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Gerald Seib of the WSJ points out that the winners in the passing of the Republican healthcare bill in the House by a 4 vote margin are Speaker Ryan who never wanted the job in the first place, and president Trump who showed he could cajole Republicans into getting it passed because he likes winning. Now comes the hard part says Seib, when it goes to the Senate- House conservatives are not going to be happy when they find major changes they dislike. If the bill clears the Senate in a modified version Republicans will now have to own any issues with healthcare, including says Seib things that may not work out for pre-existing conditions- or for groups that are disadvantaged, including older people.

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As the trade problems with the U.S. escalate in tit for tat tariffs, China looks back at its history for parallels. The period of the "unequal treaties" imposed by the Western powers on China in the period 1850-1900, the Korean War of the 1950's, and other analogies that come up to people. Yet China's planners and leaders are looking at another situation the Plaza Accord of 1985 in which the western nations pressured Japan into accepting a significantly higher exchange rate to reduce its trade surplus and the Japanese yen appreciated by 50%. Japan cut interest rates from 5% to 2.5%, and introduced huge fiscal stimulus, banks opened up to lend vigorously. The result was a boom by 1990's followed by a bust that led to another decade of lending to loss making firms called "zombie" businesses, that led to a stagnant economy. This has persisted for three decades. This China sees as an unacceptable situation when China has still not achieved developed economy status in terms of per capita incomes. It fears getting into a middle income trap as the economic growth slows and the aging population makes a recovery more difficult.  The difference with Japan in the 1985-1990 period is that Mr. Trump lacks the kind of five nation economic coordination that put pressure on Japan. Today there are differing views on China in Europe and the U.S. and different policies. Mr. Trump is known for his style of deal making and could settle early, as feared by some Republican leaders in Congress who see in China a challenge to America's technological dominance. There are no calls to appreciate China's currency. Only calls for China to change its state subsidies model and put in writing and through laws that change the way of doing business that does not require American companies to hand over advanced technology. This is also a concern for Japan and the European Union countries such as Germany, and is something all nations try to protect in global competition. Japan is still facing the consequences in creating a new competitor in high speed train technology after building the first high speed trains in China and transfer of the high speed train technology by Kawasaki. The Household Survey by the Federal Reserve showing the financial fragility of 40% of American families shown on this page today shows how this situation is likely to evolve as working class families in the U.S. support a trade stance that protects American jobs and technology. Job losses over three decades and a $891 billion trade deficit in 2018 are seen as unacceptable to the U.S. in 2019. A stronger U.S. dollar helped increase the U.S. trade deficit by 10% in 2018, nullifying some benefits of Mr. Trump's trade actions. Mr. Robert Lighthizer was a negotiator in the trade dispute with Japan in 1985, and runs the negotiations with China with support from president Trump. This alone has kept the Japanese situation in 1985 uppermost in the minds of China's leaders as they try to come up with a way to settle the trade dispute with Mr. Trump.     ...

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The president's Council of Economic Advisors puts out a report on the homeless in California that makes points that both sides, liberals and Trump supporters can agree on. It says California has 12% of the population of the U.S. and half the unsheltered homeless in the country. The blame for the housing situation in the state is placed on "not-near-me" residents that want to prevent housing being built near them by supporting strict environmental and zoning restrictions. Residents selfishness looking at only their own interests and keeping out newcomers is seen as the problem behind the lack of new housing units. The tech industry pushing up housing prices has further aggravated the availability of affordable housing leading to a worsening of access to decent housing in the state.

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Social media companies such as Twitter were classified differently under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. This is now being reviewed as the companies are now seen as monopolies by the government, that the role of these companies has evolved as they reached tens of million of people around the world. Twitter started in 2006- the year the Act governing its regulation was written was ten years prior. And Twitter only reached its access to tens of millions by 2012, fifteen years after the Act was written.  Basically the White House is saying the social media companies role has changed since the Act was written and the law should keep up with the new situation. President Trump is expected to sign a draft executive order setting new rules that limits the broad legal protection status provided by the law written in 1996, when social media companies did not exist. The immediate event preceding the action, was the president's frustration with the fact check placed by Twitter on the president's comments on the issue of voter fraud when mail in ballots are used. The WSJ podcast and discussion shown here points to this not being a black and white issue, but one where there are different and diverging views as to the policy that should be followed, which are legitimate based on the evidence on each side. Making this not appropriate for a fact check as Twitter had done. The U.S. president's views and traditional Republican party views converge on this issue that mail in ballots favor the other party. ...

