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Fact checking Apple CEO Tim Cook's statements on the EU Commission ruling for $13 billion in back taxes, shows that CEO Tim Cook's statement that "we never asked for, nor did we receive any special deals," is not true. Ireland let Apple determine what it would pay in tax, and Apple had the benefit of loopholes in Irish tax laws, the fact check by experts shows here. Apple's Cook also says it would hurt investment and jobs in Ireland. Another NYT article showed that the entire healthcare budget of Ireland would be covered by the $13 billion, and 66% of its budget for social support services to the public. Apple has 22,000 employees in Europe and 6000 in Ireland in 2016. Based on the $13 billion owed in taxes, for every job in Ireland the cost to Ireland is 2.17 million euros, and for every job in the EU the cost is 590,000 euros. Apple could turn around and locate in some other place, other than Ireland, in which case Ireland does not get the 6000 jobs. This is Ireland's incentive to give Apple tax benefits. Only if all EU countries had common tax laws would it be possible to avoid this situation, and generate much needed tax revenues at a time of cuts in public spending in healthcare, education, and social services, and invest in infrastructure, worker retraining. The alternative is for the EU to look at other remedies. This is what the EU Commissioner Vestager did when she announced that this was a state subsidy and illegal under EU rules. Because the appeal by Apple goes to the EU Courts the appeal is difficult say legal experts. The EU courts look at the legal aspects of the ruling, was it justified, not at the overall aspect of the ruling by Vestager, as EU Competition Commissioner. This may be why there is so much outcry from Apple, and other digital companies.  ...

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The situation in Iraqi Kurdistan is covered in this WSJ report, with the referendum by the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq set for Sept 25, 2017. This is a region of 5.2 million people in northern Iraq. Adjoining it is a region with a mixed Arab and Kurdish population in oil rich Kirkuk province. The referendum is being held also in these areas as the Kurdish militia the Peshmerga took control of Kirkuk following the hasty withdrawal of the Iraqi army from attacks by Islamic State. Like the other aspects of the long war in Iraq this again complicates the U.S. position. As this report shows Arabs are being displaced in this part of Iraq after moving south as refugees. The Kurdish forces were a reliable ally for the U.S. in the war in 2015-2016, yet the U.S. maintains a policy of fairness towards all communities in Iraq. 

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A German reporter questions the value of the G20 meetings following the violence on streets at the last Hamburg meeting. He says the first G20 during the global financial crisis was useful but later meetings have not lived up to the hope for discussion and search for solutions to world problems. Global trade is at the top of the agenda following the tariffs dispute between China and the U.S. Divergent interests of participants are a problem. Would going back to G-7 in private meetings be a solution asks this reporter.

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Julia Preston of the NYT looks at Mr. Trump's speech on August 31, 2016 in Pheonix, Arizona, and compares what one can discern about the Trump policies on immigration with that of president Obama. She points out that it is similar to the deportation that was conducted under president Obama in some ways, but is more extensive in its dimensions. It includes sanctioning sanctuary cities, expanding the deportation law enforcement personnel, and deporting about 2 million people with criminal backgrounds. The estimate under the Obama administration is for about 176,000 people with such backgrounds. The Trump estimate appears to include people with minor offenses says Preston, because it is so much higher. As a result this could also include people who have no criminal background and disrupt families on a large scale, with hundreds of thousands of longtime residents and families deported. Under the sanctuary example of Trump, Denver, New York and counties in California would be places where Trump would cut off federal funding. On the wall itself, Mexico's president Nieto says he told Trump Mexico would not pay for the wall, and Trump says exactly the opposite that Mexico would pay for the wall in his speech to supporters.  A Gallup poll shows that 76% of Republicans, 91% of Democrats favor a path to citizenship for those here in the U.S. illegally. For the whole population only 15% oppose giving illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship and 84% support doing this. Which suggests that Trump is only appealing to his base of support, not adding to it, as Cillizza points out in the WP fact check.   ...

