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French nuclear force Rafale jets have $6.6 billion annual cost 2025. German leader chancellor Merz is considering sharing French nuclear arsenal for defense of Germany. Macron has met Merz 3 times and the discussions go on. Germany has removed its debt brake in its Constitution setup by Merkel, so that $ 1 trillion can be spent on infrastructure including defense spending. This report in the WSJ looks at the 290 warheads of France and 250 of Britain on submarines as deterrents with additional deterrent from US NATO nuclear forces. US has asked for burden sharing on conventional forces not nuclear forces. Yet Europe sees the US as less of a reliable ally under DJT in 2025, and considering building its own nuclear deterrent.

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Potential Treasury nominee Kevin Warsh is given the possible role at Treasury plus appointment as Fed chairman after 2026 when Jerome Powell retires. At 35 years Kevin Warsh was the youngest governor of the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, appointed in 2006 by George Bush. At the time his appointment was criticized for lack of experience- Warsh comes from upstate New York and went to school at Shaker School in Latham, then Stanford, in economics and a JD at Harvard, followed by 7 years at Morgan Stanley. He was executive secretary of the National Economic Council in 2002. During the bank financial crisis of 2009 the lack of macro regulation led to failure of investment banks. Warsh was able top save Morgan Stanley and he acted as an avenue of information from banks to the Fed.

Warsh left the Fed in 2011 and returned to public service in 2016 when Trump made his first run for president as an adviser to DJT. 

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Peter Muller and Dirk Kurbjuweit of Der Spiegel interviewed the European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in June 2017. Juncker gave his views on the Trump rejection of the Paris climate change agreement, and Brexit following the losses for the Conservative party in the British parliamentary elections. On the elections in Netherlands and France, Juncker says the populists have still won millions of votes. Juncker says many politicians in traditional parties have parroted the talk of the populists, and in this way becoming populists rather than taking on the populists in the way Emmanuel Macron has done on the issues. Juncker is pushed to answer questions about the difficult relations before Brexit talks after his meetings with the British. Der Spiegel presents the idea of a confrontation and collapse in talks because the EU wants to talk about its citizens and billions of dollars owed and the British about future relations. With the uncertainty following elections in Britain a cloud hangs over Brexit talks. Juncker says when asked about Plan B, that it is upto the British now because the EU is ready to talk, even early the next day. ...

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WSJ Editorial Board on 2025 DJT version of Eisenhower's 1954 Operation Wetback to curb foreign born employment. After the Biden years when foreign born employment surged the decrease by 773,000 shown by Trend Macro in foreign born employment for Jan- April 2025 in the WSJ, is an adjustment from the effects of Biden open border policies. This also prevents downward pressure on wages for American workers in construction, hospitality and retail- the story of the last 20 years. This is similar to what would have been seen in the Eisenhower years after Operation Wetback led by Gen. Swing and AG Brownell in 1954. Just as by 1956 the foreign born employment declined after years of uninhibited illegal migrant growth and open borders in the years of World War II. Note that Mexico's agribusiness owners were against open borders in that period and the Mexican government was also against open borders and the loss of labor from Mexico needed in agribusiness. Today the situation is somewhat different but in the sense of an adjustment it may be very similar. Just as in 1956 Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 had a mandate for making this adjustment DJT has won a mandate for a similar adjustment in 2024. ...

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This Explainer by Lisa Thomas-Darbois shows how the National Assembly is elected and how it works with the president and their respective powers under the Fifth Republic set up in 1958 during the Algiers Crisis and decolonization by Charles De Gaulle. In 1962 a constitutional amendment led to direct popular election of the president. De Gaulle was elected in 1965. Though De Gaulle resigned in 1968 much of the work of modernizing French agriculture from a backward local regional basis to a national technological basis was done by De Gaulle, and French infrastructure postwar rebuilding started. This was continued through the 5 year presidency of DeGaulle's assistants Pompidou and seven year presidency of Giscard Destaing till 1981, modernizing France over 2 decades. To get elected to the National Assembly one has to get 50% of the vote in the first round and 25% of eligible voters. In the second round only the top two parties and parties with more than 12.5% of vote participate. A change was made to make the president's term 5 years and have the election of the National Assembly after the presidential election. Under this change Macron was able to get a majority in the Assembly after his election as president in 2017. In the event the opposition parties get a majority in the National Assembly cohabitation happens and the prime minister is from the opposition ranks as is likely in 2024. This transfer authority on domestic policy to the majority in the Assembly with foreign policy run by the president. It happened twice under presidetn Mitterand and once under president Chirac. ...

