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DW.com report by Mu Ciu shows a CATL(Contemporary Amperex Technology) plant in Arnstadt, Thuringia, in eastern Germany. It will not bridge Germany's technology gap. German and US consultants at the microeconomic level of the company and German and US economists at the macroeconomic level of the economy entirely fail to grasp the effectiveness of China's investment driven model. Of its joint partnering with European and American companies and China's single minded focus on technology access. This is why the DJT US administration has warned Europe that it is failing economically. China's macroeconomic and microeconomic model are run by the same authority by the state, and according to goals and plans (which in a socialist economy is weak at the microeconomic company level lacking the initiative and freedom of action). By combining its macreconomic framework run by the state with a micreconomic company level run by the state but on free market lines the Chinese investment driven model has dual advantages and operates at a speed that far surpasses the German and American model. It's society suffers as a consequence, but in few short decades 1990-2009/2020 this is all it could accomplish with a single focus on modernization for what was once a peasant agricultural economy. Where it lacks is in future technology access and as long as weak companies in the US and Germany partner with Chinese companies the technology access for Chinese companies give it the essential ingredient for its investment model to work, as American and European companies can waver in investment Chinese companies backed by the government will not waver in investment and have the clear advantage. DJT's approach is to give a big shock to the entire system of world trade now run by China, so that this is no longer going to work at the macroeconomic level and legislate huge investment incentives for one time depreciation and other moves to get American companies to invest. It wants Europe to do the same, including getting rid of the bureaucratic structures and regulations. German Chancellor Merz is getting the message and is acting quickly first with the trillion dollar investment plan, the meetings with Draghi and Meloni to get Italy and like minded nations on board, and internal efforts to get rid of regulations and bureaucratic structures, and building a new partnership with India to remove an error of Merkel/ Clinton+ Obama in excessive concentration and dependence on China. This requires a steady hand and steady governments, steady policy, and companies in America, Europe and India to work together for the long haul without wavering or delay, to rebuild the world economy along new lines and on a new path. ...

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Ajami makes the point that opinions and attitudes -after the Obama efforts to improve America's standing in the Muslim world - havent changed much since the Bush days. He cites the Pew Global Attitudes Survey for 2009- In Turkey after the Obama Anakra visit favorable rating is only 14%, 69% are unreconciled. In Egypt 27% have favorable view 70% do not, in Pakistan unfavorables actally went up from 63% to 68%. He also points to the situation in Iran where the protester for the fraud in the election of Ahmadinejad did not receive much supprt from Obama, as the Obama administration decided to engage with Ahmadinejad to achieve nuclear settlement. In effect the rhetoric from Obama has not been matched with courage of convicitions , and lacks the courage to turn a new chapter by breaking from the past not just with talk but in real policy changes. And says Ajami the Arabs havve stopped listening to the rhetoric as little has been accomplished by way of change. At the same time false expectations may have been aroused because the Cairo speech was made at the University with the aging Mubarak at Obama's side, and beyond addressing these students the feeling clearly must be that the US would simply continue its policies of supporting old regimes that tolerate no dissent of any kind such as Mubarak's. ...

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As a group Hispanics are reported to be hit hardest by this recession, harder than African Americans. In a Feb 9, Washington Post poll, both African Americans and Hispanics were optimistic about the future for the next generation, even with the dismal economic prospects, because things have improved greatly for this generation of black people and Hispanics compared to their parent's generation. And this progress is projected into the future. As a group the most pessimism was shown by white people. Whites say the Obama administration is doing very little for their families, and not doing enough for the middle class and working class Americans and small businesses. They were much more critical about the the administration's cozy relationship and doing "too much" for Wall Street financial institutions. By a 2 to 1 margin whites saw the Obama administration's economic program as harming the national economy.

