Jim Cramer says the real issue behind President-elect Donald Trump's tweet on General Motors making cars in Mexico isn't about General Motors.
But Mexico is.
"What surprises me is that Trump keeps targeting individual companies … rather than NAFTA, which is a big part of what makes it so much cheaper to build things south of the border," the "Mad Money" host said.
Cramer's real question for Trump is what he will do with the NAFTA treaty that makes it so easy for companies to build things in Mexico and ship them to the U.S.
Ultimately, Cramer drilled down the problem in Mexico to its currency. The value of the peso makes the country so attractive. When NAFTA was first created, the dollar could buy four pesos. Now it can buy 20.
"A tweet about how the dollar-peso ration needs to be changed or be adjusted would bring back a heck of a lot more jobs than one-off attacks on GM, Ford or United Technologies," Cramer said.
In the bigger picture, Cramer wondered if the Trump rally can really last.
"One of the reasons why I think you might get a better opportunity to buy stocks than you had today is that I sense the Republicans may not be totally enthused about Trump's desire to pass corporate tax reform, deregulation and a tax holiday for the repatriation of foreign assets," Cramer said.
The actions taken by House Republicans to back down from a measure to curb the Office of Congressional Ethics after Trump tweeted his disapproval, suggested to Cramer that Congress' priorities may be different than Trump's.
That could be very negative for stocks.
Even though the Dow Jones industrial average didn't hit 20,000 in 2016, Cramer found three stocks in the Dow that could power higher in 2017.
Cramer said investors simply asked too much of stocks when they have already skyrocketed to new highs. Many will need to take a breather after running higher in 2016.
"Suffice it to say, I think JPM's the biggest winner of the five, and it's the one I would bet on if you believe that the Trump rally is far from finished," Cramer said.
Ultimately, Cramer was willing to bless Goldman Sachs, UnitedHealth and JPMorgan as stocks that have more room to run, while Chevron and Caterpillar may need to pause.
It was so difficult to get on the 's list of top 10 performers in 2016; Cramer says it will be hard to have a repeat performance in 2017.
"Some of the S&P's biggest winners from last year have run out of fuel," he said.
For example, the top performer of the S&P in 2016 was Nvidia, which more than doubled. The trajectory of the stock was steadily climbing higher until it suddenly skyrocketed in November to $117 from $68, before hitting $107 in the last days of the year.
And while Nvidia could head higher after it settles, Cramer said the numbers would need to come up substantially because of its sky high valuation.
The worst performer of the S&P was Endo International, down 73 percent in 2016. For Cramer, this company embodied everything that used to work before 2016, ranging from its tax-inverted headquarters in Dublin, strong generic drug profile and acquisitive management.
The federal government made it much harder for companies to execute tax arbitrage, thus Endo suffered. Endo's new management is now struggling with price pressure and its $8 billion debt load.
In the Lightning Round, Cramer gave his opinion on various stocks from callers:
Sirius XM Holdings: "I like that call, pull the trigger. I think it is an inexpensive stock. Boy do I wish Apple would buy them, but Apple does what it wants to do."
Medtronic: "Medtronic was downgraded today. I mean, now they downgrade it? The stock is off big from its high. I agree with your idea, I like buying Medtronic. I think it's got a good product profile."