Worldwide tariffs on US imports coming April 1 and Car Attack in Germany Deepens Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Election Run-Up.
Andrew Sheves Good morning.
Happy Friday and Happy Valentine’s Day.
🚢 President Trump has ordered trade and commerce officials to design a set of reciprocal tariffs for all countries that impose any form of levy on US imports. These include import taxes but also things like value-added tax (VAT) and other point-of-sale taxes. This is a very broad and complex measure where each country would be subject to reciprocal import duties in addition to commodity duties (such as the proposed 25% tax on copper), hugely complicating supply line cost calculations for US businesses. The tariffs are set to come into force on April 1st, leaving time for bargaining, but businesses are advised to begin preparing for interruption and/or increased costs for all imported goods. [More - Bloomberg]
🇩🇪 A vehicle rammed a crowd in Munich on Thursday morning, injuring 30. The motive is unclear but the driver has been identified as originally from Afghanistan which will further inflame the anti-immigrant sentiment currently running high in Germany. Immigration is a key issue in the upcoming elections, and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has gained support with its stringent anti-immigrant message, particularly following attacks at a Christmas market and a stabbing in Bavaria, both conducted by immigrants. However, Germany’s more mainstream politicians are also promising to tighten rules on asylum and even Friedrich Merz — the center-right forerunner to be next chancellor — has promised to close Germany’s borders. [More - BBC]
OK, this is still very much an experiment, but audio is on my mind right now, and the podcast version of the briefings is way too good not to share. I took all of this week’s SITREPS and fed them into Google’s Notebook LM with a little direction on how to structure the ‘podcast’ and the results are pretty impressive.
Please listen to the caveats at the start - this is completely AI-generated
They get a bit wobbly with some of the analysis concerning Syria but most of this is spot on. (And again, all AI… 😻)
I might make these a permanent feature - what do you think?
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🇩🇿 Algeria, 🇦🇴 Angola, 🇧🇯
Carpe tomorrow!