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Hubbard and Erdbrink report on U.S. president Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia to begin a new chapter in relations with the Gulf nations and the Saudis. Under president Obama the U.S. distanced itself from the Saudis and the Gulf nations, preferring to pursue a policy of closer relations with Iran and signing the Iran nuclear deal. This included a policy of staying out of Syria to the point of turning down a decision to deploy U.S. airpower to maintain no-fly zones to protect refugees. Syrian government forces fighting rebels were supported by Iran. The new policy is dictated by the new conditions in the Middle East. The U.S. has sought since the presidency of Reagan to balance the power relations in the region. With the nuclear deal signed and Iran respecting the deal according to independent reports, the U.S. allied with Iran in the battle against Islamic State in Iraq,  a shift was needed to balance the support provided to Iran by Russia which worsened the refugee crisis in Syria. The Republican party and Mr. Trump were critical of the Obama Iran policy during the nuclear deal negotiations. The safety of Israel is also a factor as non-state actors were supported by Iran threatening Israeli security. For these reasons the shift is an effort to rebalance the relations in the region. The arms deal in its size and president Trump's statement that Iran had "fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror," can be seen as this rebalancing. A business aspect of the large arms deal is that it will promote job growth in the defense industry in the U.S.. Other countries including Germany have seen growth in their defense industry. This is not the best way forward for the Middle East, yet it is a way the U.S. and nations in the region are adjusting to realities- the collapse of the Arab Spring from within and without the help from outside, the sectarian conflict arising from the Shiite pushback from Iran following the Baathist and Sunni control of Iraq which collapsed with the U.S.invasion, where the majority of people are Shiite yet with a strong Sunni presence. Elections brought Shiites in power, leading to a Sunni response in the form of Islami State caliphate move into Mosul, Iraq's second largest city after Baghdad. A decade of conflict and the efforts by the Bush administration ended in failure and sectarian conflict, resulting in the U.S. policy of rebalancing in favor of Iran to negotiate the nuclear deal. In this sense the arms deal does not solve anything. A similar rebalancing under Reagan by arming one side, followed by arming the other, led to involvement with ground forces under president Bush. It only leaves the region poor after years of sanctions against Iran to the point where a NYT reporter was not sure whether it was safe to fly from Tehran to Mashad with Iran Air because of the lack of spare parts for the airline. War torn, with millions of refugees in Syria and Iraq, the region remains broken in many ways, waiting for a sensible non sectarian view to prevail in the interest of the people in the region. The election of Rouhani in Iran by 57% of the vote is only a sign that young people in the region given a chance would opt for a different course in future. The rest of Asia has moved forward and shows a path that can be followed. ...

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The Senate FInance Committee's $829 billion bill, would cut by $113 billion money for America's Health Insurance Plans over ten years, specifically Medicare Advantage, reducing insurer profits. The AHIP is responding with aad campaign to seniors to fight this setting up aconfrontation with the Obama adminsitration.

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Kristina Johnson is the new chancellor of the SUNY education system in New York state. About 440,000 students are enrolled in the SUNY system. Johnson is an engineer who studied at Stanford for her masters and doctoral degrees. She headed the engineering school at Duke and set up the new interdisciplinary engineering  center for applied sciences and medicine at Duke in 2007-2009. She is also an inventor with 42 patents, some are being used in technology to take pictures of cancerous cells. In 2009 she was made undersecretary of energy in the Obama administration. SUNY is expanding access to lower income students with Governor Cuomo's Excelsior scheme to fund tution for students whose parents make less than $125,000.

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Peter Eavis says the too big to fail problem remains unsolved, and with the recent consolidation the "big four" accounting for 70% of all assets held by domestically cahrtered banks. There is no effort by the Obama administration to prevent banks from getting too big. And the Fed has accumulated greater powers as a regulator. It is still the same Fed, Eavis reminds one that failed as abank regulator by letting Citigroup's common equity ratios drop to perilous lows. And its overstimulative monetary policies having built up more risk than the system could handle. There will be more regulatory capital at these big banks as a result of actions by Treasury, but risk remains.

