Very interesting to interview the German finance minister Christian Lindner for BBC News again at #WEF23… @c_lindner -
* inflation peaked & faster European recovery than expected
* Germany “completely diversified” energy & is today “not dependent on Russia”
* “new German model”
FULL STORY:
German finance minister @c_lindner
“Germany still dependent on energy imports, but today, not from Russian imports but from global markets…” as Germany completed LNG terminal in record 8 months.. claiming it as basis for “new economic model”
Thread: 1. Lindner claims with a series of supply side reform “we are about to change the German business model” and is no longer dependent on Russian energy: #Wef23
2.
Bit of a dig at the “Merkel era” of low competitiveness, epitomised by the fact it took 20 years to build Berlin airport… now says “the new German speed is 8 months” a reference to the 2 new LNG terminals commissioned from scratch on the Baltic coast
3. NEW
German finance minister tells BBC says “negative side effects of [US] Inflation Reduction Act for European economies” is an “opportunity for new negotiations” via US-EU trade diplomacy, waivers or even a US-EU trade deal but “have to avoid competition on more subsidies”
4. Is Germany on board with US push to reduce dependence on China?
Lindner: “I’m not in favour of any kind of decoupling from the Chinese market… we have to have a different approach.. we have to maintain China’s dependency on our technologies… diversification not decoupling”
5. Is Germany doing enough to help Ukraine defeat the Russians?
“We make our decisions in close cooperation with our allies, especially the US..and we jointly decide about the support of Ukraine with further military goods, then Germany will participate”
Ref to Leopard 2 tank?
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US customs messaging note quietly slipped out last night shows that smartphones, the number 1 Chinese export to the US by value last year, exempted from the 125% tariff… alongside chips, processors, wafers, lcd panels, LEDs etc…
8517.13.00.00
Smartphones
US has excluded the single biggest Chinese export, and certainly the most high profile finished good from the tariffs, without publicly announcing it…
Avoiding the very public repricing of IPhones etc across Apple stores, but only in the US….
While obviously smartphones/ iPhones being exempted is big news for now…
Here’s full list of exemptions according to Harmonised US tariff codes that I plugged into its database… lots of semiconductor parts, circuits, processors, solid state storage, flat panel touchscreens 👀
Author of Mar A Lago accord concept that US tariff agenda is basically designed to cause negotiated dollar weakening, (now WH chief economist), gave speech yday which basically suggested that reserve status for dollar was a burden which others might need to “write checks” for
turns on its head the famous description of ex French President then fin minister Valéry Giscard d'Estaing the US enjoyed an “exorbitant privilege” with $ reserve status…
Instead Administration appears to believe this is an exorbitant burden for which US should be remunerated.
It’s part of a narrative that seeks to paint new tariffs (accepted without retaliation) as justifiable payment for burden of strong dollar (eg on US manufacturing exports and jobs)… this new mindset is extremely consequential. The tariffs aren’t going.
President just shared a video on Truth Social saying “Trump
Is purposely CRASHING the market” in order to lower US Treasury yields and the dollar.
The Mar A Lago theory I wrote about two months ago, written by his chief adviser that said tariff chaos would lead to $ deal
Here’s the video…
Dow down another 1000 points…
Obviously RT are not endorsements but why is the President choosing to share this stuff? And if you are another country seeing this, how do you negotiate with this?
👀 From Navarro’s numbers auto tariffs will raise $100bn a year (on $240bn imports) can replicate this calculation by assuming all imports hit by 25% and then US manufactured cars taxed about half that to reflect foreign content…
No exemptions tho…
…that assumes no behavioural change.
Note: will be a lot of behavioural change in supply and demand.
also says tariffs in general will raise $600bn a year of $6 trillion over a decade.
As total goods imports are only $3 trillion a year… “Liberation Day” equivalent of 20% universal tariff??
👀
Indeed Washington Posts chief Econ writer reports President instincts are to go bigger on “Liberation Day” … are we underpricing the return of the universal tariff? It would explain the otherwise inexplicable Navarro numbers this morning,..
Might remember I cornered Rwandan President Paul Kagame in January and asked if UK would get money back if no migrants were transferred to Rwanda… answer revealed today: Govt paid £715m so far until June of this year
“not recoverable under the terms of the Treaty”
terms of Rwanda deal are quite something…
In addition to £715m already paid, Treaty another £100m is due (will it be paid?)
also envisaged £120m bonus after 300 refugees “transferred”. And £20k per person payment.
And then further £150k per migrant payment over 5 years
IF a relocated migrant then relocated from Rwanda, UK government would then pay Rwanda £10k for that onward relocation (instead of the last payments above)
Treasury effectively confirms debt rule loosening, by announcing its new “guardrails” to channel capital spending goes to a 10 year pipeline of major projects that generate economic returns that will help “depoliticise infrastructure”
Their view is independent accountable bodies, either new or given new powers will set & implement a 10 year infrastructure strategy integrated with 2 year spending reviews, and audit this, and assess value for money ensuring capital investment generates clear long term returns…
Ministers now openly call the impact of the Sunak debt rule “a mistake”, that it constrained some much needed public infrastructure investment, while not stopping bad investment in failing projects… capital needs to be properly quality controlled not arbitrarily constrained