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Pennsylvania is one of the critical states in the 2020 U.S. election. It is also one of the states hit hard by the coronavirus. Pennsylvania has also seen the impact of layoffs in the vital steel industry during two decades of neglect by previous administrations till the tariffs on steel from China by president Trump began a reversal of this trend. Unemployment is high in Pennsylvania as a result of the pandemic. 51 of 67 counties in the state recorded unemployment rate increases for 2020 that are in the top 20% for the U.S. Pennsylvania and Michigan are two critical states for the 2020 election. Pennsylvania has done much worse than other states including Michigan when it comes to the impact of the pandemic on unemployment rates in all counties. Voters could decide to blame the Democratic governor for lockdown restrictions  that worsened unemployment or president Trump for his approach to the coronavirus. There is also concern among conservative voters about the kind of change they seek between steady improvement in unemployment and a shift to radical changes in the economy. ...

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U.S. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell tells the Washington Post in an exclusive interview that the dynamics surrounding the Trans Pacific Agreement pushed by president Obama have changed. He sees little prospect of it passing Congress before president Obama leaves office, and says it will be up to the next president to take it up after Obama leaves office in Jan. 2017. McConnell said that there is a lot of pushback all over the place. The Republican frontrunners Trump and Cruz both oppose the TPP, and all Democratic candidates including Hillary Clinton oppose it. In addition tobacco interests in McConnell's home state of Kentucky and pharmaceutical interests backing Senator Orrin Hatch, the Republican Finance chairman also oppose aspects of the negotiated deal. Labor unions, the automobile industry, environmental groups, and public interest groups, have strongly opposed provisions of the TPP that hurt workers and the public interest from the beginning, making it a risky proposition for Congressmen coming up for reelection in 2016. The divergence between the Republican establishment and the presidential front runners Trump and Cruz also have diluted support in Congress on the Republican side, making it a no win proposition....

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President Biden gets his $1.9 trillion aid package through the U.S. Congress with 220 votes for and 211 against. All Democrats except one voted in favor and all Republicans voted against. Earlier the $15 minimum wage was dropped from the bill to get it through the Senate. Also kept were income criteria to prevent the $1400 check to individuals in households going to the most affluent income earners. The Senate vote was close - 50 to 49 in a party line vote. The Biden aid package comes on top of earlier aid under president Trump in 2020. This aid is likely to provide enough stimulus to the US economy to restore growth to levels that were there before the pandemic hit.

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As Keith Bradsher of the NYT points out in this report too much may be made of the tariffs of 25% imposed by president Trump on steel imports. The effect Bradsher says on China is trivial because China imports make up a fraction of 1% or 0.1% of China's production, and only 2% of American steel imports. Most of China's aluminium is made into products such as auto parts and solar panel frames, and little of it is imported as raw metal. On the day the tariffs were announced, China's top economic official Liu He met with economic officials of the Trump administration and China's reaction was cautious and reflected the fact mentioned b.y Trump about its huge trade surplus with the U.S. of $375 billion in 2017. China's officials stated "that its dialogue with the U.S. was very useful, constructive, and helpful."  China's principal goals are first to preserve its broader trading relationship with the U.S. which gives it th $375 billion trade surplus for 2017 and creates millions of jobs in China, and to preserve its ability to invest in the U.S.  This has given China access to American technology and manufacturing expertise that would be difficult to develop independently. The Trump administration is meanwhile working with senior members of Congress to come up with new rules for tighter scrutiny of Chinese investments in the U.S. as a new phase of competition in technology takes place between China and the U.S.  ...

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U.S. president Trump asks for resignation of Attorney General Jeff Session after the 2018 Congressional elections. The Democratic Party gained a majority in the House of Representatives, with the Republican Party retaining control of the Senate. This makes further investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election likely. The official probe into this meddling is being conducted by Robert Mueller, Special Counsel, which is supervised by Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein because Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation.  The resignation leads to the Justice Department being headed by Matthew Whitaker, Mr. Session's top aide. Mr. Whitaker, a former prosecutor, is a conservative legal advocate who was critical of the Mueller investigation, in several tweets cited in this WSJ report, calling it  political fishing expedition," and calling for cutting the budget of the Mueller investigation to make it ineffective. Mr. Whitaker now supervises the Mueller investigation for 210 days till a successor is nominated by Mr. Trump. ...

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Guardian newspaper reports that this maybe the beginning of a technological cold war between western spy agencies and Beijing. The head of the UK's secret service said in a speech that "we need to have a conversation" about Huawei's involvement in UK's telecom network. Following this BT, Brtiish  Telcom, stated it is removing Huawei's networking kit from its EE mobile network. Huawei has struggled against the suspicion that it is under the influence of the government to tap into telecom systems in other countries. This has resulted in it being banned from selling telecom equipment to the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. The Trump administration put a ban on ZTE for breaking sanctions against Iran. Now the Trump administration is making its case that Huawei also is breaking U.S. sanctions against Iran with the arrest in Canada of founder Ren's daughter Meng, who is the CFO. Ren started out working in IT for the military before setting up Huawei in 1987. ...