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David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law School, says letting the fiscal cliff cuts in spending go into effect is fairer to the poor and middle class than the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts proposed by president Obama and the Democrats. He says the pressure of public opinion would lead to some minideals for the Bush tax cuts to go to lower incomes and for restoring some funds to defense after the fiscal cliff agreement goes into effect, leading to a fairer outcome.

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Democratic states face a sobering reality- can California, Minnesota, Illinois afford it? It turns out that they cannot and are diverting important funds away from the Nation's priorities in transportation, housing, education, rural healthcare. Here is what happened-- When California Gov. Newsom used state's Medicaid budget for poor citizens and disabled for illegal migrants to give free coverage, Medi-Cal went $6.2 billion over budget in 2025. In Illinois the program for Medicaid coverge to illegal migrants estimated at $112 million annually now costs $800 million and parts of it are now suspended. California had not thought this thing through, with free medical coverage not available to even citizens of the US, why would unrestricted borders not overwhelm a border state's Medicaid system signed into law by a Texan president Lyndon Johnson for the people of this Nation. Democratic States are running into a logical fallacy that the European Union and Germany are already experiencing, stretching straining public services, which has nothing to do with one's sentiments. Gov. Newsom now wants to give this benefit for $100 monthly premiums in 2027. ...

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Long drawn out bombing campaigns such as the US bombing of North Vietnam did not by itself provide results. However there is a difference when it comes to nuclear proliferation, which is a completely different proposition.  Which is also why DJT however he words it has got it right that the US as a world power has responsibilities. In fact being a world power means first and foremost responsibility, not some swaggering walk. It means that whose side you are on in regional conflicts stops when it comes to nuclear proliferation. There is also a deeper understanding of "western powers" as we argue here. The US has to be wary of "western powers" because it is a colonial era concept of the French and the British. Western civilization is the right concept and this includes Russia. What about China and India? China and India owe little to colonial powers, and everything to western civilization, the Enlightenment, the Renaissance and the scientific and Industrial Revolutions that have brought both into the modern world.  ...

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The 25% auto imports tariff goes into effect April 2nd 2025. How much will it increase prices in the US for automobiles? The average is about 10%, say some experts cited in WSJ. This includes price increases on higher priced brands such as German brands BMW's and Audis, Mercedes Benz, and VW cars made in Mexico to ship into the US. It also includes European car makers including Stellantis that make cars in Europe and Mexico to ship into the US which could lose market share to American car makers who make most of their cars in the US. Ford makes 80%, GM 60%.  Overall US international Trade Commission in 2024 looked at the 25% US tariff in a study and showed 5% increase in auto prices in the US. President Trump's call to GM and Ford asking for restraint in pricing may be coupled with the government returning some of the money in tariffs revenue pool to American or foreign manufacturers investing more to make more cars in the US including to Hyundai which announced a $21 billion investment. More such investment decisions are expected from Japanese automakers. For example Subaru has capacity for 450,000 cars in Lafayette Indiana plant and sells 650,000 cars in the US. One would expect it to increase the capacity of the plant or add a new plant in the US. The Japanese government and Japanese business will have additional incentives to invest in the US because of the US support for Japan in the Asia-Pacific, US openness to give trade benefits to Japan in the post war period, incentive to make the Republican DJT plan for tariffs to work as a united Japan-US effort. This would include restraint on pricing.  Toyota is in much better financial shape than VW and has a large market share in the US which it will work protect with pricing restraint and more US investment. Only VW and German luxury car makers BMW, Mercedes may not cooperate. Yet VW sells only 300,000 cars in the US compared to 2.3 million for Toyota. BMW and Mercedes sell luxury cars where buyers could absorb the additional luxury brand cost without impacting inflation overall. Some of VW's car sales would be absorbed by American and other automakers considering VW was losing market share and nearly exiting the US market. before this. ...

