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Melania Trump and her documentary "20 Days to History" with Amazon support in production and marketing. Melania says at the premier that she wanted to show what it was like to be in her role, to "show other people what it takes to go from being a private citizen to first lady again." Melania has been underestimated and has shown leadership in mental health issues, on how internet and social media affects children, on housing in disaster relief, and on a range of issues that affect women and children. She also brings originality in her thinking about issues. For someone from Slovenia to come to the US as an immigrant and to be thrust into roles that she never would have anticipated she has shown exceptional composure and ability to learn and absorb from events happening so quickly around her. TR would have recognized her abilities and her softspoken and effective ways to assert herself on issues relating to the social media and how it affects children, one of the key issues facing the US for the next generation. ...

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Lost in media reporting the net US exports increase of 5% as US asserted it's position as a leading exporter in 2025 has boosted second quarter US GDP growth to 3%. 

In tariff negotiations  and the agreements with European Union and Japan US has asserted it's position as a leading exporting nation, a position it held since the 1920's that was neglected through the ineptitude of previous presidents.

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This report by Peter Baker shows President Trump only reluctantly agreed to certify the Iran Nuclear Agreement. He opposed it in discussions with the Secretary of State Tillerson. It took the combined effort of Tillerson Dunford of the combined chiefs of staff, Defense Secretary Mattis, and of National Security Adviser McMaster, to get Trump to agree to go ahead with the deal. President Trump wanted a new strategy to counter Iran in the Middle East. The Iranian foreign minister Zarif has not yet met with Tillerson of the U.S. Zarif says Iran may withdraw from the deal if there is significant nonperformance by the U.S. Trump advisers are wary about the influence on Europe as the EU is not interested in taking a new look at the Iran nuclear deal. The EU sees things differently- that the issues of Iranian influence in the war torn Middle East is a separate issue from the nuclear deal, and that in any case a nuclear constrained Iran is better than one with nuclear weapons. Another factor is that the Middle East is now a complicated place with relations crisscrossing in different and even conflicting directions. The U.S. played a part on the Iranian side in the retaking of Mosul in Iraq with U.S. bombing strikes against Islamic State. In Iraq the U.S. is supporting the Abadi government which is mainly Shiite in its structure and is supported by Iran. The Trump position is that president Obama gave away too much in negotiating the deal and was not against the negotiating process.   ...

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Max Fisher of the NYT points out the unique approach taken by Canada in the U.S.-Canada relationship - to cultivate a grassroots network of Americans in legislatures, business, and at different levels of government. This has enabled the Trudeau government to build a relationship with president Trump, and at the same time have relationships at different levels of government and with business in the U.S. to tackle issues where the Trump administration has acted in ways unfavorable for Canada. Provincial governments in Ontario and Quebec lobbied against a New York state government provision for Buying American on state contracts worth over $100,000. By emphasizing the $10 billion in exports from New York to Ontario this lobbying persuaded the New York legislature to cancel the provision. Premier Trudeau's popularity helps and the proximity to the U.S. means Canadians can visit quickly and understand the U.S. as a close neighbor. Still Premier Kathleen Wynne of Ontario says Canadian businesses are nervous about the uncertainty from the Trump administration.   ...

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Tankersley of The Washington Post looks at a 30 page analysis of Trump's economic policies by his two senior advisors Peter Navarro, UC Irvine economist, and Wilbur Ross. In it the authors say Trump will be able to increase economic growth from 2% to 3.5% by providing a better and even playing field for American companies in the way they compete with other countries. It means the renegotiation of treaties with these countries will lead to better trade for the U.S. This would include they say the U.S. saying it would leave the WTO unless changes are made. The authors say that with Trump in the White House unfair trading practices would end, instead of it leading to trade wars as some other economists believe.

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All about fair trade with no deficits where possible.

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A 2024 Study by the International Trade Commission predicted that a 25% tariff on imports would reduce imports by almost 75 percent while increasing average prices in the US by about 5 percent.  As US companies have about half of the US auto market this would mean US auto manufacturers now have access to an additional 37 percent of the market by investing in auto plants in the US. US steel and aluminium plants will get additional investment to build these cars in the US. There is nothing new about this the US makers built plants in China. Germans, Japanese and Koreans took the US for stupid by keeping US cars out of their markets and thinking this could go on while by destroying US manufacturing it was  destroying America's middle class. It also gives the Germans BMW and VW, Subaru, the Japanese Toyota and Honda, Nissan, the South Koreans Kia and Hyundai, Chinese makers of EV's the option to Make in the USA and build plants invest in US manufacturing.  ...