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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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The relations between the former president Obama and the current president Trump have soured in the first 100 days. Obama lauded activists opposing the travel ban, and Trump sees leaks being conducted for his administration by Obama supporters. Obama was clear from the beginning that he would voice his opinion when it came to systematic discrimination, right to dissent, and deportation of children. Trump's claims that Obama ordered his offices to be wiretapped during the election have caused a rift. Trump took to Twitter to says that Affordable Care Act was "a total disaster," and made it personal by saying "How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!" Attorney General Sessions said he will recuse himself from the investigations into Russian efforts to influence the election.

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Mike Pompeo is a four term Congressman from Kansas, who was educated at West Point and Harvard Law School, and served for 1 year as CIA Director under president Trump. He now becomes the new Secretary of State for the U.S. after winning Senate nomination 57 to 42. He comes to a State Department that lost top diplomats and suffered from a downsizing effort that has left it demoralized during the period former Exxon CEO Mr. Tillerson headed the department. Pompeo has to meet several challenges including restoring morale in the State Department, better relations with the UN Representative Nikki Haley, setting the best course on the Iran nuclear deal which he now supports, negotiations with North Korea where he was sent as an emissary recently. In doing this he has built trust with president Trump with his intelligence briefings as CIA Director, and his military background brings him closer to Gen. Mattis at the Defense Department. Also a challenge is setting a path for the strained relations with Russia. His first visit is to Brussels and NATO headquarters for discussions with European allies. ...

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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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Gerald Seib, executive editor of of the WSJ, attributes the divisions in America both on the left and the right to a deep skepticism among people about the intentions of the U.S. political and financial establishment to conduct the country's affairs in a way that benefits all people. Both the traditional Democratic and Republican establishments, the Bush-Reagan, Clinton-Obama politicians and the financial community were seen as self-serving and looking after their own interests. The right of center supply side economics and the the tolerance for immigration levels of 30% rise in the last decade were discredited. A much larger recovery program was seen as needed from the deeply bruising effects of the financial crisis of 2008, started by the reckless financial establishment behaviours, than either the Reagan supply siders or the Obama people had understood or planned. This opened the way for Mr. Trump to take up the cause of ordinary Americans with a message of ambitious infrastructure development, confronting China's use of trade adversely affecting American workers, and slowing down immigration. And within the Democratic party the emergence of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders with programs for a wealth tax that would finance Medicare for All and college education supported by the federal government. Both the traditional Republicans under Bush and Democrats under Clinton Obama were seen not upto the task, after the 2008 financial and economic crisis created deeper scars than were imagined possible. The lack of effective policies under Bush or Obama simply aggravating the situation further. The culture wars have split Americans down the middle with a breakdown of the traditional American family and social structures creating deep anxieties in America. Obama's comments unsettled people in the heartland when he said that economic decline in the Rust Belt had made people there to "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them."   The trillions of dollars spent in wars in Asia and the Middle East were seen by Mr. Trump as an enormous waste when much needed investment was deprived of attention at home. Mr. Trump hammered this point home till today it is well accepted across America.  Even as political divisions persist they are now on how to tackle the redevelopment and growth of the U.S. The new focus of agreement has shifted with agreement across the country that infrastructure development in the U.S. and defending workers rights to jobs and opportunities is the top priority. That trade relations need to be reshaped keeping this priority ever present in negotiations. As a result all parties could agree on infrastructure and the recently concluded agreement for trade with Mexico and Canada and phase 1 of negotiated agreement with China. In overseas affairs the U.S. under Trump seeks cost sharing with a 2% of GDP defense spending by other nations so that money can be diverted to use at home. In this sense the debate has already shifted in the U.S. and the UK to how to address the problems of uneven development and growth across the two countries and better allocation of scarce resources to needs at home. Which is for the U.S. a good thing in the middle of all the perception of divisions.      ...

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Mexico replaces China as the U.S. top trading partner in the first half of 2019. U.S. imports from China fell by 12% and exports fell by 19% in first half 2019, according to Commerce Department. The total value of trade with China of $271 billion was less than the trade with either Canada or Mexico.

Mr. Trump said yesterday to China- "If they don't want to trade with us anymore, that would be fine with me. Until such time as there is a deal we will be taxing them." He went on to say he would place 25% tariff on additional $300 billion of Chinese goods on Sept. 1, 2019.

Meanwhile in first half 2019 the U.S. imports increased to 34% from Vietnam. Some of this could be Chinese goods transhipment through Vietnam. Japan, South Korea, India, Europe, all increased exports to the U.S.

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Much as the average American does not like too many numbers that confuse and sources that may be incorrect. It does not have to be that way and it is important to know what can mean ease of living for all. Trump 2017 tax cuts have been studied in detail at Princeton, U of Chicago, Harvard, and Treasury Department. The effects are that it is adding $100 billion each year to the national debt of $34 trillion. And gains to individual workers are only about $750 a year not the $4000 promised per worker. The corporate tax rate was reduced from top rate of 35% to 21%, and investment spending was given accelerated deduction for income taxes. The studies show investment growth in years after 2017 was the same as the years before. To test if the rate of investment was slowing and the law pushed it up studies show this not to be the case. It was also shown that accelerated deduction of investment was more effective in increasing investment for individual companies based on 12000 corporate returns studied. ...

