company, the ‘paper economy’ is based on the financial investment instruments betting on the company.

Trillions can be lost in investment instruments, and yet the overall stock market -as valued by company operations/profits- can increase.

Here’s the critical part – Conversely, there are now classes of companies on the U.S. stock exchange that never make a dime in profit, yet the value of the company increases.

This dynamic is possible because the financial investment bets are not connected to the bottom line profit. (Examples include Tesla Motors, Amazon and a host of internet stocks like Facebook and Twitter.) It is this investment group of companies that stands to lose the most if/when the underlying system of betting on them stops or slows.

Specifically due to most recent U.S. fiscal policy, modern multinational banks, including all of the investment products therein, are more closely attached to this investment system on Wall Street. It stands to reason they are at greater risk of financial losses overall with a shift in economic policy.

That financial and economic risk is the basic reason behind Trump and Mnuchin putting a protective, secondary and parallel, banking system in place for Main Street.

Big multinational banks can suffer big losses from their investments, and yet the Main Street economy can continue growing, and have access to capital, uninterrupted.

Bottom Line: U.S. companies who have actual connection to a growing U.S. economy can succeed; based on the advantages of the new economic environment and MAGA policy, specifically in the areas of manufacturing, trade and the ancillary benefactors.

Meanwhile U.S. investment assets (multinational investment portfolios) that are disconnected from the actual results of those benefiting U.S. companies, and as a consequence also disconnected from the U.S. economic expansion, can simultaneously drop in value even though the U.S. economy is thriving.

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow appears on CNBC to discuss the latest releases of economic stats and the on-going trade talks between the U.S. and China.  Kudlow notes the U.S. and China are making progress specifically due to USTR Robert Lighthizer.  Interesting interview.

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Nuance and team subtlety are important here. Larry Kudlow is a loyal soldier, no question, but his economic leaning is toward trade outcomes that benefit Wall Street… Robert Lighthizer is a fierce battle-hardened trade expert, with an outlook that is multi-generational toward Main Street.

Listen to Lighthizer talk about the economic future for his grandkids in his congressional testimony yesterday and you’ll see what I mean. NO COMPROMISE with China.  Lighthizer is prepared to fight all of Main Street’s enemies, including congress.

Despite several positive and remarkable comments from Kim Jong-un, President Donald Trump and the North Korean Chairman could not come to a substantive agreement after two days of negotiations on the process to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.

During a press conference prior to departing Hanoi, Vietnam, President Trump cited two issues: (1) A North Korean demand for the immediate removal of all multinational economic sanctions; and (2) The unwillingness of North Korea to be fulsome about their missile and nuclear locations. WATCH:

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Additional Thoughts:

In the backdrop of the Hanoi summit, and as U.S-China trade negotiations continue, the Trump administration suspended the implementation of the March 1st tariff increase on Chinese goods.  Unfortunately, attaining this goal may have empowered a cunning Chairman Xi Jinping to influence the demands of DPRK Chairman Kim.

A covert influence connection will become clear if President Trump now takes an even more firm trade and tariff position toward China. We’ll keep watching closely.

Chairman Xi may have won this round, but we can expect an angered and strategic President Trump to hit back twice as hard.

In this dance with the dragon President Trump cannot simply reverse the tariff suspension, that approach would be too obvious.  Instead my suggestion would be to look for signs of the U.S. reviewing Chinese violations of the North Korea sanctions.

A key indicator will be if over the next several weeks, we see the U.S. Treasury and/or Commerce Department beginning to point out those who are violating the sanctions against North Korea.

It’s an open secret that China is the largest violator; but President Trump has been giving everyone a pass due to progress on both the China trade and DPRK nuclear talks.

With a set-back in the overall process, and with China playing games, we might just see a renewed focus on U.S. sanction enforcement, specifically targeting China.

What we will not see is President Trump acquiescing to China on trade and economics simply to get Kim Jong-un away from Beijing’s clutches.  That massive ransom payment falls too heavily, and too exclusively, on the United States – while regional allies gain the benefits of peace on the back of a lessened U.S. economy.

That sh!t deal wouldn’t pass the MAGAnomic ‘America First’ test; not even close.

That exact conversation is what President Trump likely will be explaining to South Korean President Moon Jae-in (the Asian Obama), and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the flight home.  THAT EXACT CONVERSATION!