Month: July 2024

Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics,

The White House did not appreciate the repeated assertions from Nikki Haley earlier this year that Vice President Kamala Harris, not President Biden, would be the next Democratic nominee.

“I’m not sure what crystal ball she’s looking at, but it’s not the one we have,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a Feb. 15 press briefing when asked about that allegation, after reiterating Biden’s intentions to run for president in 2024.

Haley, during her own ill-fated campaign for the GOP nomination, argued that “a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris.” The president, she warned, was too old to finish the job.

Fast forward four months.

The Haley assertion that Harris would succeed Biden atop the ticket now seems less like an unsubstantiated conspiracy and more like a possible exit ramp for Democrats worried about the president’s age after his disastrous debate showing. Harris is viewed as the most likely replacement. The vice president has a national profile and is the only candidate who could access funds raised by the Biden-Harris campaign.

South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn already made clear that if Biden steps aside, he would throw his support to Harris. “I’m a Biden-Harris person, OK?” he told the Wall Street Journal. “So, I’m not getting away from that. I’m going to be for Biden, if Harris ain’t there, and I’ll be for Harris, if Biden ain’t there.”

Former Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan has already called on his party to make a switch.

“I was the first Presidential candidate to endorse Joe Biden in 2020. I love America. I love our Party. I love Joe Biden,” Ryan wrote in a Newsweek op-ed published Monday. “The Democratic nominee in 2024 should be Kamala Harris.”

The early polling picture shows Harris, not Biden, in a better position to defeat Trump. A CNN poll conducted after the debate has Biden losing to Trump by six points, 49% to 43%. With Harris as the nominee, in a hypothetical matchup, Democrats trail Trump by just two points, 47% to 45%.

A clearer picture for Biden will likely emerge after the Fourth of July holiday. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the president told “a key ally” that he is weighing whether to remain in the race. According to the bombshell report, Biden admitted in that private conversation that he has just days to salvage his candidacy and assure the public he can do the job for another four years. 

The White House dismissed the Times report as “absolutely false.” Harris, for her part, has stood by Biden, arguing that “Trump is still a liar” and Democrats should “deal with what we’ve got.” The president and vice president were scheduled to lunch together Tuesday.

“There is no way that Joe Biden is going to finish his term. I think Kamala Harris is going to be the next president, and that should send a chill up ever Americans’ spine,” Nikki Haley said during a contentious interview with ABC News George Stephanopoulos last August.

“Excuse me, excuse me, one second about that. How do you know Joe Biden is not going to finish his term? What is that based on?” the anchor protested.

“I mean, if you look at the decline … every person should be able to tell what country they were in the week before. He couldn’t do that,” Haley replied. “Every person should be able to tell how many grandkids they have. It’s the reason I’ve asked for mental competency tests for anyone over the age of 75. I don’t care if we do it for over the age of 50! But we need to understand that the people in D.C., they’re making decisions on our national security. They’re making decisions on the future of our children’s economic policy. We need to make sure we’ve got someone at the top of their game. Joe Biden is not at the top of his game. You know it. I know it. The American people know it.”

Biden is scheduled to sit down with Stephanopoulos on Friday for his first post-debate interview. That interview, which will likely touch on the president’s age, has been billed as a make or break moment.

As if the labor unions weren’t extorting the Detroit auto manufacturers enough, the government is joining in and helping them out.

This week it was reported that GM would have to fork over $146 million in penalties to the government due to 5.9 million of its older vehicles not complying with emissions and fuel standards, according to AP and WMAR Baltimore. 

The report said that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced on Wednesday that specific GM vehicles from the 2012 to 2018 model years failed to meet federal fuel economy standards.

The EPA found that GM pickup trucks and SUVs emit over 10% more CO2 than initially claimed. These vehicles consume at least 10% more fuel than stated on window stickers but won’t be repaired or have their MPG ratings adjusted.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said: “Our investigation has achieved accountability and upholds an important program that’s reducing air pollution and protecting communities across the country.”

GM spokesman Bill Grotz said owners don’t have to take any action: “We believe this voluntary action is the best course of action to resolve the outstanding issues with the federal government.”

GM stated that it complied with all pollution and mileage regulations and denied any wrongdoing or Clean Air Act violations. According to GM spokesman Bill Grotz, the issue arose from a testing procedure change implemented by the EPA in 2016.

In other words, its an issue that would have just gone away on its own, but the government needed to take its bureaucratic pound of flesh first. 

The EPA’s enforcement action affects about 5.9 million GM vehicles, including the Chevy Tahoe, Cadillac Escalade, and Chevy Silverado. GM will forfeit credits used to meet emission standards, with an estimated resolution cost of $490 million.

GM claims compliance with regulations and attributes the issue to a 2016 EPA testing change. Despite addressing excess emissions, critics like David Cooke and Dan Becker argue GM should have known about the pollution discrepancy and emphasize the need for strict pollution rules.

Historically, similar cases led to fines and Justice Department involvement, as seen with Hyundai, Kia, and Volkswagen. While the Justice Department declined to comment, GM stated the settlement resolves all government claims. Potential lawsuits from GM owners for lower-than-advertised gas mileage remain possible.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab told delegates at a conference in China this week that humanity needs to be “forced into a collaboration” with globalist entities.

Speaking at the WEF’s ‘Annual Meeting of the New Champions’, often dubbed the “Summer Davos,” in China, Schwab stated that in order to drive the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” forward, elites must aggressively drive their agenda home.

“To drive future economic growth we must embrace innovation and force the collaboration across sectors, regions, nations, and cultures to create a more peaceful, inclusive, sustainable, and resilient future,” Schwab proclaimed.