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Fears in France about multiculturalism presumably of the Anglo-Saxon type with ethnic communities living separately side by side. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy, says in his recent book that the French are not like Anglo-Saxons with communities of ethnic people living next to each other but not mixing. This is not true of London and New York, or Melbourne, say people on the other side. Comments by prime minister Valls similiar to Sarkozy's are interpreted by experts in French history as reflecting France's predominant political language of Republicanism and fear of fragmentation. These issues have come up as immigrants issues have led to movements such as for Brexit, and the Trump campaign in the U.S. with anti-immigrant sentiment. The French like to see themselves in a different light though the banlieus are as much a fact of life in France as segregated communities in the U.S. and Britain, say observers.

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This article in the NYT after German chancellor Merkel's visit to the U.S. reminds readers that Merkel's relationship with Obama took some time to develop and that following Merkel's turning down of Obama's request to speak at the Brandenburg Gate in 2008 relations during a Merkel visit in 2009 were not as friendly. It says the relationships evolve over time. Even then the relationship between Merkel and Obama had ups and downs including the period when it was revealed that the Obama administration had tapped Merkel's phone and Obama failed to offer an apology, ending with a positive note in 2016 when the two met in Krun, Germany, with Obama as lameduck president. Experts from the German Council of Foreign Relations say that Trump adopted his usual double speak saying the right things about NATO and relations with Germany in the joint appearance, and later at a question and answer session saying Germany owed a lot of money to the U.S. for defense. Germany pays 1.2% of GDP for defense and promised to take this up to 2% by 2024. By now viewers may have adjusted to Trump's style to keep certain issues alive for negotiation stance, as a distraction, to keep his base's enthusiasm, or in some situations to vent out grievances such as with media coverage he receives. ...

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Texas under new state law S.B. 4 can  impose criminal penalties of upto 6 months in jail on non citizens who illegally enter Texas from Mexico. It allows state judges to order deportations to Mexico- without Mexico's consent- and allows local law enforcement to carry out the orders. The US Supreme Court upheld the US Court of Appeals 5th Circuit decision that says the law S.B. 4 passed in Texas can be enforced temporarily till it is submitted to the Court for final decision. Both Biden and Trump have visited the Texas border with Mexico. This was after Biden and Schumer passed a immigration bill 70- 30 in the Senate which Jim Lankford  Republican of Oklahoma had negotiated with Democrats. Biden said he would sign it to close the border- it would also change parole and asylum law to stop large illegal migration entirely. The former president intervened to stop passage in the House to keep the issue alive for 2024.

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Trump asked him to put him above the Constitution of the United States of America. He refused, making clear his overriding commitment to the Constitution of the United States, says former vice president Mike Pence. More clearly one sees a different understanding and grasp of the meaning of the Constitution of the US by the two individuals. This is what is at stake in what Peter Baker in the NYT calls an issue that will decide the future of America as a strong democracy. Deeper still are the questions of education and culture that this has raised that will not go away even then. How do you build a democracy when as a people, as a political class, or as groups of people one is not jolted by the fact that two thirds of American fourth graders fail the reading comprehension test, an indication of the deep lack of knowledge of the basic history, geography and political structure of the Untied States of America across broad sections of the people.

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In this economy there is wide divergence in the US for upper income people earning well on assets they own at 5%+ for extra income and the lower middle classes wage earners that are struggling even with low unemployment and inflation at 3%. WSJ looks at these two divergent parts of the US economy and what can be done. Inflation could be worse with higher Trump tariffs on imports, says WSJ. The situation is a difficult one for families struggling even with higher incomes, as this one in Michigan in the WSJ, that finds it necessary to take money out of savings with prices higher but not reflected in inflation statistics of 3%. One example is higher housing and apartment rental costs with 25% of families having to spend over 50% of their income on home rental leaving little for food and expenses. President Biden has called for limiting price increases on home and apartment rentals to 5%, and Harris has proposed aid for families spending more than 30% of household income on housing costs. Strong action is needed. ...

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This comes as both president Biden and Republicans under Trump are increasingly wary about the lack of oversight and inability to limit the monopolistic behaviour of tech firms. The investigation of Joshua Wright who defended Facebook, Google and Amazon. After learning about the investigations Amazon acted immediately. Google and Facebook waited before finally acting says this report in WSJ. Joshua Wright, a George Mason University law professor was appointed to the FTC where he had other commissioners dilute the powers of the FTC so that it would benefit Google, Facebook and Amazon from weaker oversight by the FTC. During this period the three companies acquired immense power with monopoly behavior and lack of the necessary oversight from Congress or the FTC. Related to this is the story in this WSJ report of the relations of a GMU law professor with his female students that led to GMU and the tech companies distancing themselves from Joshua Wright as each new story emerged.  ...