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Le Monde gives a detailed look at the origins of the RN and Marie Le Pen in her father's party the Front Nationale that had it's origins in France's War in Algeria. It's first success was in town councils in the south east Cote de Azur where former French Algerians had settled in large numbers. Jean Le Pen was the son of a fisherman in the Brittany region who lost is life hitting a mine during the war in Occupied France. He was a teenager at the time and is shown here as a ward of the state. He tried to enlist in the War in Vietnam but got there just after Dien Bien Phu and worked in Saigon for a newspaper Caravelle. He returned to France and joined a paratrooper unit in the French Air Force during the Algerian War and became an opponent of De Gaulle's policy in Algeria to decolonize the region. He inherited the fortune of a French cement manufacturer who supported his party FN. Chirac and Sarkozy become his opponents. For 20 years after this he is shown to win anywhere between 2% and 10% in European and French presidential elections. His daughter Marie Le Pen and her supporters decided to rebrand the party as Reassemblement Nationale RN and win as much as 15-20% and more recently 30% of the vote in presidential and EU elections. The fatigue with Macron leads to a surge in RN support in small towns and rural France. Marie changes her stance on the EU willing to support the EU. ...

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The message of the Five Star Party of Beppe Grillo against cronyism, the older politics in Italy, corruption in government, unrestricted immigration, clearly resonated in the south of Italy with the party winning in southern Italy. FIve Star brings younger faces to the Italian parliament just as Macron's movement did in France. The Democratic Left Party under Renzi was a clear loser as it won about 20% of the vote compared to 32% of the vote and over 216 seats in parliament for Five Star. Renzi and the left parties clearly failed to gauge the voter's mood and frustration with economic conditions- 11% unemployment and 18 million Italians at risk of poverty reports BBC News. About 600,000 immigrants entered Italy from North Africa and other regions creating anti-immigration sentiment that shifted support to Five Star and the right wing Northern League under Salvini, which had broadened its appeal from its local base in Milan to all of Northern Italy under Salvini, 44 years old. The Northern League won in most of Northern Italy and with the Forze italia of Berlusconi won 37% of the vote. A coalition of Five Star and the Nrothern League would bring together 2 Euroskeptic parties. ...

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The Social Democrats leader Sigmar Gabriel is Economics Minister in the coalition government of Angela Merkel in Germany. He is sympathetic to French premier Manuel Valls effort to reduce austerity in the 2015 French budget now being reviewed by Brussels. Here he takes the initiative to call for discussion on the issue of growth and austerity facing the European Union, by joining French Economics minister Emmanuel Macron in asking two economists Pisani-Ferry and Enderlein at the Berlin Institute of Governance for advice on generating growth. The process started in late summer with the defeat of the centre right government in Sweden which supported Merkel's strict austerity policies for balanced budgets. The elections to the European parliament showed the dire situation facing Cameron in Britain and Hollande in France with the unpopularity of austerity policies, higher taxes and cutbacks. The Socialist Hollande government has the lowest public opinion ratings of any postwar government in France, at 18%, and it is unwilling to go further down the road with austerity. At the same time Valls has found a partner in Italy with the growing popularity of Matteo Renzi in Italy who won 40% of the vote in Italy for the EU parliamentary elections of 2014. ECB president Mario Draghi, has generated the debate by saying at a October 2014 Brookings Institution conference in Washington D.C. that countries that have fiscal space (referring to Germany) should use it. He added that governments that did not take action in the economic crisis facing the eurozone of no growth will be swept away by public opinion. IMF president Lagarde, a former French Finance Minister under Sarkozy, has also questioned policy of strict austerity. For the first time since the start of the eurozone crisis in 2010 there is an opportunity for open discussion on future policies for renewal in the eurozone....

