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By Tim Nerozzi

President Trump offered a patriotic solution to Apple’s complaint that his proposed new tariffs against China would raise the cost of iPhones and other popular products in manufactures there.

The Tweet:

What It Means:

Trump was responding to an open letter from Apple published on Sept. 7 that criticized and critiqued the roughly $200 billion in new tariffs on Chinese goods and imports the president is proposing to punish China for unfair trade practices.

Apple’s letter warned the tariffs would negatively affect American businesses, claiming that “the burden of the proposed tariffs will fall much more heavily on the United States than on China.”

It also stated: “Tariffs increase the cost of our U.S. operations, divert our resources, and disadvantage Apple compared to foreign competitors,” said Apple. “More broadly, tariffs will lead to higher U.S. consumer prices, lower overall U.S. economic growth, and other unintended economic consequences.”

But, a note from Apple a day won’t keep tariffs away. Trump is committed to the policy.

Why It Matters:

Apple is only the latest in a series of companies that Trump has slammed for foreign manufacturing and opposition to the White House’s slate of new tariffs aimed not just at China but a wide range of allies, including Canada and many western Europe nations.

In June Trump blasted Harley Davidson for announcing plans to open factories in Europe to manufacture products for the European markets. The iconic motorcycle brand cited retaliatory tariffs as the main reason for the move.

“I fought hard for them and ultimately they will not pay tariffs selling into the E.U., which has hurt us badly on trade, down $151 Billion. Taxes just a Harley excuse – be patient!” Trump Tweeted after the announcement.

Other trade groups have urged the White House to reconsider their policies, including the United States Chamber of Commerce. However, Trump seems set on following through with the “Make America Great Again” agenda he promised voters in 2016.

What People Are Saying:

Apple CEO Tim Cook may oppose the new tariffs but he has also been outspoken in his support for American jobs and manufacturing in the United States – raising the possibility that Trump’s pressure might produce results for American workers.

“We know that Apple could only have been created in the United States. We know that. This company would not have flourished in any other country in the world,” Cook said in an interview with MSNBC earlier this year. “We love this country. We are patriots. This is our country and we want to create as many jobs as we can in the U.S. We don’t need any political pressure for that.”

“There are components of iPhone built in the United States. The glass is from Kentucky, their mini chips – silicon chips – that are all made from all over the United States,” Cook said. “There’s equipment that goes into manufacturing that’s all over the U.S. The very sophisticated face I.D. module on the iPhone X will be made in the United States.”

Others defended the Presidents policy. Jin Lan McCann, a Chinese immigrant to the United States who has written about her native country’s history and culture, wrote :

Bayer Beware: Lawyers Claim To Have “Explosive” Monsanto Documents

Deep State Using Discredit Strategy to Drive Trump from Office to What End?

QUESTION: With Bob Woodward joining the plot to overthrow Trump, do you think he can survive?

KA

ANSWER: No. Woodward says he recorded all his interviews. I do not see him as just making this up with a personal opinion. That does not say what he has been told is true. It is unlikely that what Woodward was told the truth or that this is not somehow connected to other efforts and is wholly independent. Woodward may be a pawn in a larger game here to overthrow Trump. As said before, the prevailing view behind the curtain was that Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA because he would not authorize a Vietnam War. When the Soviet Union fell, files became available. A memo from December 1st, 1966 reported that they believed there was a plot to assassinate Kennedy from within the U.S. government. Many people saw the Warren Report as a cover-up. To remove Trump, I seriously doubt they would take that approach. That means the only way to remove Trump is to discredit him to such an extent that they can somehow justify invoking the 25th Amendment for they might not be able to even prove a case in a public trial in the Senate for impeachment given that Trump would probably press all the way.

If we assume what Woodward was told was exaggeration or lies to turn him into an unwitting pawn in this chess game, then with the New York Times publishing the anonymous Op_Ed (Extremely unusual), seems to be connecting the dots that there is really a very serious coup to overthrow Trump taking place behind the curtain. Perhaps they will try to put together a case that he should just resign or be replaced under the 25th Amendment since there is no proof of a conspiracy with Putin.

The Kennedy assassination cleared the way for the Vietnam War. Is the Deep State trying so hard to remove Trump to launch a war with Russia? That is appearing more and more the drive behind this strange internal coup against Trump. You have to also understand that Trump is an outsider, but the people who took positions in the White House were career bureaucrats. I even knew some who went for interviews for key roles so I am not making speculation or an opinion. I even spoke to people who were interviewed to work in the White House.

We have not seen such political intrigue since the Civil War. Ironically, despite calling Trump a racist, the only President who inspired such violence and hatred on the same level as Trump was Abraham Lincoln who was not merely an outsider, but he was someone intent on changing the economic structure of government. Lincoln also faced a deep swamp of political intrigue and corruption and plots to assassinate him.