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In a sign that the trade negotiations with China are stalled even as negotiators met for talks, president Trump said China was slowing talks down in the hope of talking to ELizabeth Warren or Joe Biden, Democratic candidates for the elections in the U.S. in 2020.  President Trump also said China has not come through the way it said on agricultural imports from the U.S. He tweeted "that is the problem with China they just don't come through." Mr. Trump also took credit for the slowing down of China's economy from the tariffs war. Mr. Trump took credit for China's weakening economy, making some companies leave, the tariffs he has imposed on $250 billion of Chinese products causing enormous pressure. Chinese exports to the U.S. have dropped by 8.5% and exports to other countries up slightly. China's infrastructure investments are cushioning part of the shock from the tariffs war. No major stimulus is planned in China because it would worsen the debt already accumulated after the over stimulus conducted in response to the financial crisis of 2009. Both sides are willing to wait it out.   ...

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U.S. president Trump's 2017 budget is an effort to reshape spending priorities by the Republican party. Apart from Medicare and Social Security all other entitlement programs from the days of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society are subject to cuts. Deep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, including introducing work requirements. The philosophy behind it is that compassion will now be measured not by how large these programs are but by how much the government can get people "off these programs and back in charge of their lives,"  according to Budget Director Mulvaney.  The cuts are $616 billion to Medicaid and Children's Health programs, $193 billion in cuts to Food Stamps, $143 billion in student loans, $72 billion in disability programs. The overhaul of the Affordable Health Care Act is part of this change. The reallocation would put more money into infrastructure for $200 billion, and in tax cuts, $19 billion in a parental leave program and $29 billion for veterans programs, plus added spending on the military. William Hoagland of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Republican who worked on budget issues says it will be politically difficult as the cuts to lower income groups come with tax cuts for small businesses and higher income individuals.  Beyond the policy priorities there is an area where both Republicans and Democrats are skeptical of the budget. This is how it impacts the U.S. debt. Under Congressional Budget Office estimates the U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP which rose to about 75% after the Great Recession starting in 2008, is projected to grow to about 85%. In sharp contrast the Trump administration estimates of the Office of Management and Budget are for it to drop to 65% based on rosier estimates of 2% inflation, 3% growth for the decade ahead. Experts say this is unlikely once the Fed raises interest rates and the unemployment rate currently at 4.4% leads to rising inflation, undercutting growth which has remained below 2% for a long period. These concerns are also voiced by Hilsenrath in the WSJ based on the experience of other countries such a Britain that cut corporate taxes without seeing an uptick in economic growth. ...

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Simon Jenkins of The Guardian says it is time to clear some of the myths around migrants, tariffs, and NATO and in this way action by the current Republican administration can be a positive step. Jenkins says DJT is moving quickly in the first 100 Days because most presidents get only 2 years to make changes before losing the House or the Senate making legislation difficult to pass. If it appears that things are happening on many fronts too quickly that is just the nature of things under a democratic process where checks and balances mean all three parts of government- executive powers of the president are balanced by powers of Congress and of the Supreme Court. Jenkins points out that action on migrants with the unease about millions of migrants coming in illegally, putting tariff barriers to bring manufacturing back and rebuilding America's forgotten middle class, cutting the bureaucracy and misuse of funds, sending education back to the states, and rethinking NATO bringing Russia back into the community of nations, will have long term positive effects long after the chaotic nature that they appear in the news cycle and the media presentation has passed. He cites China being invited back into the community of nations under Nixon. And today disarmament possible only by working with Russia, when China is moving in the direction of increasing nuclear missiles with trouble spots in Taiwan. He does not mention the sending back of about 1 million people back to Mexico under President Eisenhower in Operation Wetback in 1954, Harry Truman a senator from Missouri who led the effort to cut waste and fraud in government spending in the Second World War, the ED Hirsch graph showing reading comprehension scores of American K-12 headed one way - straight down since the 1960's showing education is failing in the US and needs parents and states to come up with new solutions.   ...

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U.S. president Obama offers his own assessment of the divisive rhetoric of Trump and its origins in the way the Republican Party has opposed him throughout his two terms, including opposition to Obamacare, and ways to tackle poverty, joblessness, without offering alternatives. He says conservative news outlets encouraged this trend till Mr. Trump said he could do this better by raising the level of rhetoric. Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and voices in the Republican Party are critical of the way Trump conducts his rallies, and the abusive rhetoric for Latinos, Muslims and minorities.