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The tendency for European left traditional parties to take on the ideas of the populist politicians, "parroting" them in the words of EU Commission president Juncker, is the topic of this article in Der Spiegel, It says Emmanuel Macron has the right idea of speaking up for the European Union, and what has been accomplished in the last 3 decades. This article gives a picture of the difficult days before the euro with repeated devaluations in Portugal and Italy, hurting pensioners and workers, and small business, that people have conveniently forgotten or have short memories to recall. Der Spiegel points out that the populist politicians say Brussels has too much power, yet fail to realize that some of the problems come from the eurozone being run on the basis where all 19 finance ministers of the countries in the eurozone make the important decisions. And these finance ministers have their own interest groups back home and national budgets as their dominant considerations. The journey itself to the future is important says Spiegel, going back to the past is not a solution, however useful it is for political calculations of politicians. ...

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There are differences between the governors of 10 worst hit states and the president of the U.S. on when to reopen the economy. The seven on the East Coast including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and three on the West Coast including California and Washington, all but one have Democrat governors and want to wait beyond May 1, till it is believed to be safe to reopen.190,000 of the 592,000 infected cases and over 10,000 of 25,000 cases of deaths are from New York alone. This is as though a third of the problem is in one state. The feeling in New York is that it should be the last to reopen, other states can go first in the middle of the country. The position in the U.S. Constitution is for states to maintain public order and safety. This was the basis of the president's position to work with the governors and continues to be the case, though there is pressure from economic advisers to the president to reopen earlier balanced by the opinion of health experts around the president.  Some states are taking action to reopen because the virus has not severely affected these states. President Trump says it is for governors to decide what is best for each state in consultation with the federal government. The U.S. government would step in if a state is taking risky action with the coronavirus. On the issue of whether the president could have acted quickly in February following his decision to stop flights from China and set up quarantines in January, the BBC has this to say. Dr. Fauci, the president's respected health expert was one of many public officials who did not see the magnitude of the crisis evolving with lack of good information from China. BBC North America Editor Jon Sopel cites Dr. Fauci's comments on February 13- that the coronavirus danger is "just miniscule" compared with the "real and present danger" of flu. As it happened the president acted alone in his sense of the danger from the outbreak in China through incoming flights and not relying on others. Here is what the situation of each country on reopening is- India -  has extended the lockdown to May 3. France - has extended the lockdown till May 11. U.S. - has extended the lockdown to May 1. States are taking the responsibility. UK - continues lockdown restrictions till May. The French president Macron had a simple answer to the question " when will we be able to get back to a normal, prior life?" Macron said "Quite frankly, humbly, I have no definitive answer to that." Some nurseries and schools will reopen May 11. Not restaurants, hotels, museums and theaters. By May 11 France will be able to test and quarantine anyone with symptoms and general public masks will be available to all. This is what Dr. Fauci in the U.S. also wants to see before being able to reopen, that testing and tracing, isolating, procedures be efficient and reliable. ...

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Britain's prime minister Johnson has gained approval for 16 billion military buildup for naval and other buildup for the next 4 years. It was apparent for some time during the administrations from Blair through the financial crisis driven by banks under Cameron, that Britain had lost its resolve to have a strong military capability. This was evident in its handling of Hong Kong, from the transfer to its weak response to the situation in Hong Kong as participatory democracy failed in Hong Kong. During the period after the second world war Britain failed to bring participatory democracy in Hong Kong under its rule. Labour and Conservative administrations made no effort even as participatory democracy was brought to large parts of Asia and Africa through independence, following democratic elected legislatures in the period between two wars in India and Ceylon. No such effort was made in Hong Kong leading to questions about its own commitment to the principles when China introduced its own government in Hong Kong by changing legal structures.  Britain lacked the military capability and its partnership with France and the U.S. was also weaker because of other distractions from middle east conflicts and internal problems. This is now changing with the military capability buildup for the next 4 years. This is happening as France under Macron takes a new posture in its battle to defend the ideals of its Republic, and rebuild its manufacturing capabilities. ...