The issues between Trump and Lincoln are not the same on the surface. Of there will immediate be people that get angry at that statement and say Lincon was the emancipator. For the slogans. You need to pick up the rug and look closer. Did the South just want to oppress blacks or was there money at stake? What is the same between Trump and Lincoln is that both wanted to change the system for different reasons.

There is nothing that Trump has done that would threaten national security. This plot against Trump in part is about keeping the trade agreements in place for you will find too many hidden links to people who like things as they are. There are American manufacturers who do not want to bring jobs back because of pensions and healthcare benefits are far too disruptive and costly. This contributes to the trend for replacing pension hungry union workers with robots.

In the case of Lincoln, there were so many death threats against him they stopped counting. Ending slavery would ALSO drive the cost of labor higher in the South. The security concerns with Lincoln led to the hiring of a detective who could pose as a Southerner to infiltrate the conspiracy that was developing to kill Lincoln before he was sworn in on his way to Washington. That man was Allan Pinkerton who wrote that “opposition to Mr. Loncoln’s inauguration was most violent and bitter.” The South looked at ending slavery from an economic perspective not so different than companies who do not want to bring overseas jobs back to America for similar reasons today.

In Brazil, the man leading the Pools they call the Trump of Brazil. They just attempted an assassination to stop him from changing the system. Jair Bolsonarowill survive, but he was the leading candidate in Brazil’s presidential elections. He was stabbed during a campaign rally last week. There are many people who are beginning to emerge around the world who have been inspired by Trump to upset the establisment. Taking down Trump may also have an important message to others who think they can change the system.

I do not know how, but it seems I strangely end up knowing so many people in all the key places. Trump would not agree to such a move to wage war on Russia. The meeting of Trump Jr with the Russians at Trump Tower was a rouse promising dirt on Hillary. The main purpose was to inform Trump that there were Americans who interfered in the Russian 2000 elections and tried to blackmail Yeltsin after convincing him to steal money from the IMF loans.

The New York Times reported: “Prosecutors with the United States attorneys’ offices in Manhattan and Brooklyn noted that the money laundering scheme at the Bank of New York involved unlicensed transmissions of about $7 billion that originated in Russia, passed through American accounts, and then moved into other accounts worldwide.” They further reported that the money was the result of “possible corruption among Russia’s business elite and officials of the Kremlin.” (NY Times, 

Deutsche Bank issued a message to the nearly 300 correspondent banks in September 1999 within its system to stop processing dollar-denominated transactions from the three Pacific jurisdictions. Republic National Bank, Bankers Trust and the Bank of New York. Edmond Safra of Republic National Bank was in league with the U.S. government to move billions of dollars in US currency notes on skids to Russia by the planeload. Clearly, the U.S. government was involved in this scheme to that extent (see Money Plane).

The entire scandal emerged after Republic National Bank filed a suspicious money laundering allegation against Bank of New York with the Federal Reserve (see Forbes May 17, 2007). It was Edmond Safra who was the major shareholder of Hermitage Capital that is the center of the entire Russian Scandal involving the Magnitsky Act, whichever stranger was sponsored by John McCain, who was also one of the Keating Five scandals back in the S&L Crisis. The Magnitsky Actdocumentary has been completely removed from the Internet and banned in the USA as well as Europe. Why if it was not true?

Now, to further all of these coincidences, one of the lawyers involved in the Trump Tower meeting was Scott Balber, who also worked on my case.  Who was the US Attorney on my case? James Comey. Now to really make it interesting, during April 2000 there was a Reverse Proffer session between me and the prosecutor Richard Owens. Owens had the audacity to say we know you didn’t steal any money but we won’t drop the charges. We will release you if you just plead to a conspiracy with Edmond Safra. Since the only way to get $1 billion out of a bank is to write a check or wire the money out, I said no shit!. I then said there was no way I would agree to say I was in league with a conspiracy with Safra and the New York bankers. I laid the whole thing out about the attempt to blackmail Yeltsin and why they could not get past the Miniter of Interior of Russia to trace the money. I said absolutely no way I would put my family at risk saying I had anything to do with Safra.  They would not go to trial fearing what I knew and they would not drop the charges and admit they made a mistake. So until I got into the Supreme Court, it became just a Mexican standoff.

CNN had even confirmed that the money was stolen from the IMF and later that was completely dropped and they pretended the money was a ransom for a Russian businessman.

CNN Russian money laundering probe widens – Aug. 26, 1999

CNN Theft of IMF Money – Sep. 1, 1999

CNN BNY dismisses second exec in fraud case – Sep. 2, 1999

Implosion of China’s P2P Lending Boom Hits Consumer Spending

by Wolf Richter • Sep 9, 2018 • 7 Comments

First sign: auto sales suddenly plunged.