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This report in the Economist magazine says views in the Trump base of support in rural areas and among white working class voters are likely to persist for some time. One reason given is that many of these people live in isolation and little contact with the more educated urban voters in America. Another factor cited here is that only a fifth of voters follow politics closely, and of these voters only a small fraction have a good grasp of the positions of the two major parties. Most people follow the instincts and thinking of the groups they are with. As a result many of the issues covered in the media such as climate change and U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement, the Comey firing and the Mueller investigation into Russian meddling in the election, president Trump's Twitter comments, are not having much impact on the president's ratings among his support base at this early stage of the Trump presidency. Yet it is too early to tell only 6 months into the Trump term in office. After 8 years of president Obama's two terms in office voters who feel left out are not likely to change their views in so short a time. Republican voters as distinct from the core Trump base voter are also unlikely to change their views after 8 years of Democratic party administration. By staying close to traditional Republican party positions president Trump is likely to continue to have the support of the lifelong Republican party voters unless things change. Can a centrist position emerge after voter fatigue with excessive partisan opinion, as voters seek to make America a more quieter place and a consensus on working together to lift all boats emerges. This could be expected as time passes.   ...

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The WSJ provides an excellent summary of the positions of the candidates in the U.S. presidential election of 2016 on key issues, education, healthcare, immigration, taxes, national debt, infrastructure spending, and economic growth. Clinton is clear on specifics, Trump has not made clear the details of policies and talks in general terms. On immigration the 2 candidates are far apart, on issues of infrastructure Clinton plans a $275 billion effort to repair the country's infrastructure and Trump says he would make a big effort. On taxes Clinton plans to pay for spending with higher taxes on the rich. Trump says he would provide huge tax cuts, yet make large infrastructure spending without clarifying how this would be done with sharply lower taxes. Both candidates oppose the TPP and oppose trade agreements that lead to loss of U.S. jobs.

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Automakers will have to ensure that 40 to 45% of a car's content is made by workers in the U.S. earning at least $16 per hour. If this is not met automakers pay a 2.5% tariff for cars brought in from Mexico. Mexico makes 2.3 million cars and Canada 1.8 million. Automakers invested tens of billions of dollars in Mexico turning it into a lower cost export hub. This has led to job loss in the U.S. Mr. Trump's efforts in the new trade deal with Mexico are designed to increase investment in the U.S. auto industry.

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Effects of the pandemic on U.S. and global business, the U.S. and global economy from the WSJ.

Imagine 700 of 763 aircraft, most of Lufthansa's planes parked. Lufthansa is in pause mode, having reduced its capacity by 94%. Most passenger airlines have become cargo airlines.

New car registrations in France have fallen 72%. Nissan Renault is not selling anything, and there are no revenues say company representatives.

100,000 sailors on cargo ships are at sea with no hope for landing as shipping comes to a standstill.

Workers on New York's power grid spend the night on trailers in parking lots and in confined spaces with no more than 6 persons on a team. If one got sick he could infect others, and cause a personnel shortage.

 

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Gerald Seib in the WSJ gives 3 reasons for reluctance of president Trump to get involved in wars in the region on behalf of the Saudis- the U.S. is less dependent on Saudi oil with its increased oil production, China, South Korea and Japan depend on Saudi oil making it necessary for these countries to pay for the conflicts not the U.S. Other reasons are the U.S and Mr. Trump's opposition to endless wars that lead to neglecting U.S. priorities such as infrastructure and building its economy.  If the wars cost trillions of dollars the U.S. expects the Saudis or Asian countries to pay the U.S. for the cost of these wars. Japan is the most dependent on Saudi oil and it is playing a constructive role to reduce tensions between Iran and the U.S. Mr. Macron of France is playing a role because the EUropean Union also imports oil and wants to prevent the Iran nuclear deal from being ditched or at least for it to be renegotiated.

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U.S. tariffs on a long list of 1300 products includes products such as industrial robots that China sees as a potential area of future growth and technological advantage. In this way the Trump administration tariff is shaping up to be part of a longer term U.S. plan to meet the challenge from Chinese competition in key advanced technology products. These are products China explicitly targeted in its "Made in China 2025" plan. The list compiled by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the former Trade negotiator under the Reagan Administration, targets products such as electric car batteries. China supports its own electric car battery makers by blocking U.S. suppliers from its domestic markets. The new tariffs would do the same for China in the U.S. market. In industrial robots China has 87,000 in 2016, and plans to meet a shortage of labor in its manufacturing plants by using better and more efficient robots. Aircraft and airplane parts are also targets as China has plans to expand its aerospace industry. The list also includes 200 machines, with machinery exports from China making up a significant part of exports to the U.S. So comprehensive is this list of 1100 products that it includes ships, trains, any product in which China's subsidies for its industries, its industrial policies make it easier for it to gain dominance in a product category as has happened in solar panels. ...

