German exports rebounded in May, providing more evidence of a strengthening of the economy in the second quarter.
Yeah, I guess that’s true. If you forget the exports last month to one particular country. Those have dropped 10% for some inexplicable reason. But I’m sure that will pick up again real soon, right?
Despite ongoing trade tensions, German exports did what they normally do: grow. In May exports increased by 1.8% MoM, from -0.3% in April. At the same time, imports increased by 0.7% MoM, from 2.6% MoM in April. As a result, the trade surplus narrowed somewhat, from EUR20.1bn to EUR19.7bn.
“Die Verunsicherung durch die Einführung von Importzöllen seitens der USA und die Gegenmaßnahmen der EU und Chinas machen sich direkt bei den Unternehmen bemerkbar.”
What? That was it? No more trade war hysteria? Just when it was starting to get interesting? What Luschen (duds).
The Wall Street Journal reported that Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, has been in talks recently with the chief executives of German car makers BMW, Volkswagen and Daimler, where they pitched the idea of ending car tariffs between the U.S. and the EU.
During these talks, the executives said they would be in favor of scrapping these levies as part of a broader deal encompassing industrial goods, the Journal said.
“Germany has the right approach to resolving this trade disagreement among friends.”
Einen Auftrag zur Aufrüstung von Panzern für die Türkei hatte die Bundesregierung vor einigen Wochen noch gestoppt. Jetzt aber erhält das Land sechs neue Jagd-U-Boote – geliefert von ThyssenKrupp.
PS: Funny how these expensive exports always meet the client’s expectations but the weapons systems used in Germany never seem to work. Hard to believe, actually. It’s almost as if it were intentional. Nah.
Looks like Sig Sauer might get fined twelve million euros for illegally selling 36,000 handguns to Columbia.
Nach vier Jahren Ermittlungen gibt es eine Anklage gegen Sig Sauer. Eine Strafe von zwölf Millionen Euro droht: Der Waffenhersteller in Eckernförde soll über die USA illegal mehr als 36 000 Pistolen nach Kolumbien verkauft haben. Sig Sauer sieht sich «rechtskonform».
The contract will be signed in the coming weeks, German parliament member Fritz Felgentreu, responsible for defense affairs in the German Social Democratic Party, told “Globes.”
The German Ministry of Defense estimates the cost of the agreement, which includes leasing five Heron TP UAVs manufactured by IAI in cooperation with Airbus, at €1 billion over nine years.
Trump is right about trade and Merkel needs to do something about it, former German state secretary says.
In early March, Trump started by implementing tariffs on aluminum and steel imports — measures that did not represent a big impact for China, but did for countries like Japan and potentially Europe too.
Germany has also faced international criticism for its trade surplus, which means its exports outweigh its imports, as some see it as unfair, imbalanced and a cause for protectionism elsewhere.
“Germany is really out there as the main culprit, so to say, because Germany has the highest surplus, much higher than China in terms of GDP… Germany has to do something against it, that’s absolutely clear,”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday Turkey’s military offensive in Syria’s northern town of Afrin was unacceptable and she criticized Russia for “just watching” the continuing attacks by Syrian forces on eastern Ghouta.
Obwohl die Bundesregierung die türkische Offensive in Afrin als “inakzeptabel” bezeichnet, genehmigte sie seit deren Beginn Rüstungsexporte in Millionenhöhe an die Türkei.
Uh-oh. All bets are off now. I may have found a German economist who is willing to take an unpopular stand and defend certain aspects of the Trump administration’s policy. Unpopular? Sacrilegious is more like it, right?
“On one side there’s the EU with a trade surplus that is mostly supplied by the huge German surplus. On the other side is the USA that has been living with deficits for 30 years. Germany is the world’s largest surplus country and the USA is the world’s largest deficit country. The trade practiced between these two national economies may be free but it is not efficient. This criticism of the German undervaluation strategy – that is, the relatively weak salary increases combined with a weak euro – has been around since presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Politicians in Congress have warned about making trade deals with notorious surplus countries. Trump is just the first one to do anything about it.”
“Every country can do whatever it wants – but not when it is part of a currency union in which there are no exchange rates that could be adjusted. Germany procures an advantage in global trade not just due to the quality of its products vis-a-vis its EU partners, the USA and other countries. In the past 15 years salaries in Germany have remained far behind productivity. We gain advantages over other national economies through wage dumping.”
“Will the punitive tariffs have a real effect on the German economy? Not so quickly. They have just been little needle pricks up until now. But if the EU now pursues the loud-mouth announcements made by Commission President Jean-Claud Juncker and reacts with its own punitive tariffs it is possible that the USA’s reaction will be more massive. Yet Trump is merely following a very simple rule here that no one in Germany wants to believe: The losers in such a trade conflict will be the trade surplus countries and the winners will be the deficit countries.”
Aber wenn die EU jetzt den großmäuligen Ankündigungen des EU-Kommissionspräsidenten Jean-Claude Juncker folgt und mit eigenen Strafzöllen reagiert, kann es sein, dass die USA noch massiver reagieren. Trump folgt doch einer einfachen Regel, die in Deutschland niemand wahr haben will: Verlieren werden in einem solchen Handelskonflikt die Handelsüberschussländer und gewinnen werden die Defizitländer.
But when it comes to SPENDING money for defense in Germany, well… German officials are scrambling to make sense of the latest twist in the brewing war over U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, which could see Washington dole out exemptions based on allies’ defense-spending levels.
Speaking of sanctions… Neither Iran nor Syria will ever have to worry about those, either. Not as long as Germany is in the picture, I mean.
Germany’s Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control approved a license for a company to sell military applicable technology to Iranian companies that subsequently was used in Syrian regime chemical weapons attacks, reported the German publication Bild on Monday.
The German company Krempel, located near the southern city of Stuttgart, sold electronic press boards to Iranian companies that were used in the production of rockets.
Deutsche Bauteile in Assads Giftgas-Raketen – „Der konventionelle Gefechtskopf wurde entfernt und mit einem großen Gaszylinder ersetzt.“ Die Kennzeichnung aller Raketen verrate, dass sie „2016 produziert wurden und während des Konfliktes aus dem Iran geliefert wurden“.