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US is shutting down 10% of airport traffic because of government shutdown in November 2025. Democrats are holding up the passing of the new budget till Obama's Affordable Care Act healthcare subsidies for low income Americans are restored. Republicans who control both houses of Congress are unwilling to restore these subsidies saying it will cost $350 billion over 10 years. Editorials in the Washington Post in November see Obama's Affordable Care Act as a bandaid approach for a broken healthcare system in the US. Public opinion in the US supports this assessment. Trade unions and labor have called for an end to the government shutdown. Democrats are acting as though the party is for low income Americans and labor yet this is not the party of FDR who fought hard for labor over vested interests, Democrats today are the vested interests whether from Tech which is taking a disproportionate share of the Nation's wealth and resources and pouring it into projects that do not reduce the cost of living or rebuild crumbling obsolete infrastructure, or from Banks which were not sanctioned for their part in the 2009 financial crisis, or from healthcare interests that oppose restructuring the entire healthcare system for fairness in insurance, pharmaceutical pricing and wellness. Republicans are making an effort to displace Democrats in the role of FDR and Lincoln under newcomer DJT who rejects both the incompetent Bush (Republican) and Obama (Democrat) administrations that wasted money and resources in foreign wars while overlooking America's many challenges and strengthening foreign powers including China, while weakening the US. The US government is cutting airport traffic to relieve unpaid traffic controllers. Also at risk are SNAP benefits which are for the loew income Americans. The US president is asking the Senate to drop the filibuster rule which requires 60 votes in the Senate for the biudget to pass it and pass it by majority vote. The Senate Majority Leader Republican Thune wants to keep the filibuster because it acts as a brake for hasty legislation passed by whichever party is in government. ...

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Comments by Eric Schmidt CEO of Google in an interview with the NYT's Helft. Important points emerging from the interview. Google he says does not know how long this crisis will last. Response not to waste money means less hiring and more careful expense reviews, and more focus. Managers are very very sensitive to important aspects of its culture, so such perks will continue which make it fun to work at the company for employees. And he says careful investment inthe future. "If you tighten too much, you eliminate future innovation, and then you set yourself up for a really bad outcome five or ten years" down the road. And here is the most important point he makes in advising the Obama administration. Do not take up the economy first, and let energy come in afterwards, deal with all the major problems at once, especially energy, which are part of the problem and the opportunity for the economy. For instance as the auto industry shrinks these job losses can be filled with jobs making parts for renewable energy like wind turbines and blades, like solar energy generation parts. This is actually happening already, government could speed things up by mandates for renewable energy and by help to companies through incentives. See the link to this in the NYT about companies in places like Newton, Iowa where lost jobs at Maytag are being replaced by renewable energy jobs. And several million jobs can be generated in energy to make up losses in auto jobs in the midwest. These parts of the Obama plan may have come up through conversations with Schmidt and other advocates of this, and by seeing what is already happening as reported by the NYT in the link. It makes Obama look like a farsighted genius, but its just sharp observation and careful listening. Pickens is already advertising this on television for his wind farms in Texas. It is not only Google's thinking, as Schmidt says, but good common sense and some ballpark estimates that would tell one that it would save sending 1 trillion dollars to Middle East and other nations that is needed for investment at home in the U.S.. Schmidt's calculations are that this amount could be saved in 22 years through renewable energy, plug-in hybrids and other innovative technologies. ...

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Fitch Ratings Agency says that 65-75% of homeowners getting home loan modifications under the Obama administration's Home Affordable Loan Modification Program (HAMP) will default in 12 months. This is because the median ratio of total debt payments to pretax income is about 64% according to a Treasury Department estimate. Many of these homeowners have large credit card and other debt, and little is left for food, clothing and other expenses. By April 2010, 295,000 homeowners had taken loan modifications under HAMP, which provides interest rates of as low as 2%. And another 637,000 homeowners are in trial modifications, which require that homeowners show they can make the lower payments consistently and provide documets to show eligibility. The Obama administration has provided $50 billion for the HAMP program, with financial incentives to loan servicers and mortgage investors to modify loans. Critics say the program would have worked better if the government and HAMP dealt directly with homeowners- as homeowners complain about the long time, upto a year, it takes for loan servicers and mortgage companies to get the loan modified on a long-term basis....

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The Obama administration's failure to correctly grasp the situation and articulate a clear position on the democracy protests in Egypt, is raising many questions. On many of the events occurring about the transition, the administration was caught unawares. And its position gave a muddled message to the people of Egypt, not a clear statement of the US support for the democratic process. Senator John McCain said in an interview: "Every day that goes by, you have to ask: who profits from this? Its the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic extremists. There's the perception that we're on the side of Mubarak."

