Defense Secretary Nominee Pete Hegseth paused for an impromptu press gaggle with assembled media following another day of discussions and questions from Senators. WATCH:
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Nippon Steel, a Japanese company, has offered to buy US Steel for $14.9 billion, yet both President Joe Biden and president-elect Donald Trump strongly oppose the deal. Both men believe it is vital to keep the historic company domestic. But why has America’s steel industry become less competitive?
Demand for steel fell 0.4% YoY during the first half of 2024 to 50.9 million tons, with futures down 37% since the start of the year marking the lowest level since December 2022. Domestic demand is simply not there. The US accounts for about 4% of global demand while China accounts for an overwhelming 50%.
The majority of domestic demand is generated by government. The Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act of 2021 provided $550 billion for steel-based initiatives which provided a boost to the industry. Still, the DEMAND is simply not there. China’s oversupply of steel has saturated the market and made the product far less valuable. China has less environmental and climate regulations and the government continues to provide large subsidies to support the measure. All of the carbon neutral measures are seriously hurting the industry, but China has not bought into the climate change agenda.
Exported steel from China doubled from 2020 to 2023 after reaching 94.5 million tons. Demand in China for 2023 was 911 million metric tons, marking a 50% increased from 2010. The machinery sector in China has been continuously rising, with its share of steel demand rising from 20% in 2010 to 30% in 2023.
Tariffs would make Chinese steel more expensive for American companies. That will not help to attract international investments in the industry. Then those costs will be passed on to all US industries relying on steel from automotives to construction. American manufacturing is at risk. It is believed that the tariffs Trump implemented on Chinese steel during his first term helped 1,000 steelworkers keep their jobs, but at the same time, manufacturing positions fell by 75,000. Yet another reason why we must look at the economy from macro standpoint as everything is connected.
President Trump is scheduled to arrive in Paris this weekend. Today, almost in an act of divine providence, the government collapsed.
French Prime Minister Michel Barnier will submit his resignation to French President Emmanuel Macron tomorrow, according to France’s BFMTV. He is expected at the Elysee Palace at 10am local time. Barnier’s resignation is a constitutional obligation after he lost a vote of no-confidence earlier Wednesday evening triggering the collapse of his government.
SUMMARY of EVENTS: •Michel Barnier lost a no-confidence vote, triggering the collapse of govt. •It marks the first time a French government has been toppled in this way in more than 60 years. •Barnier is now the shortest-serving prime minister in France’s modern Republic. •Left and far-right parties united to oust him following anger over his unpopular 2025 budget. •Both tabled motions of no-confidence after he used special powers to adopt part of the budget this week without a final vote in parliament. •Nationalist leader Marine Le Pen said the public needed to be protected from the “toxic” budget, and that pressure on Macron is getting “greater and greater”.
FRANCE – The government of President Emmanuel Macron collapsed Wednesday after the National Assembly voted for the first time in more than a half-century to oust a prime minister from office, a sign of the political gridlock that has paralyzed France. The development leaves the country’s public finances in limbo.
A no-confidence motion against the government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier won the support of 331 lawmakers in the 577-seat lower house, forcing him to resign.
Wednesday’s vote shows how the eurozone’s second-biggest economy risks becoming ungovernable. The growing fragmentation and polarization of France’s political ranks are testing the foundations of its democracy. The last time the National Assembly brought down a government was 1962 when France was reeling from the fallout of Algeria’s war for independence and an assassination attempt on then-President Charles de Gaulle.
Macron’s attempt to ward off the rise of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally by calling snap elections this summer instead saddled the country with a hung parliament.
The National Assembly—which is divided between Macron loyalists, Le Pen’s ranks and an unruly alliance of leftist parties—splintered over its first order of business: approving the government’s budget for 2025. Le Pen and leftist lawmakers backed the no-confidence motion after Barnier proposed 60 billion euros—equivalent to $63.1 billion—in spending cuts and tax increases. The budget aimed to narrow France’s deficit, which is projected to reach more than 6% of gross domestic product this year, double the European Union’s limit. (read more)
… and President Trump is going to demand France spend more on NATO obligations. lol 😂
In the bigger picture, the U.S. Senate has been operating to control the military against the command of the President for multiple years. The Intelligence Community is in general alignment with the core mission of weakening the Defense Department as part of the larger objective.
