“I
think we agree, the past is over.”
President
George W. Bush.
With
the Trumpian White House charging around like a bull in a china shop, we open
with the advice to make some tea, sit down, relax and enjoy some pleasant Albinoni,
before reading on. The past seems to be over.
Pax
Americana 1945 – 2008 is over. An all against all, no holds barred, anything
goes, global free fight is opening up. The Great Nixonian Error of Fiat money,
communist money, of August 15, 1971, has now entered its final self destructive
phase. As Germany and Japan found out last century, only a fool makes war on
the world. After treading on egg shells since Presidents G. W. Bush and Obama, Washington
seems to have blundered across red lines all over the planet.
Forget
the G-7 finance ministers meeting underway in Bari Italy, or the Great Leaders
meeting threatening travel havoc in “Sodom-on-the-Sea," Sicily May 26-27, the
long threatened trade wars seem to have already started without them.
The
new generation of leaders like Macron, now taking power across planet earth, have
never known real money. For them money is what the government prints and
issues. Money has no intrinsic value, no store of value. It’s a mere token, a
means of exchange. Our central banksters believe in fantasies like negative
interest rates, electronically printing “money” to fund government vanity
projects and bribes to voters and special interests. We have reached the final
excess phase of non-metallic money. Sea shells, pelts, Hudson Bay blankets,
casino token chips, all will fail as money in our war of all against all.
U.S. Inks Trade Deal With China Promoting Natural Gas, Beef
by Toluse Olorunnipa and Dan Murtaugh
12 May 2017, 04:00 GMT+1 12 May 2017, 09:26 GMT+1
The U.S. and China reached agreement to promote shipments of American natural
gas and beef that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said was part of a broader
effort to begin reshaping the trade relationship between the world’s two
largest economies.The agreement covers 10 areas where negotiators from the two sides have reached consensus, including agricultural trade and market access for financial services. By mid-July, U.S. beef producers will have broader access to Chinese markets, while America will move forward on allowing the import of cooked poultry from China, according to a joint statement announcing the deal.
The statement didn’t appear to change access for Chinese companies to U.S. natural gas exports, but welcomed China to receive shipments and engage in long-term supply contracts with American suppliers. Ross said officials from Dow Chemical Co. gave assurances that increasing exports of natural gas wouldn’t harm the U.S. industry or consumers if sales remained less than 30 percent of total output.
“This will let China diversify, somewhat, their sources of supply and will provide a huge export market for
American LNG producers,” Ross told reporters at a White House briefing on Thursday, using an acronym for liquefied natural gas.
The agreements, which grew out of a 100-day action plan announced during an April meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, appeared to build on or repeat some commitments that China has already made. Still, they represented the first negotiated pact on trade for Trump, who campaigned on promises to get tough on China on trade before softening his tone as he’s sought cooperation on North Korea.
----China imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas picked up last year after Cheniere Energy Inc. launched the first in a wave of new plants designed to liquefy and export abundant U.S. shale gas. American supplies accounted for almost 7 percent of China’s total imports in March, customs data shows. Chinese companies already have long-term contracts with non-U.S. suppliers for more LNG than domestic demand requires through at least 2023, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
More
Mexico warns U.S. of alternatives on trade, points to China
Mexico
sent a stark message to U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, saying an
upcoming visit by Mexican officials to China showed Latin America's second
largest economy had other places to export to if he tore up the NAFTA trade
deal.
The North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) underpins Mexico's economy, prompting the
government to try and diversify away from the United States, which takes 80
percent of its exports.
Trump
indicated in an interview with The Economist published on Thursday that he
wanted to get the U.S.-Mexico trade deficit down to about zero. He wants to
renegotiate NAFTA to get a better deal for U.S. companies and workers, and has
threatened to end the agreement if he does not get his way.
"We
will use (the China visit) geopolitically as strategic leverage" said
Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, answering questions on trade at
the Mexico Business Forum. "It sends the signal that we have many
alternatives."
Guajardo
noted Mexico sends China a fraction of its total exports, and that the two
major manufacturing nations tend to compete rather than complement one another
on trade.
He also
offered a rebuke to China on its trade policy.
"We
all know that China is not a free trader, that's the reality," he said.
But he added that Mexico has had success persuading China to ease trade
barriers on some goods and expects it to continue to open up as its economy
matures.
The trip
to China would be in September, Guajardo said, but he did not provide details.
A Mexican
diplomat in Beijing told Reuters he was referring to the China International
Fair for Investment & Trade summit in Xiamen. "High-level contact is
very frequent," said the diplomat, who was not authorized to comment.