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Stephens says the lack of swift military action to protect the U.S. consulate in Benghazi by all means available was not undertaken by President Obama from Wall Street Journal accounts of what happened. The reason given was not to violate Libya's sovereignty, instead an effort was made by the State Department to get the Libyan government to send reinforcements. This was the situation at 5 pm on Sept 11, in an Oval Office meeting, when news of the attack on the consulate reached President Obama. A suggestion was made according to WSJ reports for U.S. planes to fly in from the closest airbase to scare away the attackers but was not adopted. The Obama adminstration was slow to act decisively in the struggle for freedom from the Gaddafi dictatorship and agreed to support the French-British effort after the war was underway for some time. This is likely to have left the U.S. with a lack of sufficient intelligence on the ground about the movement of remnants of Gaddafi's army, mercenaries from Mali, and terrorist groups, which are suspected of involvement in the attack, and which had threatened Ambassador Stevens according to his diary. The U.S. consulate in Benghazi was burned down in a deliberately planned attack and one of America's finest diplomats Stevens lost his life in the attack. ...

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President Biden is taking his time to conduct trade negotiations says this story in the WSJ. The economic plan and help for manufacturing business is a higher priority. Biden is skeptical about the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement negotiated by president Obama and has concerns for the protection of American labor. There is a sense that such trade agreements are not in the American interest of reviving its manufacturing base. Trade negotiations with China are to be conducted from a position of strength. To do this president Biden wants to consult closely with Australia, Europe, and Japan before proceeding with trade talks. For these reasons trade talks are a lesser priority for the Biden administration.

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Gage points out that crime in America is about half what it was in 1991. She traces the calls for law and order in American politics back to Coolidge and Nixon. Trump's reference to restoring law and order is about checking the calls for correcting social injustice, movements for gun control, and public protest such as "Black Lives Matter," not just criminals, says Gage. In fact strict deportation has been the policy in 2 terms of the Obama administration, with immigration from Mexico at an all time low, another of the paradoxes in relation to the Trump calls for a wall with Mexico that would cost $23 billion. 

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A bipartisan proposal of Tim Johnson and Mike Crapo of the Senate Banking Committee to replace Fannie and Freddie with a new system that removes the implicit government guarantee, has the support of the Obama administration. A proposal by Republicans in the House removes the government backstop entirely. Fannie and Freddie stock lost about a third of their value in March 2014 falling to $4.03 and $4.04, erasing sharp gains made in 2013. Under the proposal supported by most members of the Banking Committee, including Bob Corker, it is likely that private shareholders will not be treated favorably.

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Elliott Abrams quotes former President George Bush from November 2003 when he asked the question: "Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?" Abrams, former deputy natonal security advisor for President Bush, says the autocratic regimes and dictators of the Middle East have offered a false choice to the US- its us or the Islamists. Roger Cohen also points this out in a recent article in the New York Times. For Tunisia he says this was never defensible. It is a largely secular nation with a literacy rate of 75% and per capita GDP of $9,500, and Ben Ali, the dictator of Tunisia, jailed moderates, human rights advocates, editors, anyone who represented hope and change. Abrams says Mubarak has done the same in Egypt. And he warns that if you make moderate politics impossible as Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia have done, then you make extremism more likely. Ruling by emergency decree for decades creates a real emergency, as has happened in Egypt. Bush made that speech at the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, and he reminded Americans that "sixty years of Western nations excusing and accomodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." He admits that the Bush administration did not always conduct US diplomacy in this vein, but the President took the lead and the Obama administration's abandonment of that mindset is nothing short of a tragedy. Obama's policy of "engagement" actually endangers the US position as a supporter of liberty and freedom wherever it is stifled or muffled, because it turned a blind eye to the people themselves as it engaged with the dictatorial regimes in the Arab world and other countries. When the elections in Iran were stolen the Obama administration hesitated, waffled in its committment to liberty, fearing that it would affect nuclear negotiations. Obama did not -as of late Friday night Jan 28, 2011- call for free elections or clearly demand democracy. The law school analytical processes that Obama brings to the presidency and the demands of geopolitical diplomacy are impervious to the loud voices demanding freedom in countries denied liberty. Obama has forgotten the very same voices he passionately heard when he wrote in his first book that in the words "we hold these truths to be self-evident" he could hear the spirit of Douglas and Delaney, as well as Jefferson and Lincoln, the struggles of Martin and Malcolm and unheralded marchers to bring the words to life. He could hear the words of interned Japanese families, the voices of Russian Jews in lower East side sweatshops, of dust bowl farmers during the depression, all these voices clamoring for recognition and asking the question about what is community and how it can be reconciled with freedom. This failure to recognize these voices clamoring for freedom and economic opportunity is all the more striking because it was vision and a bold sense of purpose that energized the Obama campaign and both the vision and the bold sense have eluded the administration. Abrams calls for a clear unequivocal committment by the US government in favor of freedom and peaceful efforts to achieve it in the Middle East, because he says that as the demonstrators are telling the world outside supporting freedom is the best policy of all. ...