We have seen this approach in everything from the castration of General Petraeus to the advancement of wokeism. The civilian leadership of the Defense Department, in combination with the influence of the U.S. Senate has led to a diminishment of mission priority. We have the outcomes through General Mattis, General H.R. McMaster, Lt Col Alexander Vindman, General James Kelly, all the way to Joint Chief’s Chairman Mark Milley; famously culminating in Milley collaborating with Chinese military leadership to undermine his own Commander-In-Chief, Donald Trump.
President Donald Trump has turned his focus to the “war fighters,” the men and women who carry out the mission objective of the Defense Department. The nomination of Pete Hegseth represents the confrontation of a power struggle that has been decades in coming.
The self-serving Senators are trying to block Hegseth, while maintaining a position of pretending support for President Trump. The DeceptiCon republicans in the Senate are in full circling mode, looking for a weakness to exploit.
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According to Hegseth he is firm on the mission priority. President Trump is in full support and the schemes of the conniving Republican Senators, transparently visible in the efforts of Senator Jodi Ernst, who is circling the phalanx President Trump is creating – while simultaneously inserting herself into the DOGE mission. Ernst is doing Mitch’s work, under the instructions from Thune and Mitch. See Ernst with clear eyes.
Hegseth is a key component of the phalanx, the fortification process that puts President Trump at the center of the cabinet. Each component of the cabinet protecting the center.
The phalanx is the mechanism to carry the weapon that is President Donald Trump. The DC UniParty is looking for a weakness in the phalanx like a wolf circling a porcupine.
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Once you understand what President Trump is assembling (the phalanx) and once you accept the mission of the DC system to defend itself by isolating a weak spot in the mechanism, then everything from the assembly of the cabinet to the process being discussed makes sense.
Within a phalanx, if one shield drops the entire construct is compromised. The strongest shields need to surround the core with ferocity.
The recent Supreme Court decision affirmed the President of the United States as the unitary, plenary power that controls every mechanism of the Executive Branch of government, and as long as the President is acting within his “official duty” he holds absolute power and absolute immunity.
Think of each cabinet member as a shield in this political phalanx that surrounds the weapon, President Trump.
Yes, the phalanx is by construct an offensive fortification used to advance upon the enemy. However, the strength of the phalanx is its ability to be impervious to attack from 360°. The phalanx advances, inch by inch against a larger fortification. In the transition team assembly, this is what President Trump is putting together.
If Hegseth wasn’t a strong shield against their interests, his attack vectors would not be exploited this soon in the assembly. They are focused on Hegseth because he represents a threat, a threat to remove decades of work done by the IC and their Senate supporting mechanism to weaken the U.S. Military.
The Senate wants the United States military to report to them, not to the U.S. Commander-in-Chief.
Eh, I’m not going to dwell on it. Kelly is paying for the inauguration, and hubs Jeff is likely selling Bakkt to Nunes, so whatever. But there is a remarkable irony with billionaire Kelly Loeffler, wife of NYSE owning billionaire Jeffrey Sprecher, being nominated for Administrator of the Small Business administration.
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I’m sure she will do fine. If her presence on the sidelines helps the team, then cool.
Former Senator Kelly Loeffler is the wife of Jeffrey Sprecher. Kelly Loeffler was approved by the Sea Island control group, then appointed by Georgia Governor Kemp because Loeffler is married to Jeffrey Sprecher; a GOPe party insider, mega-donor, and multi-millionaire CEO of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
Jeffrey Sprecher (formerly from the Bush administration) is the founder and CEO of ICE, which now owns the New York Stock Exchange. Kelly Loeffler’s company, the financial platform Bakkt, is a subsidiary of the Intercontinental Exchange. Bakkt is currently in the process of creating a Crypto exchange, with hopes of making Bakkt to U.S. Crypto what the NYSE is to stocks.
Kelly Loeffler purchased her recent Trump insiders’ ticket from Susie Wiles by leading the inauguration committee. Where ‘leading’ is essentially financing it with her circle of friends. On the upside, with this level of attachment to the Wall Street multinationals, the nomination of Loeffler is a nod to the Sea Island group (those that pay the Senators) as the larger Trump nomination process continues.
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