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Jaishankar was asked at the 2021 GLOBSEC conference in Bratislava in 2021 why he thinks anyone will help India in case of a problem with China after it did not help others for Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz of Germany cites Indian Foreign Minister Jasihankar's remarks in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 2021. Jaishankar said- "Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe's problems are the world's problems, but the world's problems are not Europe's problems. That is if it is you it's yours, if it is me it is ours. I see reflections of that. There is a linkage today which is being made. A linkage betwen China and India and what's happening in Ukraine. Chia and India happened way before anything happened in Ukraine. The Chinese do not need a precedent somewhere else on how to engage us or not to engage us or be difficult with us or not to be difficult with us." These are Scholz's remarks at the Munich Security Conference. Scholz says Jaishankar has "a point."  "This quote from the Indian Foreign Minister is included in this year's Munich Security Report and he has a point it would't be Europe's problem alone if the law of the strong were to assert itself in international relations." To be credible European or North American in New Delhi or Jakarta, it is not enough to emphasize shared values. "We generally have to address the interests and concerns of these countries as a basic prerequisite for joint action. And that's why it was so important to me to not merely have representatives of Asia, Africa and Latin America at the negotiating table during the G-7 Summit last June. I really wanted to work with these regions to find solutions to the main challenges they face growing poverty and hunger, partly as a consequence of Rusia's war, as well as the impact of climate change or COVID-19. There is another side to this -Scholz and Germany's president Frank Walter-Steinmeier are from the social Democrats party which has sought closer cooperation with Russia, and also carry a great deal of ambivalence for the war. America is not fighting this indirect war in its neighborhood, Germany is. And some of the roots of this conflict go back to the Napoleonic invasion of Russia in the 1800's period and the German invasion in the 1940's. Macron is even more ambivalent in his position and he has remained this way from the beginning- not committed to humiliating Russia. In a way it is the position of the Social Democrats from the historical context of Germany's invasion of Russia, and Christian Democrats eagerness to create a German recovery with low cost Russian energy that created the dependence that Russia sought to use. In what it sees as the unfairness of NATO being allowed to expand right next to its borders. Because of a sense of righteousness on both sides- Russia of the Soviet period failing to see the feelings of a Budapest in 1956, East Berlin in 1953, and Prague in 1968, sees little wrong in an invasion of Kviv. And with it all the biography of Brezhnev the last leader of the Soviet Union, describes that very struggle in the Great Patriotic War the soviets fought against Nazi Germany which was fought by Ukrainians including Leonid Brezhnev with great will and purpose against all odds.  Cambridge historian has written the history of Europe that Scholz is cited to be reading in 2021- Europe The Struggle for Supremacy 1453 to the Present.  It shows Europe since 1453 engaging in balance of power of European powers, Sweden Denmark, Russia, Austria, Germany, France, Britain, Turkey, continually for 500 years. Europe simply forgot its own history. Asia including Japan, China, Indonesia and India, simply emerging from the situation of falling behind in science, technology, and the industrial revolution and building their economies with the help of the US since the Meiji Restoration in Japan in 1868. The Balance of Power Simms says was maintained for 500 years is simply based on no country allowed to act with impunity, no country allowed to do whatever it wanted because of its position of strength at that moment or period of time. In that situation all other powers regrouped to keep the balance from being upset. The war in Ukraine is also likely to end in a way that is consistent with that which Brendan Simms writes about because this has not changed now for over 500 years. Biden knows this and it has fallen on America to shoulder the burden for this in the last 150 years, Scholz is aware of this, Modi in India sees this, and Jinping in China realizes this even with its concerns about Taiwan.   ...

