European Union

A day after Trump stunned his fellow NATO leaders, shoving one of them out of the way for a photo-op and demanding that they "must do more" to offset defense costs which are mostly borne by the US, Trump lobbed another bomb at the European center-right consensus by renewing his attacks on the German auto industry during a closed door meeting with two high-ranking European Union officials, according to a report in German magazine Der Spiegel, that was picked up by Bloomberg and CNBC.

With negotiations between the UK and EU likely to formally begin on June 19, Bloomberg reports that Brexit Secretary David Davis has pre-emptively lashed out at EU officials, threatening that "The UK will quit talks on leaving the European Union unless the bloc drops its demands for a divorce payment as high as EUR100bn."

Authored by Wayne Madsen via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

For years Uber has been battling with Barcelona taxi drivers who have argued that UberPOP engages in unfair competition by using unlicensed drivers that are not subject of the same regulatory hurdles as a regular "transport company."  And while Uber has historically taken the approach of just entering new markets and sorting out the regulatory hurdles later, it looks like those hurdles are finally catching up with them in the European Union...which we suspect will not be well received by Uber's private investors that recently dumped money into the company at a modest $68 billion valuation.

Authored by Thorstein Polleit via The Mises Institute,

Emmanuel Macron is the new president of France. The 39-year-old political shooting star got 66.1 percent of the votes in the second round of the presidential election last Sunday. His opponent, Marine Le Pen, secured just 33.9 percent of the votes.