Month: November 2018

A new poll this week showed more than 70% of U.S. firms operating in Southern China are considering delaying further investment in the country and are moving manufacturing facilities to other countries as the trade war deepens, said Reuters.

According to the poll by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China, which surveyed over 200 companies, U.S. firms operating in China warned – they are experiencing extreme difficulties from trade disputes than firms from other countries.

64% of the companies said they were planning to relocate supply chains outside of China, but only 1% said they would consider establishing manufacturing bases in North America.

“While more than 70% of the U.S. companies are considering delaying or canceling investment in China, and relocation of some or all manufacturing out of China, only half of their Chinese counterparts share the same consideration,” the AmCham report said.

As the trade war deepens, supply chains in China are being forced to shift to Southeast Asia, the survey found.

U.S. firms reported that trade wars have increased competition from rivals in Vietnam, Germany, and Japan; while Chinese companies said they faced increased competition from Vietnam, India, the U.S., and South Korea.

Harley Seyedin, president of AmCham South China, told Reuters that customers are slowing down orders or not placing them at all. An ominous sign that global growth is now waning and a possible worldwide recession could be near.

“It could very well be that people are holding back on placing orders until times are more certain or it could very well be that they are shifting to other competitors who are willing to offer cheaper products, even sometimes at a loss, in order to get market share,” he said.

“One of the most difficult things about market share is once you lose it, it is very hard to get back.”

The survey found that wholesale and retail sectors have suffered the most from U.S. tariffs, while Chinese retaliatory duties have punished agriculture-related businesses. 

The survey was conducted between Sept. 21 and Oct. 10, shortly after the Trump administration slapped another $200 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese goods. Beijing then retaliated with additional tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. products, with risks of a full-blown trade war in 2019.

Nearly 85% of U.S. firms said they have suffered from the combined tariffs, compared with just 70% of their Chinese counterparts.

One of the biggest concerns from all respondents was the rising cost of goods sold, which resulted in declining profits.

“One-third of companies estimated the trade dispute had reduced business volumes ranging from $1 million to $50 million, while nearly one in 10 manufacturers reported high-volume business losses of $250 million or more,” said Reuters.

The survey also found evidence that export-heavy Chinese cities and provinces have entered into an economic slowdown because of the trade war.

Guangdong, China’s largest province by gross domestic product, reported a drop in exports in the first eight months from a year earlier.

While the trade war is causing supply chain disruptions and leading to waning global growth momentum, it seems global stock markets have caught wind of the danger.

The selloff in October could finish as the worst month for MSCI’s all-country index in seven years — with declines now exceeding 15%.

The global bear market is now spreading, from China to broader emerging markets to European autos and banks and almost 65% constituent stocks of MSCI’s all-country world index. Even the FANG+TM index of U.S. and world tech stocks joined the bearish party.

$8 trillion has been already wiped off of global stocks as the threat of a full-blown trade war increases for 2019. This also comes at a time when the Federal Reserve and ECB show no sign of reversing their tightening programs and China stimulus is not working. Storm clouds are gathering.

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Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Some political observers in the United States are saying that next week’s midterm voting for seats in the Senate and House of Representatives as well as a number of governorships is the most important national election since those in 1968 and 1980.

The 1968 voting saw a “law and order” Richard Nixon win the presidency in a rebuke to Lyndon Johnson’s “soft” handling of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements while Ronald Reagan won in 1980 at a time of economic turmoil, in part running on a similar “get-tough” platform to replace the seemingly hapless and indecisive Jimmy Carter.

In both 1968 and 1980 the election produced a decisive turn in direction by government, leading eventually to an end of the Vietnam War by Nixon and a more assertive foreign policy by Reagan. Though the upcoming election is midterm rather than a presidential, those who are seeing it as important hope that flipping control of the two houses of congress will check President Donald Trump and force him to change course in a number of areas.

The election is, in fact, an accountability moment for Trump’s policies as seen by the American public. If there is a blue wave in congress and in the governorships, Trump will inevitably have to take notice and his impeachment becomes a real possibility.

But will that happen? The lead-up to the 2018 midterm election is playing out very much like the 2016 presidential election. In both cases the punditry and media have been promising an easy win for the Democrats, but winning will require selling something to voters that is more than just hatred of Trump.