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"To Invest (at home), To Align (with allies), To Compete (with the world)" sums up the approach of president Biden with China. It also sums up the approach at home and overseas. Biden senior adviser, Jake Sullivan at Council of Foreign Relations sets out the framework and path for managing US-China relations into the future for many decades. Here at the Council of Foreign Relations he shows how- through careful study of the relationship's history, the changes in the relationship, and where it is today in 2024. Having participated in previous administrations Jake understood how it has evolved, where mistakes were made by both China and the US, where misperceptions took hold and need for clarification, for action. The old Strategic Dialogue followed by Paulsen under Bush 2000-2008 allowed the relationship to be guided by business interests, -without any clear strategy or idea where it was going except maximizing interests of business on both sides- was continued by Kerry under Obama 2008-2016. Sullivan, Blinken and Biden have built a Strategic Economic Cooperation Framework that has clear goals on the American side and goals on the Chinese side, and work between the two presidents and their cabinet ministers. Trump 2016-2020 rejected the earlier Strategic Dialogue but was not able to set up a sound framework that would guide future relations for decades. Sullivan helped set up a new framework around three principles- To Invest, To Align, and To Compete.   Here he describes how the plan to invest trillions in infrastructure in the US was part of this plan's principle To Invest. On Align it was to derisk not decouple by reducing the excessive concentration of supply chains in China, that was revealed as a problem in the pandemic years. Building up manufacturing at home and in India, Vietnam and Japan. Align also was to have allies Japan, South Korea and India to be aligned with the US policy. It also meant that all three countries would follow the same framework for their economies To Invest, To Align, To Compete.  By combining the strengths of the 2 largest economic centers Seoul/Tokyo with New Delhi/Sydney in Indo-Pacific the leveraging effect of US strength could be felt to support its position. And third to compete on level field so that America retained control of its technologies and implementing exports controls. And sharing this in  open communication with China that the US was protecting its technology and interests the way China has done in the past for its interests. The benefit of open communication even where there are differences had the advantage of not turning this into open rhetoric that damaged relations as had happened under previous administrations. Wang Yi on China's side having seen and approached it with careful study and reflection had similar goals to stabilize and put the relationship on a sound footing. Sullivan met extensively with Wang Yi in meetings in several locations around the world. Ministers Yellen, Raimondo, Blinken, Kerry, were sent to China for extensive discussions as part of this strategy in 2023 leading to remarkable change in the mood and confidence in US- China relations after tumult in 2016-2020 and uncertainty in previous administrations. Much credit goes to president Biden and Jake Sullivan, Anthony Blinken, and also to Wang Yi and Jinping in no way diminishing their own initiative, so that for the first time in decades the US China relationship is now on a stable footing. Both countries faced common challenges around counter narcotics, around climate change, and other issues. These are being addressed. Competition is managed carefully and no rhetoric is taking place so that the largest two economies and about 1.7 billion in US and China and 2 billion people who are allies in India/Indonesia/Vietnam/ Korea/Japan living on the same planet earth can have economic and other cooperation  with different cultures, economic structures and systems of government. The result of such a framework also gives the basis for cooperation with America's allies to invest in Africa and Latin America and in the people of these two continents as another level of alignment and investment for a safer better world. ...

