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Volkswagen export cars are seen at the port of Emden, Germany, beside a VW plant.

Fabian Bimmer/File Photo

Trump hits global auto sector hard with new tariffs

On Wednesday, ahead of what Donald Trump is calling “Liberation Day,” when the administration plans to unveil a series of “reciprocal” tariffs, the president signed an executive order levying 25% tariffs on automobiles and auto parts made outside the United States. The tariffs will come into effect on April 2.

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REUTERS

Germany's new parliament faces historic challenges

On Tuesday, newly elected members of the Bundestag took their oaths and their seats at ahistoric moment for Germany. Friedrich Merz of the center-right CDU/CSU remains in talks with the center-left SPD in hopes of forming a government in the coming weeks. This next government, which Merz will lead as chancellor, must revive a limping domestic economy, shift Germany’s energy supply, and rebuild broken infrastructure while meeting the urgent security challenges posed by Russian aggression on one side and an American retreat from the transatlantic relationship on the other. A constitutional change authored by the previous government has enabled a strong surge in state spending that can spur major new investments in all these projects.
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- YouTube

Is Europe finally ready to defend itself?

Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Tabiano, Italy.

How serious is Europe about really beefing up its defense and rearming?

It is very serious indeed, although it's different in different parts of Europe. If you look at the EU countries, they have been increasing their defense spending over the last few years by roughly a third. That's a hell of a lot of money.

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Germany's chancellor-in-waiting and leader of the Christian Democratic Union party Friedrich Merz reacts as he attends an extraordinary session of the outgoing lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, on March 18, 2025.

REUTERS/Annegret Hilse

Germany’s vote to boost military spending makes history

Since the end of World War II, the subject of military buildout has been politically taboo – first in West Germany and then in reunified Germany. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and hints that US President Donald Trump might pull support for Kyiv and take a reduced role in NATO have changed German minds.

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German Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz speaks to the media after he reached an agreement with the Greens on a massive increase in state borrowing just days ahead of a parliamentary vote next week, in Berlin, Germany, on March 14, 2025.

REUTERS/Axel Schmidt

Germany drops debt brake, passes preliminary agreement to boost defense, infrastructure, and climate spending

Germany’s election-winning center-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, led by Friedrich Merz, and the Social Democrats have reached a preliminary agreement with the Green Party on a deal to exclude defense spending from the country’s constitutional debt break and establish a dedicated $545 billion fund for infrastructure investments. The agreement also includes allocating $108.7 billion for the climate and economic transformation fund.
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Lars Klingbeil (l), Chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, and Friedrich Merz, CDU Chairman and Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, talk at the end of the 213th plenary session of the 20th legislative period in the German Bundestag.

Will Germany dump its debt brake?

Germany’s government is in a state of uncertainty as the outgoing government races to push through a huge, and highly controversial, new spending package before its term ends early this spring. The bill includes hundreds of billions of dollars for defense spending and would require Germany to reform its constitutionally mandated “debt brake,” which limits how much the government can borrow. Changing the constitution requires approval from two-thirds of the Bundestag and the approval of the Constitutional Court.
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- YouTube

Why neither the US nor China is the world’s strongest country

What is the strongest country in the world? Parag Khanna, bestselling author and CEO of the data analytics company AlphaGeo, argues that the answer isn’t as obvious as the United States or China.

Many indices rank nations based on GDP, military strength, population, or freedom. Khanna and his team have created a new one that includes all those factors and more. The goal is to provide investors, academics, and even digital nomads a clearer sense of how safe, resilient, and stable a nation is.

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- YouTube

Can Europe broker a Ukraine ceasefire?

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. The big news, everything around Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and Europe. The Europeans now with the ball in their court, a big summit, a coalition of the willing in London this week. And Zelensky very warmly embraced, quite literally, by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and by everyone in attendance. It was very different visuals, very different takeaways than the meeting between Zelensky, Trump, and Vance in the Oval Office, which couldn't have gone much worse if everyone tried.

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