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The EU with its $15.4 trillion economy is a bloc comparable in size to the U.S. $19.4 trillion economy. The French State Secretary for Europe, Mr. Lemoyne, says EU does not need to be worried about the way the USMCA, new version of NAFTA was negotiated with pressure from president Trump, as the Europeans are the largest trading power in the world. The EU exports to the U.S. are $252 billion, and up 5% in the seven months of 2018 over the preceding period. The U.S. by comparison exports $153 billion which has remained at the same level with a $600 million decline in the same period in 2018.  President Trump has put pressure on the EU to help improve the trade imbalance. Soya bean exports are pointed to by the EU as this has doubled in 2018, after China responded to U.S. sanctions by limiting soyabean imports. President Trump has stated his intention to impose tariffs on European car imports - trade worth $60 billion- to get the EU to offer concessions.  ...

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 Harris's role for the Border was limited to telling Central American migrants to stay home. Much of the migration was a result of wars started in the Reagan years in Central American states of Nicaragua and San Salvador. This destabilized the region and led to gangs taking over parts of the country in San Salvador and entrenching Castro style regime in Nicaragua, leading to outward migration of young people. As this report points out Harris was supposed to take on decades of such misguided policies in Central America in a few months. A drought hit agricultural coffee regions of Guatemala increasing migration. Her role instead was to ensure several wins. Win No.1 to generate stability setting up the peaceful transfer of power in Guatemala, singling out corrupt regimes. Win No. 2 to generate jobs. US AID and IFDC loans were increased, foreign investment attracted to generate 250,000 jobs. Win No. 3 the increased stability led to gradually declining migration from Central America. What replaced it was Venezuela. And that is a repeat story of Reagan style wars in Central America. Under the Trump Administration the US did not take up the Monroe Doctrine and act directly to support a stable fairly elected government in Venezuela, an obvious solution. Instead going half way- destabilizing the government but then left it on its own. The result about a third of the population leaving the country in these years to Colombia and other parts of Latin America in a immense humanitarian tragedy.  In 2023 Venezuelans not Guatemalans entered at the US Border in large numbers, most of them middle class families that left Venezuela after hyperinflation and mismanagement of the economy. Realizing the danger by January 2024 Biden negotiated with Senate Minority Leader McConnell and his Republican representative Senator Lankford to pass legislation in the Senate closing the Border. All that was needed was the House to act and 30 years of Border problem would be solved.This was blocked in the House by new Speaker Mike Johnson on advice from former president Trump who chose to use the issue in the 2024 election. Biden then used his executive powers to close the Border leading to lower numbers of migrants under Biden by July 2024 than under Trump. Migration Border Czar was never a term used by Democrats in the Obama and Biden years. Biden who also served in a role given migration as one of the issues to handle under Obama, had this as only one of his assignments. Biden played more important roles in foreign policy with his experience as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for decades. Border policy was made by president Obama and his advisers. The same is true of Harris, Border policy being done by president Biden and his advisers. Similar to Biden's role as VP Harris was given assignment to cover foreign policy and was the US representative at 3 Munich Security Conferences in 2021-2024 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz of Germany said of Harris last week that he had full confidence in Harris as both competent and experienced. ...

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US president Biden says it is taking time, that he has a plan to build new silos and use existing silos to store grain that is shipped by rail and truck from Ukraine to its borders with Poland and other eastern European countries. The reason for this is that Ukraine Rail uses a different rail system so that trains that reach the border at Poland have to have the cargo transferred to Polish trains. This creates a major bottleneck for flows limiting shipment of grain. The plan for grain silos would mean large storage facilities at Ukraine's borders that can then be transferred to eastern European rail systems that can carry the grain to ports in Northern Europe and ship to Africa and other parts of the world. This is an important step that is needed to avert hunger in Africa and other parts of the Arab world which depend on such supplies of imported grain. Action is needed now as the situation is getting worse by the day and week in June 2022.  Ukraine normally ships out of the port of Odessa on the Black Sea but with the area mined heavily by Ukraine to keep the Russians out, putting grain on ships in the waters off Odessa would lead to ships blowing up. ...

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Magdalena Andersson of the Social Democrats, joins Mette Frederiksen in Denmark as the first female prime minister in Sweden. Both are from the Social Democrats. She won by a single vote after an agreement with the Left Party to increase payments to pensioners, and alliance with the Greens. Under Sweden's strange and different system a minority vote can lead to formation of government- Andersson was elected with more votes against than in favor, 117 members of parliament in favor, 174 against, and 57 abstentions.  It is more about members not voting against so that in Sweden's system one has an absolute majority as a party if fewer than 175 parliamentarians oppose. This also means the budget that will pass will be the opposition's budget and Social Democrat Andersson will remain as prime minister, as opposition parties prefer Social democrats to right leaning anti immigrant parties. Today Germany's Social Democrat Olaf Scholz and Greens Habeck as "senior Minister," Elena Baerbock as foreign minister, are leading a new government in Germany. Social Democrats and Greens have undertaken the task of renewing investment in infrastructure and modernizing their countries in Northern Europe. ...

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Vietnam rail link to Kunming China will cost $8 billion for Vietnam section in 2025. Vietnam is building 3 new rail lines in places where the old French railways built rail lines. The project has Chinese concessional loans. 45 agreements for cooperation were signed during Xi's visit to Hanoi. Xi also visited the memorial to Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi. Vietnam is practicing a delicate balancing act between negotiations with the US and cooperation with China.