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Zombrun describes the effect of low interest rates on savings for the bottom half of households in the U.S., the pressure to invest in stocks without the skills and experience of the better educated part of households in the top 20% of households by wealth and income. This resulted in a negative effect, a depletion of savings compared to an increase under a higher interest rates scenario with less pressure to take risks in a volatile stock market. This is the direct cost of the crises in stock and financial markets of 2000 caused by a internet bubble, and the larger crisis of 2008-2009 caused by the bubble in mortgages and housing. The secondary effects of the mortgage price bubble and faulty mortgage securities was in the millions of homeowners who went into foreclosure in 2009-2013, which further depleted wealth and savings of households in the bottom half lacking the experience and skills to navigate this type of housing market. The failure of the Obama administration to stem the foreclosures with practical steps which would have helped not hurt the banking sector, as suggested by FDIC's Sheila Bair and Harvard economist Martin Feldstein in many WSJ op-eds in 2010-2012, added to the erosion of savings and wealth of the bottom half. Minorities in particular were hit hard. A third effect is of communities across America that are feeling the effects of job migration to emerging markets such as China that has been underway as part of the globalization of the last three decades. A fourth effect in the rising cost of education, particularly since 2000, has reduced the opportunities for struggling working class people to enter the middle class and enjoy the higher incomes in precisely the very period when the divergence of incomes between less educated, less killed people and the more educated and better skilled people was taking place. The last two effects were neutral as part of the overall process of emergence of a globalized economy with a premium on more skills and education, requiring action by the government, universities and business for a concerted effort to mitigate in some places the negative effects and enhance in other places the positive effects. The first two effects were man made crises which required managing in constructive and positive ways for the entire American people, taking risks where necessary such as fears about the financial system if foreclosures did not go through. The risks of a long period of extremely low interest rates for savers and the middle as well as working class were poorly understood by the Fed since 2000. A similiar crisis is being faced in Europe with extremely low interest rates. Janet Yellen was only doing the honest thing by acknowledging how far and how different the situation is now compared to the period of three decades following 1945- a question not just of values cherished in America, also of the need for societies to advance through creation of wealth across all sectors of society or regress, as described by Smith in the Wealth of Nations....

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England miss the tenacity and run scoring ability of Alastair Cook as they lose the Ashes. England was unable to come up with anything to match the legendary scoring of Australia's Steve Smith in the Ashes fourth Test with 210 and 82 in two briliiant knocks with the bat at Old Trafford on Sunday.  Cook reflects on his own period as Captain of the English side in his new book. He now plays county cricket for Essex after Test cricket drained him and he decided to retire. He says from the first time a Test cricketer gets on the scoreboard he is the subject of incessant reporting on averages for the batsmen- for whom there is no rest- because between the glorious hundred he is out for nought or 20 more often. He recalls his last game in Test cricket when he was able to score 147 in the second innings against India, and he considers himself so fortunate to be able to retire at that time. England is going through a period when it feels it is short on good batsmen. And Cook says after Strauss retired in 2012 he could not find a stable partner, not one of the 14 he batted with lasting long. What does he think of Steve Smith? Cook says he is phenomenal.  The best three batsmen he has seen- Lara, Ponting, and Kallis. The good batsmen in English country cricket are still too young. He thinks the best way to keep Test cricket strong is to have less of it so that it remains special. This way fans would be riveted. And this would mean players would not have to choose between franchise cricket and Test cricket. ...

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DW.com looks at what it means for first Finland, and then Sweden joining NATO. For Finland the invasion of Ukraine where people speak Russian and have close cultural ties comes as a reminder of past history. Under the treaties that ended the war with Napoleon in 1815 after the Congress of Vienna, Finland was given to Russia and Norway wrested from Denmark was given to Sweden. Jens Stoltenberg now head of NATO is a former prime minister of Norway. Russia invaded Finland in 1940, and Germany invaded Norway during that war. As a result there are historical reasons why 62% of Finns support joining NATO.  What this means for NATO- This means NATO's border with Russia will double from 1300 to 2600 kilometres. Finland would be different alone compared to being part of the NATO alliance. For NATO this means 280,000 Finns in its army if mobilized under Finland's compulsory military service would be added to defending the border. Finland already is training with US equipment and training since 2015 and is in a joint defense plan with NATO. Sweden's situation is quite different. It has benefitted from neutrality and never been occupied by any power in the 500 years of European wars for balance of power in the region. In the last 200 years Sweden has acted as a neutral state and stayed out of 2 world wars and other conflicts. For Sweden to join NATO it has to change this historical neutrality and has to be convinced that the invasion of Ukraine and the immense destruction in Ukraine with over 4 million refugees mostly women and children is an event that has changed everything. If Sweden were to join NATO not much could be expected for ground forces as Sweden has a small army. Sweden also has no land border with Russia. Sweden is on the Baltic Sea which is also a border for Russia. Sweden does bring 100 modern fighter aircraft and 8 modern submarines that would secure the Baltic Sea.  If one or both countries were to join NATO this would happen by June and both countries would join NATO immediately after 30 NATO member countries approve this.  ...