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The new faces in the Biden administration on economic policy are Janet Yellen, as head of the central bank, the Federal Reserve, and Cecilia Rouse, a Princeton labor economist, as head of the Council of Economic Advisors. In this report WSJ looks at the economic policies of the new administration after Mr. Trump rejected globalization and international trade agreements that were not in America's interest or that hurt American workers.  Informal conversations with experts suggest WSJ says, that globalization is now suspect as a way that benefitted China and other countries including Germany, and hurt the U.S. France, Britain and other countries in Europe that were not strong exporters. This hurt their industries which were eroded by imports resulting in the three decades long destruction of communities across these countries that depended on manufacturing. It has also hurt countries like India that let their markets be dominated by Chinese imports, with a reversal of policy in 2020 with self reliant economy under "Atman Nirbhar" policy as the new goal. Mr. Trump's tactic in this trade war was to fight back to regain America's position in manufacturing with tariffs on imports. The trade deficit had to come down with China just as it had done with Japan decades earlier. This was starting to happen. One problem in bringing down the imports was the increase in the value of the dollar, as Janet Yellen has noted. The new policies will look at what the effective policy will be while keeping this goal in mind.  Both Yellen and Ms. Rouse have spent years studying labor markets and Ms. Rouse is quoted here as saying: " With open trade there are winners and losers. The losers are really losing, and we need to take care of them and take on more nuanced models of international trade as a result." Other experts from the earlier Democratic administrations such as Prof. Frankel at Harvard say that there needs to be increased focus on American workers left behind by trade, technology and unequal education, with more spending on preschool, infrastructure and health. All this suggests that there will be a continuation of U.S. policy in challenging Chinese use of globalization to advance its interests, chastening Americans on the use of the very word globalization which can mean different things to different people based on how they can gain advantage. The word may even be entirely dropped in favor of what the policies are and what they do for the American worker, American communities including small towns, and the American people, spelling each of these out every time supply chains and the global economy is mentioned. The new administration will get an opportunity to show that it too can come up with new ideas and action plan to strengthen American manufacturing and jobs. It will also have to show substantial results as people have lost patience with Democrats and Republicans on the lack of progress in rebuilding America's leadership role in the world economy, and in defending American workers and factories. Clinton, Obama and Bush all offered false promises on trade with China ignoring the damage this had done to American leadership in the world economy. Clinton with support for China's entry into the World Trade Organization, Bush with foreign wars and costly diversions and regulatory failures with banks that led to the 2009 deep recession hurting Americans, and Obama with the lack of will and interest in America's leadership role in the world as the dominant nation in manufacturing,   ...

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DJT says Iran does not want to talk to the Europeans, it wants to talk to the Americans. He says it is hard to stop the war when one side is winning. Russia and the US have better relations than under the Biden administration which is proving to be an important factor in this war. As it is about nuclear proliferation, not regional powers- the Israelis, the Saudis and the Iranians. Both Russia and the US are technologically sophisticated powers with different interests, they are world powers because they have first and foremost important responsibilities in nuclear non proliferation and the health of the planet. By allowing regional conflict in Eastern Europe to cloud this fact and not engage with Russia as a world power the US under Obama and Biden had failed to grasp a key principle of peaceful relations since World War II. We argue that "western powers" is a concept of colonial powers France and Britain, and western civilization is the reliable concept that includes Russia, and includes China and India that have embraced the creation of the modern world by western civilization. ...

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Email exchanges between OMB staffers and Obama administration officials, released exclusively to the Washington Post, show the Obama administration urging the OMB to speed up its decision on the half a billion dollar loan to Solyndra. This was part of stimulus funds to the solar industry. Solyndra was a favorite of the Obama administration according to the Washington Post, and aides to Rahm Emmanuel and other officials sent emails urging speeding up approval. OMB officials in their replies stated they were under pressure. One email by a senior OMB staffer sent to McSweeney, Biden's domestic policy advisor, Aug 31, 2009, said: "we have ended up with a situation of having to do rushed approvals on a couple of occasions (and we are worried about Solyndra at the end of the week)... we would prefer to have sufficient time to do our diligence reviews." Other emails referred to "the time pressure we are under to sign-off on Solyndra," and indicated "there isn't time to negotiate." Solyndra had large investments by the funds operated for the family foundation of George Kaiser, an Obama fundraiser....