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Peggy Noonan says that Trump's group has broken from the Republican Party. She also describes the Republican party as broken, that it cannot look to the past or 1980. She says two unwon wars, with one a catastrophe, and a great recession are enough to break any party. Worse the top of the party believes in things such as immigration, trade, entitlements, that the bottom doesn't, says Noonan. You have a situation where the base has left the party leadership. She describes Hillary Clinton as having a web of relationships and arrangements from the past, and with the idea that is popular among Republicans that she is only interested in acquiring power. Sanders is respected by Conservatives for his sincerity. Noonan sees God's role as chastising in this election, reminding people about what can go wrong and what needs to be done as the damage is surveyed for democracy and the country. The only reason for hope Noonan sees is in the way the 2016 U.S. presidential election is turning the decision over to the young people of America, who can decide who shapes the future. ...

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Pew Research looks at Inequality as an issue. It also looks at whether people see that their children will be better off financially when they grow up. The Better off Financially is not the same as the inequality issue, on inequality issue progress can be inadequate but perceived differently among different income groups in industrialized nations to be inconclusive as in this recent Pew Research in 2024.  On whether children will be Better off financially there is a decisive result in Pew Research in 2024. With France and Canada at the top 81% and 78%,  Italy and UK at 79%, the US at 74%, Japan 77%, Australia 79%, Spain 75%. Almost across all the European Union countries and the US this is decisive, a clear unequivocal result. Both the Trump first term and the Biden first term felt effects of Covid pandemic.  Reviving Manufacturing in the US and  Europe is the only way, and with it infrastructure investment, to bring back a sense of optimism to the US and Europe. For this levelling the playing field and tariffs that do that selectively are the plan in the second term, getting industry to take up the challenge is the second goal in this decade to 2030.    ...

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In Pennsylvania the winner of the primary gets only 14 delegates. 54 delegates are not pledged to any candidate. The deadline was Feb 16, and a few Trump supporters got on the ballot for delegate in some Congressional districts without any support from the Trump organization in a lone effort. Pennsylvania has a very well organized Republican Party, which is described as preferring pragmatic candidates and has a top down leadership structure. Senator Rubio of Florida has three supporters on the ballot in each of 18 congressional districts. Even on the first ballot at the Republican convention these 54 candidates can support the presidential candidate they choose. This has not been well understood even in the media, with the Economist and other news outlets describing Pennsylvania incorrectly as a winner take all contest for a sweep by Donald Trump of northeastern U.S. states delegates.

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Dan Balz, chief correspondent of The Washington Post, says the stakes have hugely escalated in the 2016 presidential election with the rhetoric on immigrants and Muslims entering the U.S. following terrorist attacks in France and California offered by Donald Trump. He cites experts who point out that establishment voices are being ignored as a section of the American public supports Trump's opinions. An earlier article in the Post points out that about 30% of Republicans in a PPP poll support Trump's views, and 21% unsure. Other polls show American who are older, working class and not college educated support Trump in large numbers, compared to the support from college educated and higher income people who support Sanders on the Democratic side and who oppose American intervention in the Middle East- both Trump and Sanders supporters preferring to focus on problems at home than involvement in overseas entanglements.

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As Cruz leads in Iowa and other states putting Trump in second place, Hamburger provides an exceptional look inside the Cruz campaign. Cruz's campaign manager says rules of the past no longer apply, in a changing voter environment pushing out establishment candidates and with the digital media tools now available. Data analysis and use of methods such as "psychographic targeting" to tailor appeals to voters based on what appeals to them using Facebook data on likes are being used by the Cruz campaign. Cambridge Analytica, a firm financed by hedge fund executive Robert Mercer, a Cruz supporter, has built an effective data gathering operation of potential Cruz supporters among evangelicals. This has helped the Cruz campaign recruit pastors in Iowa, and in the U.S. for the Cruz campaign. It also helps in micro efforts such as home calls made by supporters, and in "geofencing" or sending emails and messages to a particular building or physical location such as a gathering of the National Rifle Association, or Republican Jewish Coalition. A mobile app "Cruz Crew" is another aspect of the digital effort to organize efforts of supporters and volunteers....

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Donald Trump proposes a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. until U.S. authorites have figured out what is happening following the San Bernardino terrorist attack. A poll by PPP polling firm cited in The Washington Post, shows 30% of Republicans thinking Islam should not be legal in the U.S. and 21% not sure, showing how Trump is appealing to white working class Americans and their fears. Experts say this is similiar to a movement in the 1850's which was anti-Catholic, except that at the time there was not the media attention and the presidential elections season running for a year, so that this was happening more at the local level.

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Special Counsel Mueller's team says in a court filing that Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump's campaign manager should face a prison term of 19 to 24 years for "serious, longstanding, and bold" financial crimes.  Manafort also faces financial penalties totaling about $50 million, according to the filing. Some of the problems date to years before Manafort joined the Trump campaign as campaign chairman.