The Chinese government legalized peer-to-peer lending platforms in 2015. P2P sites attract money from individual investors – mostly savers – by offering them extraordinarily high yields. They lend this money at high interest rates to borrowers who have trouble getting loans elsewhere – classic subprime. By the end of 2017, there were over 8,000 P2P platforms, according to the People’s Bank of China, with over 50 million registered users. By the end of June, in a little over two years, the industry had gone from zero to $190 billion in outstanding loans.

That was the peak. But the fun didn’t last long. Borrowers defaulted on their loans or just absconded with the money, and the platforms began collapsing. In May this year, regulators stepped in. By the end of July, 4,740 P2P lenders had collapsed or where shut down.

Left holding the bag were millions of investors – mostly these savers who’d tried to make a better return on their savings in this newfangled risk-free manner. Suddenly, regulators told them that they should be prepared to lose their entire investments in these products.

The situation continued to follow the Chinese script. The savers started protesting in the streets. “P2P refugees,” as they called themselves, headed for Beijing Financial Street, where the People’s Bank of China has one of its buildings, and where most regulatory agencies are located. They were met by a large contingent of police.

Social unrest and display of public anger that might get out of hand being the greatest fear of the Chinese government, it was time for a bailout – particularly after the government-ballyhooed stock market collapsed for the second time in 2015 and remains collapsed to this day.

At the end of August, China Cinda Asset Management, one of China’s four big state-owned bad-debt managers, confirmed a previously rumored meeting with the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and said it would “proactively” help the government deal with the P2P fiasco.

Cinda and the other three big asset management companies – China Huarong, Great Wall, and China Orient – were established by the government in 1999, with funds from the PBOC, to buy a huge load of bad loans from the big four banks following the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. These asset managers were supposed to liquidate these assets and then cease to exist, but now they’re bigger than ever and have become conglomerates, stuffed with distressed assets and scandal-tainted companies.

“P2P risks are a social issue of great concern in China,” Chen Yanqing, assistant to the Cinda’s  president, told reporters, according to the South China Morning Post. “As a professional company managing bad debt, we will proactively take part in tackling relevant risks and help the government address the issue,” he said, adding, “The regulators wanted to draw on our past experience about addressing bad debt risks.”

Cinda’s chairman, Zhang Ziai, said Cinda would use “investment banking thinking” in dealing with this bad debt, such as restructuring, liquidation, and debt-for-equity swaps.

Whatever happens to the savers whose money disappeared is one side of the P2P-implosion. The other side: Consumers who borrowed via the P2P system and spent this money. Suddenly these doors are closed. And this has now shown up in a plunge in auto sales that has totally surprised the industry.

Investment bank Stanford C. Bernstein, cited by the Automotive News China, estimated that P2P loans in 2017 had contributed about 9% to total new-vehicle sales.

Shanghai-based Shenwanhongyuan Securities, also cited by Automotive News China, estimated that P2P lenders had contributed about 10% to 15% to new-vehicle sales.

Whatever the exact percentages, P2P loans had become in important driver in new-vehicle sales. But the sudden implosion of the industry and the government crackdown have brought this lending activity to a near-halt – and these often-young borrowers might not be able to borrow elsewhere.

This might explain the sudden drop of auto sales in July.

In May, new vehicle sales still surged 7.9% from a year ago. Through the first five months of the year, sales were up 5.1%. But in June, the year-over-year sales increase eased to 2.3%. And in July, sales actually fell 5.3% year-over-year.

The July sales decline was driven by an inexplicable 8% drop in the previously hot demand for crossovers and SUVs.

August sales numbers will come out shortly and should shed more light on the impact of the collapse of P2P lending.

That 5.3% decline in July was a big, sudden, and unexpected swing from the 7.9% surge in May. The industry, which is still struggling to explain it, has come up with all kinds of explanations. But Automotive News China managing editor Yang Jian writes:

The sharp cutback in lending provides a more convincing explanation for the sudden softening of new-car demand in China than other factors typically cited by analysts, such as a slowdown in economic growth and the escalating trade war with the U.S.

In the second quarter, China’s GDP growth slowed to 6.7% from 6.8% in the first quarter. On July 6, the Trump administration imposed an additional tariff of 25% on Chinese goods worth $50 billion. It’s true both factors might have affected China’s new-vehicle sales to some extent, but not so soon and so dramatically as Beijing’s crackdown on P2P lending platforms.

The sudden flood of loosey-goosey lending by P2P platforms to consumers, particularly to young consumers with subprime-type credit records, that commenced in 2015 and suddenly ground to a halt this year wasn’t only spent on new vehicles. It was spent on all kinds of consumer goods. With that source of risky debt drying up, the spending that had been funded by this debt is taking the hit. And savers who’re losing their life savings on their P2P investments are probably not encouraged by their losses to spend even more.

An entire generation on Wall Street has never seen Treasury yields this high. Read…  These “Gradual” Rate Hikes Start to Add Up: US Treasury Yields up to Three Years Hit 10-Year Highs

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