That means limited ceasefire.
Trump and Putin agree on limited ceasefire – further negotiations from Sunday in Jeddah.
Russia has agreed to cease attacks on energy facilities in Ukraine for 30 days. This was announced by the Kremlin following a telephone conversation between Russian head of state Putin and US President Trump. According to the US, negotiations on an end to the Russian war of aggression are to continue in Saudi Arabia at the end of the week.
Doesn’t everyone?
I had no intention of working. Honest. And so I forgot my Esta travel permit. No big deal. Shit happens.
And then of course shit happened.
German tourists’ ordeal reportedly ending as they are returned from US detention – A German tourist detained by US immigration authorities is due to be deported back to Germany on Tuesday after spending more than six weeks in detention, including eight days in “solitary confinement…”
The families of the two tourists, who were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), had compared their ordeals to “a horror film.”
That means timing is everything.
Germany’s trade surplus with US reaches new record – Germany’s trade surplus with the United States reached a record level, data from the statistics office showed, as countries wait to learn how US President Donald Trump will impose tariffs on imported goods.
Germany’s trade surplus with the U.S. expanded to €70 billion (HK$563.1 billion) in 2024, well above the previous record of €63.3 billion reported for the full year 2023.
“It would be hard to imagine worse timing,” said Holger Goerg, from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
Trump substantially raised tariffs on steel and aluminum imports on Monday to a flat 25 percent “without exceptions or exemptions.”
That means trade surplus.
As Trump threatens EU with tariffs, Germany announces trade surplus worth $74.1 billion with U.S. – Germany logged a record trade surplus with the United States last year, data showed Friday, news that could stoke tensions with US President Donald Trump as he threatens the EU with tariffs.
The United States also returned as the top trading partner for Europe’s biggest economy last year, it showed, overtaking China which had been in the number one spot since 2016…
Germany accounts for a hefty chunk of the European Union’s large trade surplus with the United States, which has been a source of anger for Trump.
But why should such a wonderful development be seen as something to warn about?
The US is ‘no longer the America we used to know,’ warns Germany’s Merz.
Merz’s warning comes amid a whirlwind of personnel and agency slashes both within the U.S. federal government and to foreign aid since Trump took office. Since assuming the presidency, Trump’s administration has sent mass emails offering “deferred resignations” to all federal workers, sacked multiple federal watchdogs, and gotten rid of dozens of prosecutors who were involved in criminal cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack.
The country has also frozen foreign aid and announced moves to put nearly all staff members at the U.S. Agency for International Development on paid leave.
Trump has also announced ambitions to take control of the Gaza Strip, of Greenland and of the Panama Canal, not ruling out the use of military force.
Just burning to surpass Germany’s GDP per capita.
Poorest US state rivals Germany: GDP per capita in US and Europe – Mississippi, the poorest state in the United States, is close to surpassing Europe’s largest economy Germany’s GDP per capita. Euronews Business compares US states with European countries.
“And we are also in direct contact with his advisers on security policy.”
“Germany aims to align with Trump?” Has anybody told the Germans yet?
Germany aims to align with Trump to end ‘merciless’ Ukraine war – Chancellor Olaf Scholz ruled out supplying Kyiv with long-range missiles but stressed the country’s sovereignty should be guaranteed.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expects he’ll find alignment with president-elect Donald Trump on how to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, playing down concerns a shift in US leadership risks splitting Kyiv’s biggest backers.
No, not China. US-Amerika itself.
US tops China as Germany’s biggest trading partner – The United States overtook China as Germany’s biggest trading partner in the first half of 2024, according to preliminary German statistics office data, as Berlin’s drive to reduce dependency on Beijing takes shape amid a resilient U.S. economy.
German imports and exports to the world’s largest economy totalled around 127 billion euros ($139 billion) from January to June, while for China the figure was 122 billion euros, according to Reuters’ calculations based on the data.
Because Putin (and everybody else the world) knows that Germany is erpressbar (blackmailable, open to blackmail).
Just like the current US-Amerika government of… whoever is actually running the government at the moment.
Why Germany was key to prisoner swap deal with Russia – The German government’s decision to release a convicted Russian killer serving a life sentence for murdering an exiled Chechen in Berlin in 2019 was crucial for the prisoner swap between Russia and the West…
The main figure in the swap, which involved several countries, was Vadim Krasikov, a Russian convicted of killing a former Chechen militant in Berlin in 2019.
A clear message to future blackmailers: The German government lets a convicted murderer go free after two years in prison, just like that, somebody who bumped off one of Putin’s critics right here in Berlin’s Tiergarten, in broad daylight.
She is all gone, señor.
Let’s see what Ukraine’s biggest, not second biggest military donor does next year.
Germany plans to halve military aid for Ukraine – Germany is planning to nearly halve military aid for Ukraine next year, from around €8bn (£6.7bn; $8.7bn) to around €4bn, according to a draft budget approved by the government.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner said Ukraine’s financing was “secure for the foreseeable future” due to a G7 group of rich nations scheme to raise $50bn from interest on frozen Russian assets.
Germany is Ukraine’s second biggest military donor, after the US. In 2024, Berlin’s budget for Kyiv is set at nearly €7.5bn.
Observing Hermann 