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German industry says a complete shutoff of Russian gas to Germany would be catastrophic. Paul Krugman, an expert on international economics, looks at it in this NYT report. He says estimates show a worst case scenario drop of 2.1% in GDP for Germany to shutoff Russian supplies of energy. This estimate is from ECONtribute a thinktank from the Universities of Bonn and Cologne. This reluctance says Krugman to take the tough decisions such as turning off Russian energy supplies prolongs the war in Ukraine and its painful consequences in food scarcity and inflation all over Africa, Asia and Latin America. By comparison Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal went through severe downturns as a result of debt crises and economies that were mismanaged, with 27% loss of GDP in Greece, says Krugman.  Merkel's government argued for strict austerity policy during the eurozone financial crisis. By comparison says Krugman the shutoff of Russian energy supplies only imposes 2.1% loss in GDP that the German economy could handle.This estimate is also similar to estimates by Bruegel Institute and International Energy Agency, says Krugman. It would also speed up climate change action in Germany and set an example for Europe. German Economy minister Habeck's plan on alternative sources of renewable energy goes part of the way to accomplish this yet more needs to be done to correct the errors of policies from the Merkel administration that allowed German dependence on Russian energy to reach 55%. It is hard to comprehend why the Merkel administration could not be uneasy with something that would give Russia a huge leverage over the German economy and limit its voice in world affairs. It is now left to chancellor Scholz to correct the errors of the Merkel administration and of past members of his party the SPD, such as Mr. Steinmeier and the Schroeder SPD administration that preceded Merkel. Difficult questions have to be shouldered by the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats. It is only through the courage shown by Annalena Baerbock of the Greens Party, in laying bare what these German policies were leading to, that Germany is recovering her voice in the world. In his speech to parliament making a U turn from the old policies Scholz credited Annalena Baerbock for the hard work in convincing Germans of the need for action.  ...

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This France24 report looks at the question of whether the policies of four term German chancellor Angela Merkel emboldened Russia under president Putin to launch the invasion of Ukraine. FR24's interview with the vice president of the German Marshall Fund and head of its Berlin office, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, shows there are many reasons why Merkel's policies were serious errors that ignored caution from past experience and from other western leaders in the US and Eastern Europe. Kleine-Brockhoff says that "Europe did not go wrong, Germany and France did. France and Germany tend to speak for the rest of Europe. Bit these mis-assessments were made in Paris and Berlin, not elsewhere. Eastern Europe didn't go wrong. Northern Europe did'nt go wrong."  Kleine-Brockhoff says the war in Ukraine calls for an urgent re-assessment of the German and French policy towards Russia. "Not only is the post Cold-War order crumbling before our eyes, so are the strategies employed by Germany and France." Under particular scrutiny comes Merkel's policy, and policy supported by Steinmeier of the SPD, that took German dependence on Russian energy supplies from 36% during the annexation of Crimea to 55% in March 2022 with the invasion of Ukraine. Germany's conservative Die Welt has this to say- "What Germany and Europe have experienced over the last days is nothing short of the reversal of the Merkel policies of guaranteeing peace and freedom through treaties with despots," describing Merkel's policies as "an error." About France Kleine-Brockhoff says there were lofty ambitions under Sarkozy and Macron of European strategic autonomy, which did not correspond to reality, to fantasies of European armies when there was nothing but NATO. It is not dialogue with Putin and Russia that was a problem, says Laure Delcour, international relations expert at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. Some form of dialogue is necessary she says, but the dialogue has to have clear objectives. We must not confuse cause with consequence, she says. We know  that NATO enlargement had a big impact on Russia's perceptions, but the real problem is how Russia responded to enlargement. "In this case the problem is the consequence."  ...