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Potential Treasury nominee Kevin Warsh is given the possible role at Treasury plus appointment as Fed chairman after 2026 when Jerome Powell retires. At 35 years Kevin Warsh was the youngest governor of the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, appointed in 2006 by George Bush. At the time his appointment was criticized for lack of experience- Warsh comes from upstate New York and went to school at Shaker School in Latham, then Stanford, in economics and a JD at Harvard, followed by 7 years at Morgan Stanley. He was executive secretary of the National Economic Council in 2002. During the bank financial crisis of 2009 the lack of macro regulation led to failure of investment banks. Warsh was able top save Morgan Stanley and he acted as an avenue of information from banks to the Fed.

Warsh left the Fed in 2011 and returned to public service in 2016 when Trump made his first run for president as an adviser to DJT. 

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Kamala Harris is a lifelong learner, this is how she has overcome different situations that were not favorable to her running for District Attorney, running for Attorney General, and running for president against Biden, then after being chosen VP nominee and VP elect navigating the last 4 years. Each time the effort to learn and always with a sense of belief that one associates with some of the Olympic athletes in cycling and rowing in the recent Paris event. BBC News looks at different events in her career and how there were doubts about her, she was put in unwinnable situations,  yet she continued her work resolutely with determination, keeping her values she gained from her mother and grandfather and learning from each situation to be better. So that when the time came after the first Biden Trump debate one long time Democratic supporter told her "Put on your seatbelt," to which she replied "I was born with a seatbelt."

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This WSJ report by Collins, Belkin, Parti and Whyte takes an indepth look at the issues surrounding anti-semitism on US campuses, in particular UC Berkeley, U Penn, Harvard, Columbia universities. It looks at what happened in the first term and how with the Gaza war the issues of antisemitism on US campuses increased and the DJT administration, Education Secretary McMahon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, and domestic advisers in the Trump administration, decided it was time to rein in the antisemitism seen at top ranked universities.  On the campus of UC Berkeley in Feb 2019, Hayden Williams was a young conservative activist who set up a table to recruit students to Turning Point USA. He was punched in the face in an argument which attracted media attention. DJT said at the time that "we got to do something about this." In meetings with Hayden Trump discussed actions such as cutting off federal funding to universities with free speech violations. This is the genesis of the current action says WSJ where Harvard faces cut offs of funding for lack of action to control antisemitism on campus and the president asking Harvard to stop enrollment of international students. Some international students have been involved in the activism tending towards antisemitism.  There is also the sense that some universities are admitting far too many, as many as 40% of the enrolment, from overseas students- a form of neglect of local American students, who now have less access to the resources that the federal government is giving to these universities which they should be entitled to as Americans. U Chicago, Harvard and Penn are in the 30%+ range for overseas students and Columbia around 40%. ...

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Efforts by president Macron to setup a meeting between Rouhani of Iran and president Trump in New York to reduce tensions of miscalculation and disproportionate response after the attacks on Saudi oil facilities by drones and missiles. Macron says the "maximum pressure" sanctions placed by the U.S. are resulting in Iran placing "maximum pressure" on its neighbors. The Yemen civil war is fought by proxy.  One outcome appears to be the Houthi rebels backed by Iran in Yemen announcing a unilateral ceasefire. And the Saudis announcing a ceasefire of their own. This gives the European Union, the U.S., Saudis, Iran, China and Japan, time to consider the implications of the counterproductive approaches of the different sides to give enough room for new talks. Iran nuclear deal, U.S. relations with Iran, and any new talks on these issues are now seen in a different way. The nuclear deal is now linked with other issues in the region, including building peace in the region. Countries that depend on oil flowing through the Straits of Hormuz such as Japan, China, South Korea, and India are now also involved as silent partners pushing for peace in the region.  ...

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Most of it is because of Donald Jr. and his affinity for Vance, a bonding that developed once the former president left office. Donald Jr. championed Vance choice over Burghum and Rubio. For the former president the choice was natural because his style fitted that of Vance of saying directly with candor what he thought. Vance's criticism that a second Trump administration focused on tax cuts and not investing in the American economy would not lead to economic growth still rings true as shown in the adjoining article on the US dollar, on inflation moving up with tariffs and job growth affected by lack of the government investing in the economy and American manufacturing. Even in the Depression years Republicans stuck to their idea that governments should stay out, are they likely to change that today? Vance's criticism was made before he became senator, in 2016. It would lead to another lost decade for the American economy and people, and put America just where the Tories have left Britain today so that Keir Starmer's Labour cannot bring immediate relief to the British people struggling with cost of living in 2025, with the mess the Tories have left behind.  ...