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DW.com's Becker looks at how much an iPhone would cost if made in the USA. Jason Dedrick of Syracuse University says it would add $20-$30 if final assembly was done in the U.S.. If components and parts were also made in the U.S. this would go up to $80-$90. Other factors are that the production clusters set up by Foxconn have taken three decades to set up and would take time to replicate. President Trump has said Apple should make the iPhones in the U.S. to create jobs. As Foxconn is rapidly adding robots and automation the number of jobs are shrinking in the production process.

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Apple's $999 18GB memory Macbook Air M4 in 2025.

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With a redrawing of the tech map and where the jobs are tech jobs shift to mainstream manufacturing, health, banking and retail, says this report in the NYT. These companies invest steadily in tech jobs but did not go into manic hiring sprees in the way Amazon or Alphabet once did. Overall employment in tech occupations increased to 6.39 million in November 2022, a 12% increase over the prior year. Chase, Amex, Nike, Wal-Mart and General Motors offer more stability for tech workers. Overall US tech workers increased from about 3 million workers in 2000 to over double that in 2022. Unemployment is at 2% for tech workers compared to 3.7% for workers overall. The problems at Alphabet and Amazon and layoffs are making it easier for mainstream retail and banking companies to hire tech workers. Chase Bank alone has over 50,000 tech workers.

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UAE facing relentless missile attacks from Iran and the brunt of the Iranian attacks decides on an independent approach. It moves out of OPEC and favors lower oil prices. It is also gradually responding to the attacks on its economy and tourism. This has also affected the remittances in Pakistan and India by their workers in the UAE economy that number upwards of 8 million. This affects the entire regional Indian economy.

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The wisdom of trying hard but not too hard. Productivity declines when trying too hard. It helps for the mind to get rest and come back to the task refreshed, which means push yourself but only so much and continue to work at it steadily. There is no such thing as achieving 100%, it could mean the goals set were not ambitious enough or that the goals were too hard acting as a demotivating influence. Also minutae or stuff that is not that important can creep into that extra 15% to get to 100%. 

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A US Supreme Court 6-3 ruling that president Biden calls one that "contradicts common sense and the Constitution, which should trouble us all." The 6 conservative Justices and 3 liberal Justices vote along party lines to strike down a century old New York law with restrictions on the use of concealed weapons or weapons carried openly. Appointments to the Supreme Court have only meant taking the party disagreements into the Court- Mr. Trump appointed 3 Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Brett who joined Thomas, Alito and Roberts, appointed by the 2 Bush presidents, for this decision. The three on the Democratic side Breyer appointed by Clinton, Sotomayor, Kagan appointed by Obama. Today the presidents who made these appointments Clinton, Obama, Bush and Trump are all seen in a different light with their thinking and ideas not drawing support from all corners of America for a common sense approach to the Constitution. Following the pandemic and the war in Europe there is a shift in thinking all over America and the world, and the old politics simply don't fit in with this. Biden calls this a decision that "contradicts both common sense and the Constitution."  A group of Senators from both major parties are coming up with a common sense approach in a gun control bill in the US Senate. ...

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The US ambassador to NATO says she welcomes India joining Japan as a visiting participant at NATO meetings.

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After many banks and financial companies did not admit wrongdoing in the last two decades even after huge losses to families and working class communities from financial activities, the SEC may finally be asking the right questions after president Biden's democracy summit. Democracy can be damaged as much from inside by impunity for wrongdoing as it is from outside by failed states and authoritarian states. President Biden's initiative in getting together countries was to think of new initiatives as the lessons for democracy have to be relearned by every new generation anew.  The appointment of Mr. Gurbir Grewal can only be seen in this light as Mr. Biden's initiative for democratic processes that work for families and American workers. Gurbir Grewal who takes the top job of making the correction America needs is straightforward about malefactors in finance and banking- "We can't arrest them. We can get them out of the industry." Gurbir Grewal is the the new director of the SEC's enforcement program after serving in difficult jobs in New Jersey and NY state, first as prosecutor and then as Attorney General of New Jersey.  Democracy can be shattered as much by hate crimes as by financial crimes. Either way families and working class families in the US are affected, as are minorities and the less well off sections of the community affecting the credibility of the commitment of the well off to honest governance and to fairness. This credibility was severely damaged in the 2009 financial crisis and the situation continues to this day. To understand first hand by being in the shoes of families and workers, minorities and the less well off, gives Gurbir Grewal the courage to take on this job. He told the New York City Bar Association that Americans have grown cynical about how business and government agencies interact- "the perception that we, the regulators, are failing to hold them appropriately accountable, or worse still, the belief by some that there are two sets of rules."  Mr. Biden can see that if anything can make democratic processes lose even more credibility with the people is when new administrations fail to act. Mr. Obama and particularly Mr. Trump raised the issue of revolving door between government agencies and the finance industries, more recently Tech, yet strong action on wrongdoing was missing leading to a loss of faith in democratic processes working for families and workers in the US. The result is weakening the fabric of society from within just as mounting national security challenges grow for the US from outside in in its industrial competitiveness, and its technological leadership, something that affects all Americans and America's allies overseas in Asia, Africa and Latin America.   ...