Unfortunately for them, the Democrats are largely clueless on issues that matter to voters and continue to be a party that reactively “blames the Russians” while preaching “diversity” as if it were a solution to what ails the country.

They studiously ignore the fact that opinion polling suggests that there are two issues that really concern Americans.

Top of the list is health care. Anyone who actually pays for health insurance out of his or her own pocket will no doubt observe how healthcare costs have skyrocketed under Obamacare to the point where insurance is available but unaffordable, with premiums that in many cases have trebled per month over the past four years. The real damage to affordable health care in America has been done by the Democrats and those who are personally paying for insurance know that.

Since the Republicans do not have a health care plan but are resolved to repeal Obamacare, they win on the issue with voters.

The second most important issue is immigration, both legal exploitation of existing loopholes in the system and illegals. The legal immigration problem includes birthright citizenship, when foreigners come to the U.S. to deliver babies who automatically become American citizens. Trump has indicated he will ban the practice by executive order.

Legal immigration problems also include those who are allowed to get green cards legally and then proceed to bring their entire families over including cousins and relatives by marriage. That was not the intent of the 1965 legislation. In fact, chain immigration was dismissed as a possible consequence of the law, with President Lyndon Johnson and Democratic congressmen including Senator Ted Kennedy assuring the public that it would not occur. Of course, they were wrong. Or they were lying. They were also Democrats.

The Democratic solution to the problem of illegal immigration is, apparently, to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), giving the United States open borders. Even given the fact that the horrible mess in Central America is the result of Washington’s meddling in its countries for the past 100 years, that does not necessarily mean the solution is an open doors policy that will drastically change America. Bringing in thousands or even millions of uneducated and unskilled migrants who do not speak English and then requiring local governments to educate, house and feed them is a recipe for disaster. Indeed, it has already proven to be just that for many communities, with standards declining and neighborhoods in decay.

There is considerable suspicion that the current mass migration from Central America is being organized and funded by Democrat George Soros to coincide with the election, and it only angers the voters who remember a time when local communities were safe places where everyone knew their neighbors and worked hard to get along. Today the social justice warriors, like Soros and other leading Democrats, have made a sense of community a crime because it does not invite enough diversity.

If one compares how the two parties stand on immigration, the Republicans win easily as they are pledged to stop the illegals and reduce the number of currently legal immigrants. It is a major issue for voters and the Democrats are predictably on the wrong side of it, just as they are with health care.

And the Democrats are also tactically inept. Having the widely despised Clintons and Obama out campaigning for Democratic candidates will surely encourage nervous Republicans to get out to vote. So, on balance, the GOP could do very well next week with issues-focused voters and might retain its advantage in both houses of congress.

If that is so, the complaining from the Democrats will start immediately. Will their failure be blamed on the Russians again this time? 

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Mossad has claimed responsibility for tipping off Danish authorities after they thwarted an alleged terror plot by Tehran to assassinate three opposition figures living in Denmark, according to a senior Israeli intelligence official quoted in the Times of Israel.

This comes days after it was revealed this week that a Norwegian citizen of Iranian background was arrested in Sweden on Oct. 21 in connection with the plot and extradited to Denmark. The head of Danish intelligence announced on Tuesday that the assassination was meant to target the leader of the Danish branch of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA) which seeks a separate state for ethnic Arabs in Iran’s oil-producing southwestern province of Khuzestan.

Israeli officials now say European authorities were tipped off by its elite foreign intelligence service, according to the Times of Israel report: 

The information about Israel’s involvement in the thwarting of the plot was first released to a small number of journalists by a “senior official,” but was later confirmed by others.

According to Israel, the Mossad gave Denmark the information about the Iranian plot to kill three Iranians suspected of belonging to the anti-regime Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz.

The suspect in custody has denied the charges, which have also been slammed by Tehran as a “false flag attempt” to frame Iran and further tarnish its reputation and global standing.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif  issued the following statement via Twitter on Wednesday: “Mossad’s perverse & stubborn planting of false flags (more on this later) only strengthens our resolve to engage constructively with the world,” he wrote. 