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U.S. president Trump delivers a forceful speech at the UN General Assembly. He says the U.S. would take strong action against North Korea, and called both Iran and North Korea "rogue nations." President Bush first used the language of "rogue nations" for North Korea and Iran in a speech at West Point Military Academy in June 2002. In that speech Bush also said he reserved the right for pre-emptive action. This was followed by the invasion of Iraq. Trump also said the U.S. was "prepared to take further action" on Venezuela. French president Macron offered his own view, that the door for dialogue was open with North Korea. Prime minister Netanyahu of Israel affirmed Trump's statements on Iran calling Iran's access to nuclear weapons dangerous.  Fifteen years after Bush's speech the situation has not changed. In some ways it has deteriorated with the war in Syria, and continuing war in Iraq, the refugee crisis, and the ballistic missile testing by North Korea. ...

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Michel Barnier is approved by 52% of French people in an Ifop poll, yet 74% think he will not last long. The NFP will call a no confidence motion when its candidate 37 year old Lucie Castets of the Finance Ministry was turned down by Macron. The RN of Marie Le Pen will support Barnier for now and Marie Le Pen says she expects new elections within 1 year. Barnier supports halting migration to France for 4 years, a position RN of Le Pen supports. Denmark with a socialist government has taken similar position. By taking strong action on migration as northern and southern Europe both shift to this policy including Socialist parties, the EU as is happening in the US can address fundamental issues of cost of living action, infrastructure investment and investment in education, healthcare, science and technology competitiveness, renewable energy. Removing the migration issue can put a clear focus on the action needed to address these problems.

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Increasingly complex political coalitions are away centrist parties of the establishment have maintained power in Europe. Traditional political parties on the right allied with business and working class parties allied with organized labour are replaced by a fragmented landscape with parties emerging at the far right and far left. This is also a result of the deep recession following the global financial crisis of 2009, changes in international trade and globalization that have increased inequality, and the migration crisis in Europe.  In Germany and Netherlands centrist parties have formed coalitions to remain in power. In France and Italy mainstream socialist parties suffered defeat, in France to a newly formed party by Mr. Macron, and in Italy to a party started by a comedian Beppe Grillo called the Five Star Movement which allied with the Northern League party at the far right. In Spain's general election in 2019 the Socialists showed a new trend of going back to their roots as working class parties. By addressing minimum wage and other issues relating to equality the Socialist party in Spain increased its share of the vote by 6% to 29% in 2019 elections. Previously in the last 2 decades the Socialist parties had moved away from their focus on equality towards economic efficiency. The tradeoff between equality and economic efficiency moved away from equality in Europe and the U.S. during the last 3 decades,leaving Socialist parties exposed to losing some of their working class base to new parties formed to address today's issues of fairness and social justice.   ...

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In a television debate Jan 18, 2017, Benoit Hamon, a 39 year old former Education minister is seen as the most effective of the French Socialist presidential candidates. He proposes a universal income that particularly supports and creates work for young people ages 18-25 years.

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Stephen Fidler of the WSJ lists 6 factors that will influence the direction of the war in Ukraine.  1. The weather. This will affect operations as muddy wet conditions will limit movement.  2. Bakhmut. Russia is using persistent attacks on this city as a way to show people in Russia that it is making gains in a political effort more than a military one. 3. Ukrainian offensives in the Zaporizhia region in the south. Since this report was written Russia has advanced its forces in this area as Ukraine still awaits western aid in the form of Leopard tanks and other tanks. Russia has called up 300,000 reservists and this is now making an impact in the Russian efforts to advance. 4. Russian defenses. Russian forces are dug in across a smaller front 550 miles instead of 700 after ceding some territory to Ukraine, of which 240 miles are river barriers. Trenches and excavations extend all the way to Crimean beaches. 5. Russian offensives using the 300,000 reservists that were called up and new discipline in the forces. Here experts say the reservists are not expected to do what trained Russian regular armed forces could not do. An attack from Belarus is seen as less likely as massing of forces there would be detected early by western allies of Ukraine. 6. Events outside Ukraine Russia is counting on waning support for Ukraine as Republicans in the House of Representatives raise the debate of the issues in this war and look for alternative solutions. French president Macron's views and German Social Democrats views are also against escalating the war, and are only taking steps for military support one step at a time to not let Russia be seen as coming out of this war as winning by staging an unprovoked attack on a friendly neighbor. ...