Guajardo
said he was also working on a "radical broadening" of preferred
tariffs with Brazil and Argentina to lower the cost of importing grains from
the South American nations while giving Mexico better access to their
manufacturing markets.
"If
NAFTA disappears, I can export cars (to the United States) paying 2.5 percent
tariffs. If they want to export yellow corn to me, I can raise tariffs to
inaccessible levels," Guajardo said. "But to make that strategy
credible, I have to broaden our agreements with Brazil and Argentina."
More
Mexican beef exporters look to Muslim markets as U.S. alternatives
Mexico's
growing beef industry is targeting Muslim consumers in the Middle East for its
prime cuts as it seeks to reduce dependence on buyers in the United States.
The
potential for a U.S.-Mexico trade war under President Donald Trump has
accelerated efforts by Mexican beef producers to explore alternative foreign
markets to the United States, which buys 94 percent of their exports worth
nearly $1.6 billion last year.
Trump has
vowed to redraw terms of trade with Mexico and Canada to the benefit of the
United States. Mexican beef companies fear they may be dragged into a
renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement between the three
countries.
That has
firms looking to the Middle East, where most meat is imported from non-Muslim
countries using animals slaughtered by the halal method prescribed by Islamic
law.
Mexico,
the world's sixth biggest beef producer, plans to quadruple exports of halal
beef to 44 million pounds (20,000 tonnes) by the end of 2018 from 11 million
pounds (5,000 tonnes) this year, according to data from the Mexican cattle
growers association AMEG.
The country
should have 15 plants certified to produce halal meat by the end of next year,
up from a current six, according to AMEG data.
Jesus
Vizcarra, chief executive and owner of SuKarne, Mexico's biggest beef exporter,
said his company sees big potential for sales to Muslim-majority countries.
"We
have to seek out more markets," he said in an interview, pointing to
near-term targets in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Lebanon.
"There's
an opportunity in these Middle Eastern countries," said Vizcarra, who is
known in Mexico as the King of Beef and has boasted of being born in a
slaughterhouse.
More
Mexico says called Trump's bluff when he eyed NAFTA exit
Mexico
said on Thursday it had called U.S. President Donald Trump's bluff over his
suggestion he only decided to stay in the North American Free Trade Agreement
as a favor to the leaders of Mexico and Canada after they asked him to
renegotiate the deal.
However,
Mexico's government said it had sent a very different message to the United
States during a crisis over NAFTA's future late last month, when Trump
considered starting the six-month process for withdrawing from the accord.
"The
message was: if you guys think we're going to start negotiations with the
trigger pulled on a U.S. exit in six months, forget about it!" Mexican
Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo told an audience at the Mexico Business
Forum.
"If
you do that, just get out already - because there's no way we're negotiating
under those conditions," he said.
Guajardo
said talk of the United States preparing to leave NAFTA was likely part of a
strategy to press Congress to approve Trump's pick for U.S. trade
representative.
While
Mexico and Canada helped change Trump's mind, so did members of his cabinet,
U.S. lawmakers and U.S. producers that would be hurt by a U.S. exit from NAFTA
- showing the limits to Trump's unilateral moves, the minister argued.
Guajardo
said the plan to trigger a U.S. withdrawal of NAFTA was done "in
desperation, which occurs very frequently these days in those parts" - an
apparent jab at the way Trump has rolled out some of his key policy proposals.
Mexico's
ties with the United States have been strained by Trump's repeated pledge to
dump NAFTA if he cannot secure better terms for U.S. workers and industry in a renegotiation.
More
China's Xi offers indebted Greece strong support
Chinese
President Xi Jinping offered the prime minister of deeply indebted Greece
strong support on Saturday, saying the two countries should expand cooperation
in infrastructure, energy and telecommunications.
Xi told
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that Greece was an important part in China's new
Silk Road strategy.
"At
present, China and Greece's traditional friendship and cooperation continues to
glow with new dynamism," China's Foreign Ministry cited Xi as saying.
Cooperation
in infrastructure, energy and telecommunications should be "deep and
solid", Xi added, without giving details.
Tsipras
is in Beijing to attend a summit to promote Xi's vision of expanding links
between Asia, Africa and
Europe underpinned by billions of dollars in
infrastructure investment called the Belt and Road initiative.
Greek
infrastructure development group Copelouzos has signed a deal with China's
Shenhua Group [SHGRP.UL] to cooperate in green energy projects and the upgrade
of power plants in Greece and other countries, the Greek company said on
Friday.
The deal
will involve total investment of 3 billion euros ($3.28 billion), Copelouzos
said in a statement, without providing further details.
China has
been investing heavily in Greece in recent years.