Though neither Denmark nor Sweden where the suspect was apprehended would confirm whether they had assistance from Mossad, Danish intelligence chief Finn Borch Andersen said at a press conference, “We are dealing with an Iranian intelligence agency planning an attack on Danish soil,” and said further, “Obviously, we can’t and won’t accept that.”

However, Iranian FM Zarif followed his tweet alleging a Mossad orchestrated false flag with a chronology of events he said suggests a “Mossad program to kill the JCPOA”:

Incredible series of coincidences. Or, a simple chronology of a MOSSAD program to kill the JCPOA? pic.twitter.com/Xg5e0C5DAA

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) November 1, 2018

During another press conference by European authorities involving Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen, he said that Denmark believes the Iranian government was behind the attempted attack, and that the Danish ambassador has been recalled from Iran. Samuelsen also said that Denmark will push for EU-wide sanctions against Iran in light of the attempted assassination.

During the conference, Samuelsen also said evidence presented to him by Danish intelligence leaves “no doubt” Iran’s government was behind the plan, and said that behavior by Iranian intelligence was not restricted to Denmark, causing alarm across several European nations. At the same time, Samuelsen said that Denmark doesn’t want the EU to withdraw from nuclear deal, a pact which is “in our best interests” and yet it wasn’t clear how it could co-exist with a new round of EU sanctions against Tehran.

Meanwhile these latest accusations of Iranian assassination plots in Europe follow prior revelations of a separate suspected Iranian plot to target a Paris rally by an opposition group in June, which led to the arrest of a number of Iranians in Europe over the summer. 

President Trump had referenced the summer incident and others to bolster his case that European countries should follow Washington’s lead in pulling out of the 2015 nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions, most of which are set to kick back into effect next week, on November 5th. 

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Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Middle-class families, which used to be the backbone of the United States economy are becoming poorer. Despite the constant bombardment of news of a “healthy economy,” 62% of middle-class families struggle to afford a basic middle-class lifestyle.

Even though the unemployment rate that has reached a 50-year low of 3.7 percent, most jobs across the U.S. don’t support a middle-class or better lifestyle, leaving many Americans struggling, according to a new study. When factoring in both wages and the cost of living in the metro area where the job is located, 62% struggle to provide a middle-class lifestyle according to the study by Third Way, a think tank that leans center-left on the political spectrum.

“There’s an opportunity crisis in the country,” says Jim Kessler, vice president of policy for Third Way and editor of the report.

“It explains some of the economic uneasiness and, frankly, the political uneasiness” even amid the most robust U.S. economy and labor market since before the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009.

But is the economy robust? Or are we being fed a line by the mainstream media? The middle class is not thriving, and increased regulations and higher taxes make it difficult for people to branch out on their own and create their own business.

“I’m frustrated with the fact that I’m not going to be able to save anything because my rent is so high,” says Esther Akutekha, who says she’s 30ish and pays $1440 per month to rent an apartment. Akutekha is a public relations specialist and her job pays more than $50,000 a year, but she’s still struggling. “I don’t even know if I can afford” to have children,” she added according to USA Today.

A slight majority of Americans, 52 percent, do live in middle-class households, according to recent annual reports by Pew Research Center. And another 20 percent or so live in upper-income households. But that’s because they’re juggling multiple jobs, for example, or relying on investments, an inheritance or other household members who may have higher-paying jobs. –USA Today

The findings of this new report highlight how scarce opportunity has become in the modern economy. Less than half of available jobs will offer a middle-class or better lifestyle. According to Third Way, to put this another way, only 38% of jobs pay more than the equivalent of $44,066 per year in the median cost of living region in the country.

The report also made comparisons based on housing costs in certain cities. For example:

A machinist in Cedar Rapids makes on average $45,470, well short of the $57,220 the same job pays in San Francisco. But the lower paid Cedar Rapids machinist is leading a middle-class life while their San Francisco counterpart falls well short. Same job; different life. –Third Way

But the dwindling middle class is nothing new. The results from Third Way‘s model indicate that the opportunity to earn a good living is scarce throughout the United States and it will no doubt only continue to worsen.

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After their leaders pledged to strengthen bilateral trade and military cooperation at a bilateral summit last month, Russia and India announced earlier this week that they had sealed a long-discussed $6 billion arms deal despite threats of economic sanctions from Washington. And in the latest indication of the increasingly close relationship between the two countries, Iran, Russia and Iran announced on Thursday that they would meet next month to work out the details of a massive project to open up a new sea-land transport corridor that would that would be a cheaper and shorter alternative to shipping oil and other goods through the Suez Canal.