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This behind the scenes account  shows how the NATO communique with policy declaration was prepared by July 6 before European leaders and Mr. Trump set foot in Brussels on July 11. It shows to what lengths key members in the Trump administration will go to achieve American objectives in preserving the NATO alliance. Particularly now that Russia is taking an aggressive stance to NATO near its borders.  General Mattis at Defense Department pushed for the 4 30's initiative which is about preparing a rapid deployment force to be ready by 2020. This is in the communique. Also in the communique is the setup of a command post in Norfolk, Virginia, ready to act to deploy forces in Europe. U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kailey Hutchinson, received the demand from National Security Adviser Bolton to have ambassadors from all countries work overtime to get the declaration done by July 6. Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General supported this effort. All were concerned that there should be no repeat of the mess that happened for the G-7 communique when at the last minute president Trump refused to sign on, leading to derisive comments about Canada's Justin Trudeau. It was seen as critical to preserve the sense of unity in the U.S. alliance with Europe. This time there was no disruption even though Mr. Trump acted unpredictably in Brussels. ...

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DJT's 32% reciprocal tariff on Taiwanese goods including chips is working. When reports under president Biden showed TSMC investing in Arizona it was still a slow process with much foot dragging including articles by TSMC executives about how difficult it was to make in US. Lyrarc commented specifically on this as TSMC founders got their education and training in the US and it sounded a bit too condescending. Now that the Trump administration has its tariffs in place this WSJ report says the factory in Arizona is advancing production by several quarters, and it has started production late in 2024 with quality comparable to TSMC plants in Taiwan. How quickly DJT's approach with tariffs to level playing field and letting Taiwan know it owes defense and its education in semiconductors to the US is working, is shown by this example like others. And the $65 billion investment is now up to $165 billion in the US that TSMC is planning. The extra $100 billion is a commitment made to DJT. TSMC revenue growth is higher now at 30% than 20% it had previously with AI and robotic demand in 2025 so that it needs to make more chips quickly. ...

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President Trump reiterated his threat to place tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese goods in addition to earlier tariffs on $250 billion in goods.  The problem China faces is that it China imports less, far less than the U.S. does. China has only $10 billion in U.S. goods to place tariffs on. This is after placing tariffs on $110 billion in U.S. goods, mostly agricultural products such as soyabeans in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on the $250 billion of Chinese goods. China could place a ban on imports from Boeing or restrict the access for U.S. companies to the Chinese market. U.S. companies have invested billions of dollars in the China and employ about 2 million Chinese in well paying jobs. Concerns about unemployment would be uppermost to prevent these jobs being affected. Other concern for China is the loss of foreign investment as relations deteriorate. Already supply chains in some products such as clothing and consumer products is shifting other countries in Asia. In automobiles the regional hubs are expected to shift with India as a potential hub for Asia, and Mexico preserving its place as a North American hub following renegotiation of NAFTA. In media the dispute is leading to a shift from Chinese consumers buying Adidas instead of Nike and Huawei smartphones instead of Apple.  For an already slowing economy this hurts China more than the U.S. which is why the U.S. is pushing China to settle with an agreement that the U.S. can trust to bring down China's trade surplus. For the U.S. as most of the loss in exports is in agricultural products the solution has been to provide government aid to farmers, and for Mr. Trump to use the issue to point out that he is fighting for U.S. interests and for fairness. This is why the trade dispute poses more problems for China. Because the surplus is so wildly skewed in China's favor after the inaction of many U.S. presidents just as it was for Japan in the eighties, the situation appears to be headed towards a definite reversal of the lopsided trade surplus enjoyed by China. In the process the U.S. plans to build up the competitive edge it has lost to some degree.  ...

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Julia Preston of the NYT looks at Mr. Trump's speech on August 31, 2016 in Pheonix, Arizona, and compares what one can discern about the Trump policies on immigration with that of president Obama. She points out that it is similar to the deportation that was conducted under president Obama in some ways, but is more extensive in its dimensions. It includes sanctioning sanctuary cities, expanding the deportation law enforcement personnel, and deporting about 2 million people with criminal backgrounds. The estimate under the Obama administration is for about 176,000 people with such backgrounds. The Trump estimate appears to include people with minor offenses says Preston, because it is so much higher. As a result this could also include people who have no criminal background and disrupt families on a large scale, with hundreds of thousands of longtime residents and families deported. Under the sanctuary example of Trump, Denver, New York and counties in California would be places where Trump would cut off federal funding. On the wall itself, Mexico's president Nieto says he told Trump Mexico would not pay for the wall, and Trump says exactly the opposite that Mexico would pay for the wall in his speech to supporters.  A Gallup poll shows that 76% of Republicans, 91% of Democrats favor a path to citizenship for those here in the U.S. illegally. For the whole population only 15% oppose giving illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship and 84% support doing this. Which suggests that Trump is only appealing to his base of support, not adding to it, as Cillizza points out in the WP fact check.   ...