Germany

Shortly after Germany retaliated to Trump's overnight press attack, when German economy minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Monday morning that Germans would gladly buy US automobiles if only America could "build better cars", and that - responding to Trump's criticism of Germany's "catastrophic" refugee policy - he said there "is a link between America’s flawed interventionist policy, especially the Iraq war, and the [European] refugee crisis", Merkel fired her own shot across the bow of Trump's proposed protectionism, when she told industry leaders late on Monday that she would remai

Because the rise in popularity of alternative and populist candidates in Germany and elsewhere around the world can't possibly by a legitimate rejection of politicians who simply skewed policies too far to the left over the past decade, Germany and Facebook have announced an accelerated effort to crack down on "Fake News" (i.e. anything that is deemed critical of Angela Merkel) ahead the country's elections in September.

An angry Berlin has responded with a staunch defense of its policies after President-elect Donald Trump criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel in two separate Sunday interviews, one with Germany's Bild and one with the Sunday Times, for her stance during the refugee crisis while threatening a 35% tariff on BMW cars imported into the US.

In two separate, and quite striking, interviews with Germany's Bild (paywall) and London's Sunday Times (paywall), Donald Trump did what he failed to do in his first US press conference, and covered an extensive amount of policy and strategy, much of which however will likely please neither the pundits, nor the markets.

This article by David Haggith was first published on The Great Recession Blog:

I have struggled to understand George Soros because he is a character riddled with contradiction. His push to break down borders by increasing immigration all over the world is undermining his desire to establish a unified Europe and a unified world. By pushing too hard, too fast, he’s creating obvious pushback. So, I decided to work on an article that would help me get a little better sense of what drives him.