According to RT, the North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), the name for the new transit route, will connect India to Russia and Europe via a combination of sea routes and an overland passage through Iran, according to Iranian state-owned news outlet Press TV. The 7,200-kilometers long corridor will reduce the time and costs of shipping by up to 40%. Transport time between Mumbai and Moscow will fall to 20 days. The annual capacity of the transport artery is expected to reach 30 million tons.

Indian logistics companies presently need to route shipments through China, Europe or Iran to access Central Asian markets. Already, routing shipments through Iran is the least time-consuming option. But the INSTC will have the ancillary benefit of allowing Indian companies to forge a new trade route to Afghanistan without having to travel through Pakistan, as tensions over Kashmir are once again on the rise. The passage corridor through the Persian Gulf will mean billions of dollars in trade for Afghanistan, cutting its dependence on foreign logistics.

Russia to build world’s northernmost railway in Arctic https://t.co/wC7jxZ1jB5 pic.twitter.com/nFMpZP4qIO

— RT (@RT_com) October 30, 2018

Already, India has committed $500 million for developing the Iranian port of Chabahar, which will be a crucial transshipment point for transitioning cargo from sea to land. What’s more, the arrangement has the blessing of China, which could potentially incorporate the passage into its multi-trillion-dollar ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative to build new trade routes connecting China to Europe, Asia and Africa. 

Indian officials said they’re hoping to start building out the infrastructure required for the route to function as swiftly as possible.

“All issues may be resolved in order to operationalize the (INSTC) route as early as possible,” according to Indian Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu, as quoted by the media.

The alliance of these four countries should unnerve the US. As it stands, the rise in bilateral trade denominated in rubles, yuan and rupees, while modest so far, is set to grow, with plans to eventually undermine the dollar’s hegemonic grip on global trade settlement. And with US sanctions on Iran set to take effect on Nov. 4, the Iranian regime only stands to benefit by encouraging the blooming economic partnership between Russia and India, as Russia implements its plan to circumvent the dollar, and, by extension, Treasury Department sanctions.

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Authored by Rob Shimshock via Campus Reform,

A Dartmouth professor argued on Tuesday that “if we don’t abolish capitalism, capitalism will abolish us.”

Dartmouth College lecturer Mark Bray made the remark in an op-ed for Truthout, titled “How Capitalism Stokes the Far Right and Climate Catastrophe.”

“We are on a deadline,” Bray says.

“Lesser-evilism among capitalist politicians may have some rationale when spending five minutes casting a ballot on Election Day, but we don’t have time for it to be a guiding strategical outlook. We need to organize movements to build popular power and shut down the industries that threaten our existence.“

“Fascism is ascendant,” the Ivy League professor continues.

“The world is on fire. This is no time to be patient. If we don’t abolish capitalism, capitalism will abolish us.”

Bray claims that the far right advocates for environmentally destructive policies, alleging that the faction prioritizes interests of certain groups over those of the entire planet, but takes his argument a step further by blaming capitalism.

“We must recognize that the climate crisis and the resurgence of the far right are two of the most acute symptoms of our failure to abolish capitalism,” the scholar asserts.

“A capitalist system that prioritizes profit and perpetual growth over all else is the mortal enemy of global aspirations for a sustainable economy that satisfies needs rather than stock portfolios.”

Bray’s faculty profile lists the Dartmouth lecturer as an associated visiting scholar of the school’s Gender Research Institute. It also describes him as “a historian of human rights, terrorism, and political radicalism in Modern Europe.” But Bray seems to have done more than just document issues of radicalism.

The professor donated half of the profits from his book “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” to Antifa.

He has also authored the introduction to an Antifa comic book and in a tweet displaying photos of what he suggested were Antifa flags made by kids at a summer camp, said “super rad!”

Campus Reform contacted Bray, asking him what his preferred alternative to capitalism would be among other questions, but the professor did not comment in time for press.

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Earlier this week, first China’s official PMI and then the small-company focused Caixin PMI report confirmed that while China’s economy was slowing, it had yet to contract, as the (famously goalseeked) indices printed just above the 50-level which separates expansion from contraction.

