And let’s get it over with as soon as possible.
Time to say goodbye already.
While his fifth and final official trip to Europe’s biggest economy is expected to cover global crises, one of the headline goals is to advance negotiations on what could become the world’s biggest free trade agreement.
For the first time in 40 years US-Amerika has now surpassed France as Germany’s most important trading partner.
Of course now everybody is trying to figure out who to blame for this and how to fix it.
One theory goes that the policy of low interest rates and the government bonds buyback program by European Central Bank president Mario Draghi has devalued the euro and made selling in other parts of the world a whole lot easier. I’ll “buy” that. Hardy, har, har.
Erstmals seit vier Jahrzehnten haben die USA Frankreich als wichtigsten Handelspartner Deutschlands abgelöst. 2015 seien Waren im Wert von 173,2 Milliarden Euro zwischen Deutschland und den Vereinigten Staaten gehandelt worden.
This time by selling the Chinese 130 Airbus aircraft for $17 billion.
And two pandas were also included to sweeten the deal. For Germany, I mean.
“Generally speaking, … in all our meetings with Chinese officials, human rights, rule of law and democracy issues play a role but I won’t go into specifics here.”
China’s communist authorities have launched a crackdown on elements of the country’s burgeoning civil society, jailing dozens of activists.
That sounds a bit like King Kong but actually means king customer or the customer is king, if you prefer. And it’s nice to be the king, as you well know.
For decades, France was the single biggest importer of German goods. But that’s changed now. The United States has taken the pole position among clients for “Made in Germany” goods for the first time.
Seit dem Jahr 1961 kauft kein Land so viele deutsche Produkte wie Frankreich. Das hat sich nun geändert. Und auch damit zu tun, dass Amerika wieder mehr auf die Industrie setzt.
PS: But thank goodness Germany still has its trade with ten foot tall China, too.
Piece of the pie talks, that is.
Roughly four minutes after a deal with world powers over Iran’s nuclear program was reached, Germany’s Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel flew down to Tehran (and boy are his arms tired) in another selfless attempt to bring more love and understanding to the troubled region and make tons and tons of money selling German stuff to the moolah-mullahs again in the process.
German exports to Iran hit 4.4 billion euros in 2005 but then slumped to 1.8 billion by 2013 as the West tightened the sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear programme. However, the agreement between Iran and six world powers including Germany has opened the prospect that the sanctions will be removed.
An ancient German tradition, Alleingänge are when Germans, as Germans, go it alone.
In this particular case it has to do with their Empörung (another traditional German word meaning indignation or outrage) about TTIP, a planned free trade deal between Europe and the United States. Strangely, much like their hysterical reaction to Fukushima and subsequent Alleingang out of nuclear power, no one else in Europe really understands what their concern is all about.
These protestors aim to change that, however. Germany’s fellow Europeans, they feel, clearly do not seem to understand what this treaty is really about: It is a planned free trade deal between Europe and the United States. Hello? Is anyone home out there? A trade deal with the United States? As in US-Amerika?
“The U.S. push for world domination is unacceptable. Obama sends out drones to kill people and wins the Nobel peace prize. This has to stop.”
It’s like I say, folks: A real German says no first and asks questions later (that was oddity 255, if you’re interested). And if US-Amerika is involved in the calculation (see TTIP), all bets are off.
“The EU has published a survey according to which citizens are downright euphoric about the free trade agreement TTIP. In all, 25 Member States [of the 28] there will pour sheer enthusiasm over the completely secretly negotiated agreement, but for one small exception: Germans are mostly against the TTIP.”
Die EU hat in Deutschland einen merkwürdigen Zusammenhang zwischen der Befürwortung von TTIP und der „Demokratiezufriedenheit“ der Bürger ausgemacht. In anderen Ländern lasse sich ein solcher Zusammenhang nicht feststellen.
While Germany has so far led the regional recovery, it is feeling the pain of increasing political tension. The European Union agreed last week on its widest-ranging sanctions yet over Russia’s backing of rebels in eastern Ukraine. Russia counts Germany as its biggest trading partner in Europe.
“The manufacturing-sector outlook does not look encouraging.”
Die Konjunktur läuft nicht mehr rund – Industrie-Aufträge mit stärkstem Minus seit 2011
From Germany, I mean. It’s complicated.
German businesses are cooling on Russian investments amid anger over Russia’s role in the Ukrainian conflict, while simultaneously warming on another big country hit by Western sanctions: Iran.
According to Küntzel, German leaders have at least two other reasons for helping Iran defy the United States. The first is German resentment of defeat in the Second World War followed by foreign occupation, led by the US. The second reason is that Iran is one of the few, if not the only country, where Germans have never been looked at as “war criminals” because of Hitler.
Germany said today. “We’re pretty soft on China, though.”
When asked why this is, the craven central European country replied “Well duh. We’re just like real pushovers when it comes to Chinese cash, that’s all. Isn’t every exporting powerhouse? We had a trade volume with China of 140.4 billion euros ($193 billion) last year, after all. That makes them our number 3 trading partner! And here you thought we were just dependent upon Russian gas.”
Asked whether China should stand up more assertively against Russia’s actions in Ukraine, Xi said that “China has no private interests” on the matter and added that Beijing always insists on non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, as well as respecting nations’ territorial integrity.
Observing Hermann 