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Britain's prime minister Boris Johnson and his negotiating team meet EU president Ursula Leyen for dinner in Brussels on December 8, 2020, to get over fundamental differences for a Brexit deal. This report in The Guardian describes the details of that dinner meeting.  Boris Johnson told parliament that the European Union was asking Britain to be the only country in the world not to have sovereign control over its own fishing waters. He said the EU was also asking that if the EU were to pass a new law that Britain does not comply with they would have the right to  automatically punish Britain or retaliate. On the issue of environmental and other laws that relate to the EU and Britain they are both at the same level today. The EU is worried that in future competition between Britain and the EU in trade and business Britain could relax environmental or other laws to gain an unfair advantage. Boris Johnson and his Conservative party back benchers insist that Britain should have sole right to make its own laws. France's Macron introduced the idea of automatic retaliation as a way to get Britain to keep a level playing field. Both sides see this as a negotiating tactic, hence the dinner meeting as a way to let top negotiators including the leaders to set an informal tone to the final stage of tough negotiating. Merkel made her own remarks to the German parliament saying she was willing to let the negotiations collapse if Britain rejected the EU approach. Merkel stated that if Britain insisted on certain conditions EU could not accept she was willing to let Britain leave without an exit agreement. This way if something went wrong Merkel would not take the blame.   ...

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Michael Barr was appointed in July 2022 to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors by president Biden, and made the vice chair of financial supervision. As a legal scholar at the University of Michigan with a number of books published on the plight of black Americans after the financial crisis of 2008, he is familiar with the problems created by banks from a laissez fairre approach to regulation.  Barr helped write the rules for the legislation on supervision of banks after the financial crisis of 2008 that hurt worker and families, and minorities particularly in places like Detroit. He is now responsible for correcting the problems created by the Trump legislation that exempted banks under $250 billion from this regulation. Barr will bring this down to $100 billion, the original 2008 legislation has a threshold of $50 billion for banks to be subject to oversight by the central bank and stress testing. In 2018 Barr said about Trump's legislation to limit regulatory oversight in an op-ed in American Banker- "The rules (after 2008) were not meant to apply only to the largest handful of systemically important firms. It is the very antithesis of macro-prudential supervision to focus only on the largest handful of financial firms and to ignore risks elsewhere in the system." ...

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The Berlin conference in 2020 on Libya is an effort taken seriously by chancellor Merkel and French president Macron, supported by president Trump, for an "inner-Libyan reconciliation process" with "a sovereign Libya" that would prevent another larger large scale emigration to Europe from North Africa. On one side is a UN backed government of Mr. Fayez Sarraj, that controls Tripoli and the west and on the other a group of Militias under Mr. Haftar that controls the south and east.  Various foreign powers are fueling the conflict and the goal is have them disengage and drop support for their faction- Turkey for the Tripoli government and the Saudis and UAE, with Egypt, Russia supporting the rival government. All hope to gain influence, for what that means, at the risk of large scale refugees and further destruction, and dislocation of European unity through large scale emigration to Europe. It is almost like the Thirty Years War when Sweden, Austria, and the French fought proxy wars in Europe in other countries mainly in German states and central Europe. That period? - 1618-1648, losses of 8 million dead from wars, famine and plague, with loss of 20% of the German population. What started as Catholic- Protestant ended up with Austrian Hapsburg- French rivalry wars, today local religious factions conflict with secular factions ending with rival power conflict.  The foreign policy expert for Merkel Mr. Hardt says "it is key to the further stabilization of North and West Africa. If we succeed in leading Libya into a peaceful future, it would be a milestone for the entire region." ...