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French president Hollande's approval ratings dropped to a new low of 12% in a survey by TNS Sofres. In 2013 Hollande's approval ratings dropped to 26% before increasing to 30% after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in Jan. 2015. The recent terrorist attacks, France's high unemployment rate, his appearance of being indecisive, and the new labor law, have increased Hollande's unpopularity. As a result his colleague in the Socialist Party, prime minister Manuel Valls, now plays an important role in the administration. Middle class workers 35-49 years are the group where Hollande does poorly. Former president Sarkozy's rating never dropped below 30%. Compared to Hollande, Merkel of Germany has an approval rating that is far better at 54% and Obama in the U.S. of 56%. Merkel has achieved this following the differences in Germany over letting in large numbers of immigrants, and Obama after 8 years in office and differences in the Democratic Party on trade and economic policy. Trudeau in Canada has an approval rating of 63%. ...

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Germany and the European Union are improving their defenses as the conflict drags on. The US position DJT has articulated is to bring an end to the war to end the daily loss of lives on both sides. Looking back was it worth loss of hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides and the damage to the economy, to housing from bombing, and the millions of refugees many older people, just for the Association Agreement with the European Union in 2013-2014. This has been completely mismanaged by all sides, the EU officials responsible, the governments in Europe including Russia and Germany, and Ukraine's political parties and their appeal to the people, and by the administration of Obama in the US. DJT and administration officials have long made it clear that they don't want this war, the war in Ukraine. A conflict that has been going on in some form or other between parts of Ukraine in the west and Russian influenced regions in the east as governments changed before and after protests in Kviv in 2013 over an agreement on association with the European Union long before the current war; some favorable to Putin and some not like the current government. So it is surprising that Medvedev would make remarks about DJT and the US to draw a confrontation between the two powers US and Russia in this way in X, remarks DJT calls "inflammatory."  Especially when the US is trying its best to negotiate and end to the war by pressuring both sides. It's defending of Ukraine only to stop the missile attacks on it's cities to give peaceful resolution a chance, not to aggravate the conflict.   ...

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Increased funding for the Food and Drug Administration by the Obama administration. An additional $300 million as ben allocated. The budget request is for $2.35 billion for fiscal 2010, compared to $2.06 billion in the previous 2009 fiscal yar. Including user fees the budget request totals $3.04 billion for the 2010 fiscal year compared with $2.7 billion in the 2009 fiscal year. THe Obama administration proposes increased manufacturer user fees to pay for food-plant inspections and to speed the review of a[[lications for generic drugs and biologics drugs. Biologics drugs are derived from living organisms and are the industry's fastest growing part.

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Home Depot to keep prices steady by making products outside China- May 2025. Home Depot says it will do this by making products outside of China. DJT administration is working to get American retailers to hold prices steady as the US grapples with overconcentration of production in China. For three decades American administrations from Bush to Obama allowed the overconcentration of production in China to take place and diverted attention to unwinnable foreign wars where American interests were not at stake. US president DJT faces a difficult situation to reverse this overconcentration having to resort to tariffs and other actions to correct these missteps of previous presidents.

 During the transition period Americans need to be protected from rising prices to keep increase in the cost of living under control. Companies such as Home Depot are taking a responsible step considering the importance of the action for America's long term interests.

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Bill Keller looks at the options to use force to end Iran's nuclear weapons programs. He points out the common goals set by the Obama administration and the Bush administration for Iran's nuclear programs, even though politicians have taken different positions.

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U.S. toughens sanctions on Iran saying it would impose sanctions on all countries if they did not cut oil imports to zero by Nov. 4. Earlier expectation was that the U.S. would give waivers to countries that had made substantial progress to cut oil imports. In the past 20% cut in imports earned waivers in the Obama administration. U.S. is asking other Middle Eastern producers to increase production to meet demand. Banks refusal to finance trades is causing Indian Oil and Italy's Saras to cut oil imports from Iran.