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The Kashmir Valley and the Kashmir region had a multiethnic community of Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus in the hundreds of years before 1947. It all disappeared after the cabinet meeting of Liaquat Ali Khan on 12th September 1947 when the plan to attack Kashmir using armed Pathan tribesmen and supporting military forces was approved. By the end of that year the surprise invasion had split Kashmir into two regions and led to a large scale dispersal of Sikhs, Hindus and other ethnic communities. This BBC report shows how this happened and how it changed a once peaceful region with a multiethnic society. Till the 15th century this region was Hindu and Buddhist with influences of Tibetan Buddhism and a center of creativity for Sanskrit culture and language. It changed with the Afghan and Persian invasions by 1580 and conversion to Islam of some of the Hindu population. By 1700 the Mughal empire decline and Afghan, Durrani dynasties ruled till about 1800 when the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh included Kashmir in the Sikh Empire based in Lahore, Punjab. This lasted under British patronage of the Dogra dynasty of Sikhs till 1947. In the 1901 Census of the British Indian Empire, the population of the princely state of Kashmir was 2,905,578. Of these 2,154,695 were Muslims, 689,073 Hindus, 25,828 Sikhs, and 35,047 Buddhists. The Muslim population was not homogenous and contained many tribes and the Gilgit Baltistan region was Shia Muslim, the Kashmir Valley Sunni Muslim and the mountainous regions had Pathans and many other tribes. This is why the region may have had Sikh and British rule for 150 years with even the Muslim communities existing with many different sub religions and living in amulti racial multi ethnic fabric that was upset by the invasion from the newly created state of Pakistan based in Islamabad using Pathan tribesmen and supporting military forces. What changed this was that after Kashmir was split in two by this invasion, China entered the northern border region of Kashmir called Aksai Chin and parts of Ladakh by building roads in 1956-57 and the occupation by China of this region including Tibet thousands of miles from Beijing in a remote region expansion by Communist China. ...

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Strack of DW.com reports on the 2016 CDU convention where Merkel received 89.5% of the vote. Merkel receives applause for the burqa ban, and her denunciation of populist hate sentiment, of Islamism and parallel societies, parallel cultures. The best passages of Merkel's speech says Strack, were about reunification, about how she started in politics from the natural sciences, her start at SPD, then shifting  quickly to the "Democratic Beginning" leading to the CDU. "Head into the open," "that is where freedom is," and says Strack she had the hall listening to a chancellor speaking with emotion when in the past she has been cool and reserved. Parallels to the 1994 campaign of Kohl for a fourth term when enthusiasm came only from "generation" Kohl are being made.

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Automakers will have to ensure that 40 to 45% of a car's content is made by workers in the U.S. earning at least $16 per hour. If this is not met automakers pay a 2.5% tariff for cars brought in from Mexico. Mexico makes 2.3 million cars and Canada 1.8 million. Automakers invested tens of billions of dollars in Mexico turning it into a lower cost export hub. This has led to job loss in the U.S. Mr. Trump's efforts in the new trade deal with Mexico are designed to increase investment in the U.S. auto industry.

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U.S. president Obama says at a rally in Philadelphia that Donald Trump is a fradulent champion of the working class, saying that Trump is simply exploiting the populist mood, that for 70 years he has shown no concern for working class people. Obama told the crowd he understood the public's mood for change and that he himself had benefitted from it. Yet he said that it did not add up. Obama said: "This guy is suddenly going to be your champion? I mean, he spent most of his life trying to stay as far away from working people as he could, and now this guy is going to be the champion of the working people. Huh." "I mean he wasn't going to let you in his golf course. He wasn't going to let you buy in his condo. And now suddenly this guy is going to be your champion."