More
In
other news, the old certainties are collapsing, who can rely on anything, in
our new uncertain century. Gone is “women and children first,” welcome to
America First and “every man for himself.” Did America's NSA just hack Europe and Britain's NHS?
With a threat of 'tapes,' Trump tells ousted FBI chief not to talk to media
Donald
Trump warned ousted FBI Director James Comey on Friday not to talk to the
media, a highly unusual move that prompted fresh charges the president is
trying to silence the man who led an investigation into possible collusion
between Trump's election campaign and Russia.
On
Twitter, Trump appeared to suggest that if Comey gave his version of contacts between
them, the administration might produce tapes of conversations, although it was
not clear if such tapes exist. The veiled threat added to the storm over
Trump's abrupt firing of Comey on Tuesday.
Critics
have assailed Trump for dismissing the FBI chief just as the agency is
investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, and possible
Moscow ties to the Trump presidential campaign.
The New
York Times reported the president asked Comey in January to pledge loyalty to
him and that Comey refused to do so. Such a request would undermine the
standing of the FBI chief as an independent law enforcer and further fueled
charges that Trump has overstepped the norms of his office.
"James
Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he
starts leaking to the press!" Trump said in a string of Twitter posts on
Friday.
More
Hackers exploit stolen U.S. spy agency tool to launch global cyberattack
A global
cyberattack leveraging hacking tools widely believed by researchers to have
been developed by the U.S. National Security Agency hit international shipper
FedEx, disrupted Britain's health system and infected computers in nearly 100
countries on Friday.
Cyber
extortionists tricked victims into opening malicious malware attachments to
spam emails that appeared to contain invoices, job offers, security warnings
and other legitimate files.
The
ransomware encrypted data on the computers, demanding payments of $300 to $600
to restore access. Security researchers said they observed some victims paying
via the digital currency bitcoin, though they did not know what percent had
given in to the extortionists.
Researchers
with security software maker Avast said they had observed 57,000 infections in
99 countries with Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan the top targets.
The most
disruptive attacks were reported in Britain, where hospitals and clinics were
forced to turn away patients after losing access to computers.
International
shipper FedEx Corp said some of its Windows computers were also infected.
"We are implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible," it
said in a statement.
Still,
only a small number of U.S.-headquartered organizations were hit because the
hackers appear to have begun the campaign by targeting organizations in Europe,
said Vikram Thakur, research manager with security software maker Symantec.
By the
time they turned their attention to the United States, spam filters had
identified the new threat and flagged the ransomware-laden emails as malicious,
Thakur said.
More
We close
with different war news. Indonesia’s Moslems are declaring war on Indonesia’s
Christians, who mostly happen to be Chinese. Fiat money anyone?
Exclusive - Indonesian Islamist leader says ethnic Chinese wealth is next target
The
leader of a powerful Indonesian Islamist organisation that led the push to jail
Jakarta's Christian governor has laid out plans for a new, racially charged
campaign targeting economic inequality and foreign investment.
In a rare
interview, Bachtiar Nasir said the wealth of Indonesia's ethnic Chinese
minority was a problem and advocated an affirmative action programme for native
Indonesians, comments that could stoke tensions already running high in the
world's largest Muslim-majority nation.
"It
seems they do not become more generous, more fair," the cleric said,
referring to Chinese Indonesians, in the interview in an Islamic centre in
South Jakarta. "That's the biggest problem.”
Ethnic
Chinese make up less than 5 percent of Indonesia's population, but they control
many of its large conglomerates and much of its wealth.
Nasir
also said also that foreign investment, especially investment from China, has
not helped Indonesians in general.
Indonesia,
Southeast Asia's biggest economy, is a major destination for foreign investment
in the mining and retail sectors. Jakarta is also trying to lure investors for
a $450 billion infrastructure drive to revive economic growth.
"Our
next job is economic sovereignty, economic inequality," said Nasir, an
influential figure who chairs the National Movement to Safeguard the Fatwas of
the Indonesian Ulemas Council (GNPF-MUI). "The state should ensure that it
does not sell Indonesia to foreigners, especially China."
His group
organised protests by hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Jakarta late last
year over a comment about the Koran made by the capital's governor, Basuki
Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic-Chinese Christian.
Purnama
was found guilty this week of blasphemy and sentenced to two years in prison,
raising concerns that belligerent hardline Islamists are a growing threat to
racial and religious harmony in this secular state.
more
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible
at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
"All safe deposit boxes in banks
or financial institutions have been sealed... and may only be opened in the
presence of an agent of the I.R.S."
President F.D. Roosevelt, 1933
No comments:
Post a Comment