Not so according to a third, and more objective measurements of Chinese manufacturing. According to an index based on satellite imagery, China’s manufacturing output contracted in October, refuting the official narrative of modest but persistent expansion.

The China Satellite Manufacturing Index compiled by the U.S.-based firm SpaceKnow, which uses satellite imagery to track activity levels across thousands of industrial sites, slipped below 50 in October for the first time since June 2017 according to Bloomberg. As with the official purchasing managers index, 50 is the dividing line between expansion and contraction.

As we discussed earlier this week, Chinese manufacturers – long the growth dynamo of China’s economy – have come under increased pressure from the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China. Trump has warned he will expand tariffs to cover all imported Chinese goods if Chinese President Xi Jinping does not accede to U.S. demands when the two leaders meet in November at a Group of 20 summit in Argentina, although as Trump tweeted earlier today, he “had a long and very good conversation with President Xi Jinping of China. We talked about many subjects, with a heavy emphasis on Trade. Those discussions are moving along nicely.” The tweet sparked a broad market rally, as the Trump administration’s latest attempt to talk up the market into the midterms has worked for the time being.

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As investors have continued to shy away from both conventional investment grade and high yield debt, interest in leveraged loans has exploded in recent years – a result of their floating rate interest which keeps up with rising Fed Fund rates within a largely unregulated industry in which non-bank entities (such as hedge funds) are among the main lenders – and as a result the size of the leveraged loan market recently crossed a historic milestone, surpassing the size of the entire US junk bond market.

In the process, numerous warnings have been sounded about this frothy growth in the leveraged loan space, from such luminaries as Howard Marks, Scott Minerd and Daniel Tarullo, to the Bank of International Settlements, and the Fed itself.

And investors have noticed.

According to IHS Markit, the short interest in the Invesco Senior Loan ETF, the largest vehicle backed by leveraged loan debt, has hit a record high with borrowed shares surging to 32 million.

And, as Bloomberg notes, the rush to bet against the fund, ticker BKLN, has been so aggressive that 88% of shares available to lend from institutions have already been claimed, according to IHS Markit director Samuel Pierson. “While the ETF is still easy to borrow, there will be some friction soon if demand continues to rise” from short-sellers, said Pierson.

Why short the ETF? Simple: since it is virtually impossible to borrow the loans that underline the fund, short-sellers are forced to use the ETF, Pierson said, although he noted that it’s unclear whether the positions are outright shorts, a hedge against specific loan exposures or part of an arbitrage strategy.

Meanwhile, as the bears assault the ETF with a barrage of new shorts, the long are scrambling: in the week ending Oct. 25, investors pulled a record amount of cash from the $6.6 billion fund.

The growing backlash against what Bloomberg dubs “one of 2018’s hottest investments and go-to financing route for junk-rated companies” has been mounting in recent weeks, amid rising fears – echoed by the Fed itself in its most recent minutes – that the relentless demand from Wall Street’s CLO machine and other yield-starved investors who have shifted out of fixed-coupon debt and into floating, has given rise to irresponsible lending practices.

To Peter Tchir, head of macro strategy at Academy Securities, leveraged loans may be the first domino to fall when the business cycle turns.

“They tend to be less transparent and have weaker price discovery,” he said. “You can watch high yield as much as you want, but if there is a credit problem, the epicenter will be the leveraged loan market.”

Others are just as concerned: in his September memo to clients, Oaktree’s co-chairman Howard Marks observed that “hrowth has been in levered loans, not high-yield bonds,” adding that “the risk level has risen in loans while remaining stable in high yield bonds.” Some other big picture observations from his memo:

• Total leveraged debt outstanding (high yield bonds and leveraged loans) is now $2.5 trillion, exactly double the amount in 2007.  Leveraged loans have risen from $500 billion in 2008 to almost $1.1 trillion today. 
• Most of this growth has been in levered loans, not high yield bonds.  Whereas the amount of high yield bonds outstanding is roughly unchanged from the end of 2013, leveraged loans are up $400 billion. In the process, we think the risk level has risen in loans while remaining stable in high yield bonds.  These trends in loans are due in large part to strong demand from new Collateralized Loan Obligations and other investors seeking floating-rate returns.
• “Some $104.6 billion of new [leveraged] loans were made in May, according to Moody’s Investors Service, topping a previous record of $91.4 billion set in January 2017, and the pre-crisis high of $81.8 billion in November 2007.” 
• The average debt multiple of EBITDA on large corporate loans is just above the previous high set in 2007; the average multiple on large LBO loans is just below the 2007 high; and the average multiple on middle market loans is at a clear all-time high.
• $375 billion of covenant-lite loans were issued in 2017 (75% of total leveraged loan issuance), up from $97 billion (and 29% of total issuance) in 2007. 