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A cap on oil prices till the end of 2022 and beyond, indexing pension payments to inflation, and providing more income to self-employed, are some of the ways reelected president Macron plans to meet the cost of living crisis. A parliamentary majority is expected yet cohabitation with Mr. Melenchon as prime minister is a possibility says this FR24 support. Mr. Melenchon who narrowly missed beating Le Pen to become the second round candidate is positioning himself to lead France into the second term presidency of Mr. Macron. It was with the help of Melenchon supporters that Macron was able to win the presidency in the second round. Melenchon campaigned in the belief that the presidency had become too powerful and remote from the issues facing ordinary people. Melenchon as prime minister could bring someone familiar with the struggles of ordinary people in cost of living and to get good manufacturing jobs into the leadership ranks for the fight to Build Better in Europe. ...

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This report in WSJ says president Trump's trade policies have flopped so far. Part of the reason are Mr. Trump's tax policies which acted like a stimulus to the U.S. economy at a time when the world economy and China were slowing, even though this created a large fiscal deficit. Increase in interest rates by the U.S. Federal Reserve increased the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies making imports cheaper. The Trump tariffs are in play in negotiations with the Chinese government, and the WSJ argues that Trump's tax policies are in play too. Not that the Trump threat of tariffs has not accomplished its initial intent of getting China to the negotiating table in a serious way for the first time since it joined the WTO, and reminding it of its WTO obligations and obligations for maintaining a level trading field free of state sponsored subsidies to reduce competition. Economists argue this proves that the trade deficit is influenced only by macro or larger economic influences such as the strength of your currency and demand for imports. In the long run the Trump tariff action may work, yet the tax policies may prove inconsistent in increasing the fiscal deficit without producing gains in investment in infrastructure and other vital areas of investment in the economy that would provide benefits to society. ...

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European leaders knowing Putin and Russia were not ready for a ceasefire opted for a strategy to get Ukraine to offer an unconditional ceasefire to see if there was any change. Trump who had earlier called for an unconditional ceasefire by both sides, initially felt Ukraine was not moving ahead to support a deal. During May 2025 the EU leaders following Merz forming a coalition government in Germany joined together (Starmer, Macron and Merz) to make one more effort. Trump offered to call Putin. Yet this has not worked, except that now Trump is coming around to the view of the EU leaders that Russia is not joining the peace initiative as it sees that Russia is winning the war. Meantime two new developments took place. Germany's coalition government under Merz passed legislation so that it could build the German defense forces. Merz openly talks about making the Budeswehr the best defense force in Europe in contrast to Scholz who had resisted German involvement. Trump says it is not his war and it would not have happened under his presidency. ...

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FR24 points out that it is not that unusual to see prosecution of French former presidents and prime ministers for campaign financing irregularities or putting political party officials on public payrolls. It shows that this happened to president Chirac, president Sarkozy, and prime minister Fillon. In fact former prime minister Fillon was doing well in the elections after the presidency of Socialist president Hollande. The revelation that he had put his wife on public payroll as parliamentary assistant with little work led to Mr. Macron taking his place as the leading candidate. No jail terms were served for these charges under French law. Here it is important to note that French law limits spending on election campaigns to 22 million euros and Sarkozy exceeded that number. In the US and India there are no such strict limits. So are France's leaders that much worse than the American leaders who spend and collect money lavishly? Or in India where the campaign financing has the result of making it hard to build the infrastructure desperately needed by a young aspiring population. Framers of the Indian constitution including Gandhi and Nehru intent on getting the British out never realized that political parties would look to public funds as ways to finance their campaigns, leaving less for the intended purpose of building roads and bridges making the country a poor place to invest in and entrenching underdevelopment and poverty.  In the US tech companies in Silicon Valley or banks in New York and Silicon Valley, pharmaceutical companies and companies in other sectors, are able to gain monopoly positions or favored regulatory setups for their industries by funding election campaigns for Congress. When this results in egregious behaviour such as the 2009 financial crisis or the current banking crisis this behaviour causes severe damage to ordinary Americans much worse than what Mr Chirac or Sarkozy were prosecuted for.  South Korea has a long history of prosecuting former presidents. Three presidents have been prosecuted so far. One president served as much as five years for a jail term. ...