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Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winning economist points out an astonishing fact about the 2016 U.S. presidential election- U.S. television networks nightly news devoted only 32 minutes in 2016 to all policy issues combined. And these networks devoted 100 minutes to Clinton emails. He calls this "disgraceful."  For weeks at a time in September and October the main television networks lacked the integrity and courage to ask questions and persist on the major questions facing the country of the economy, correcting income distribution that has been skewed away from the middle and working class, infrastructure rebuilding, education and healthcare, and what the policy proposals of each candidate would do for the country. Krugman does not mention this but the media devoted hardly any time to the economic plan devised by Trump that respected economists and economic analysis showed would increase the deficit by $5.3 trillion, and lead to a short term temporary increase in growth followed by a sharp decline. The worst thing that could happen to middle and working class families struggling to recover from the blow to their finances from the last recession.  The cyber hacking of a U.S. presidential election by a foreign power never received the unanimous rejection that it deserved from the television networks, not just Fox News as Krugman points out, but by all the networks. The future landscape of the media needs assessment to bring in new ideas and new entrants to bring constructive improvements, and for older media organizations to rebuild after the loss of confidence among young people. Only about a quarter of young people in the U.S. have confidence in the large media organizations news coverage according to surveys done recently. There are other pressures coming from the tech world that make it imperative to do this. Many experts point to the destructive effect of social media in spreading rumors or information disguised as facts, which are spread instantly by Twitter and Facebook, without any obligation to check the facts. This is also dangerous with a public that is now divided between better educated and less educated along political lines, older more settled in their views people, and younger people quicker in looking for the facts and checking things out before believing them. ...

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President Trump says it will be a woman, "a very talented, a very brilliant woman," to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Neil Irwin in the NYT why the U.S. China Phase 1 Trade Agreement is more than a hill of soyabeans as he puts it, more than about all the soyabeans that the U.S. farmers can sell to China. China's economy was seeing the effect of U.S. tariffs. Additional tariffs to cover all imports from China to the U.S. would have worsened this. China avoided this by agreeing to Phase 1. The U.S. had looked for some enforcement mechanism based on China putting this down in a written agreement particularly for avoiding subsidies to state enterprises and improper access to U.S. advanced technologies. China's reluctance to do this led to Mr. Trump saying that China had reversed its position and Trump expanding the tariffs stage by stage. These issues are now set aside for Phase 2 still to be negotiated. Both sides taking what they could get. China relief from the threat of tariffs on all exports. The U.S. under Mr. Lighthizer's negotiating leadership retaining the enforcement idea through the tariffs that are still in place of 25% on half of China's exports to the U.S. The bonus for Mr. Trump is the goodwill China generates by agreeing to buy all the U.S. farmers can produce, farmers having not only stood behind Mr. Trump but also forming a key part of his support base. China will continue to compete in technological areas with the U.S., and the state enterprise model which worked for China as Mr. Xi tells visitors will continue. Phase 2 is just that Phase 2, when and if it can be negotiated between Trump with his negotiator Lighthizer and Xi with his negotiator Liu He. On key points neither side is budging. A key goal for Mr. Trump is to put the trade surplus China enjoys of $300 plus billion a year with the U.S. on a serious downward path, and bring so many of the jobs and manufacturing back home. On this trade data for 2019 and the plan for 2020 of both countries is clear. It should be down each year by 10-20% for the next few years, a major achievement of Mr. Lighthizer, who did the same with  Japan under president Reagan. ...

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U.S. president Obama says at a rally in Philadelphia that Donald Trump is a fradulent champion of the working class, saying that Trump is simply exploiting the populist mood, that for 70 years he has shown no concern for working class people. Obama told the crowd he understood the public's mood for change and that he himself had benefitted from it. Yet he said that it did not add up. Obama said: "This guy is suddenly going to be your champion? I mean, he spent most of his life trying to stay as far away from working people as he could, and now this guy is going to be the champion of the working people. Huh." "I mean he wasn't going to let you in his golf course. He wasn't going to let you buy in his condo. And now suddenly this guy is going to be your champion." 

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The U.S. tones down expectations of results in trade negotiations with China. President Trump says China may be thinking, "lets wait 13, 14, 15 months till the election." With the U.S. presidential election coming up China may be looking at the prospect of negotiating with someone from other parties.