Guggenheim’s Chief Investment Officer, Scott Minerd, is just as gloomy: when asked during a recent interview with Goldman Sachs what aspect of capital markets he is most worried about, and whether he is worried by the growth of non-bank lending, he had a simple answer: leveraged loans.

Fifteen years ago, around 80% of all syndicated loans remained on bank balance sheets through a “pro-rata” tranche that was a revolving credit line or an amortizing term loan; now, 70-80% of syndicated bank loans are outside of the banking system, meaning that the pro-rata tranche is much smaller in comparison to the institutional loan tranche that is distributed among non-bank lenders. We’ve also seen estimates that the private debt market has grown to around $400bn to $700bn in size—larger than the size of the bank loan market in 2007. That has made it harder to trace credit risk and maintain credit standards.

Meanwhile, innovations like bank loan ETFs have moved credit risk into the hands of retail investors. That’s something we didn’t have to worry about in the last major crisis in corporate credit, in 2001/02.

His conclusion: “We’re in uncharted territory.”

He is right, of course, and as more investors realize that they are piling on the shorts in what will be ground zero of the next credit crisis.

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The man credited with inventing the World Wide Web says that dominant tech giants such as Facebook and Google may need to be broken up unless viable challengers emerge, or shifting preferences result in people gravitating away from dominant names. 

London-born computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee told Reuters that he is disappointed with the evolution of the internet, which he invented in 1989 while working at Europe’s physics research center CERN – branding his “Mesh” network the “World Wide Web” in 1990. He is currently a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Oxford. 

“What naturally happens is you end up with one company dominating the field so through history there is no alternative to really coming in and breaking things up,” said the 63-year-old Berners-Lee, adding that “There is a danger of concentration.” 

They may not need to be broken up, however, if user preferences change and disruptive new technologies emerge. 

“Before breaking them up, we should see whether they are not just disrupted by a small player beating them out of the market, but by the market shifting, by the interest going somewhere else,” he said. 

That said, Berners-Lee says that monopolies have sapped enthusiasm from innovators – and he was particularly disappointed when the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light in which Facebook was found to have granted access to companies which then harvested vast quantities of private user data for various purposes. 

“I am disappointed with the current state of the Web,” he said. “We have lost the feeling of individual empowerment and to a certain extent also I think the optimism has cracked.”

He also wonders if Twitter is designed to fuel controversy, saying “If you put a drop of love into Twitter it seems to decay but if you put in a drop of hatred you feel it actually propagates much more strongly. And you wonder: ‘Well is that because of the way that Twitter as a medium has been built?’” 

 

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Following reports of migrants from a Central American caravan attacking Mexican forces, President Trump said that the US military currently amassing at the Southern border will treat rock throwers as gunmen. 

“I hope there won’t be that, but I will tell you this – anybody throwing rocks… we will consider that a firearm, because there’s not much difference,” said Trump. 

On whether the military at southern border might fire on migrants, Pres Trump says “I hope not.”

“I hope there won’t be that, but I will tell you this – anybody throwing rocks… we will consider that a firearm, because there’s not much difference.” https://t.co/fyk1ncmiwj pic.twitter.com/OGbFHFhB3A

— ABC News (@ABC) November 1, 2018

Trump’s comments come on the heels of several clips featuring violent migrants, including this one of rocks being thrown at Mexican security forces on the Guatemalan border. 

Here is video of the migrant caravan throwing rocks & molotov cocktails at Mexican security forces on the Guatemalan border.

I reached out to the man who took this video.

He confirms it’s authenticity.

Watch it.

The caravan is violent. pic.twitter.com/WqnffoH6yH

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) November 1, 2018

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