He added, “At this critical juncture the active participation of all stakeholders is essential to ensure a sustainable development path.”

WEF : Klaus Schwab ‘We Must Force’ Humanity into ‘Collaboration’ pic.twitter.com/rarcBvBc2i

— Marcus Cottus (@cottusmarcus) June 26, 2024

In another clip, Schwab touted AI and other technologies becoming ubiquitous as a reason why humanity must “work together” with the global elite.

“Risks & opportunities co-exist.. Breakthroughs from the fourth industrial revolution provide new opportunities for global prosperity and growth” Klaus Schwab at the WEF #AMNC24 Summer Davos pic.twitter.com/jTcTMLaV9L

— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) June 25, 2024

He also spoke of “limits to growth,” which many have interpreted as an endorsement of depopulation.

“The theme of this annual meeting is ‘Next Frontiers For Growth,’ but actually what we have seen in the presentations there are now Limits to Growth, provided we use technologies of the fourth industrial revolution in a wise manner” Klaus Schwab at the WEF #AMNC24 Summer Davos pic.twitter.com/SJDT5rLgIO

— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) June 25, 2024

Schwab, the architect of the so called ‘Great Reset,’ has in recent years said that he envisages humankind transitioning into a new age where there will be a “fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological dimensions” in a “new world.”

Schwab has previously declared that this new era of integration with “digital technologies” will mean that “you do not even have to have elections anymore.”

He has also fantasised about humanity embracing brain implants and leaders having the capability to read everyone’s brain waves.

As we highlighted last week, Schwab is facing multiple accusations of sexual assault and creating a hostile work environment from female former employees at the WEF.

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On Saturday, a fifth Democratic member of Congress called for embattled, enfeebled President Biden to quit the 2024 presidential race. Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig also became the first incumbent in a tight race to do so, saying, “I do not believe that the President can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump.”

Coupled with reports that Senate intelligence committee chair Mark Warner is point man in a drive to organize Senate Democrats into a united front urging Biden to quit, the political pressure is clearly mounting. However, Biden is also under rapidly-rising pressure along a second front, as major Democratic donors are not only telling him to quit, but are closing their checkbooks — or creatively using them to pave the way for a new candidate. 

Right-wing conspiracy theories suddenly acknowledged as true:
— Biden is senile.
— Democrats engaged in a massive cover-up of this for months if not years.
— The Biden presidency is run by an oligarchy.
— Democrat mega donors, not primary voters, actually choose the nominee.

— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) July 5, 2024

One of those deeply-disenchanted donors is Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, who gave more than $20 million to boost Democratic candidates in recent years, including upwards of $1.5 million for Biden’s 2020 campaign. Last week, Hastings publicly called for Biden to quit. He reiterated that stance after watching Biden’s terrible Friday interview with George Stephanopoulos, telling ABC News. “Biden is unfortunately in denial about his mental state. He needs to step aside to let a vigorous Democratic leader beat Trump.”

Then there’s Kase Capital Management portfolio manager Whitney Tilson, who told ABC, “[Biden]’s not in [a] condition to handle the rigors of the presidency for another four years…All of us are standing by to see what happens here. Even the wealthiest people have limitations to money.” More bluntly, he took to Twitter to say, “Biden’s campaign is a ghost. It’s over.” 

Rather than simply moving to the sidelines, some mega-donors are engaging in creative political-financial engineering — such as former Inuit and Paypal CEO Bill Harris, who donated $620,000 to the Biden Victory Fund in 2020 and told ABC that, given his performance in the debate and the Stephanopoulos interview, most observers would see Biden’s departure as “inevitable.”

On Friday, Harris announced that his Democrats for the Next Generation PAC was committing to spend $2 million “to fund a series of debates among prominent candidates to become the Democratic nominee for president if Biden steps aside.” Some are referring to the concept as a “mini-primary” — and it’s seen by many as a mechanism for ensuring that Kamala Harris isn’t tapped merely by virtue of her title.  

Bill Harris waved off Democrats’ unease about a potentially messy and divisive process for picking a new candidate. “It’s not that we have to protect ourselves from chaos and drama,” Harris told the Washington Post. “We need drama and a little chaos. I think it can be refreshing and energizing.”

In addition to drama and chaos, there’s some major branding confusion in the mix, as another group of deep-pocketed Democrats — led by crypto billionaire Mike Novogratz and Hollywood moviemaker Andrew Jarecki — is launching a nearly-identically-named “Next Generation PAC”.

That group has even grander plans: raising up to $100 million for what might be characterized as a political escrow and incentive fund, designated to promote a successor 2024 Democratic standard-bearer. If Biden is on the November ballot, the fund would be redirected to promote down-ballot candidates — and not Biden.  

In the wake of Biden’s debate disaster, the first notes of alarm among major Democratic benefactors came via anonymous quotes. Now, they’re pouring out of the woodwork to publicly declare their convictions that Biden needs to step aside. A sampling: 

• Filmaker and heiress Abigail Disney said she’s withholding planned donations to a Biden-backing constellation of groups that included the Biden campaign, the Democratic National Committee, super PACs and nonprofits. “[They] will not receive another dime from me until they bite the bullet and replace Biden at the top of the ticket,” she told the Times. 
• Damon Lindelof, who created the “Lost” TV series, posted an opinion piece in Deadline calling for a donor “DEMbargo” targeting not only Biden but also other candidates — to be called off only if Biden quits.   
• Los Angeles real estate billionaire Rick Caruso tweeted, “In this vital election, stepping aside is the right and honorable thing for President Biden to do.” 
• Gideon Stein, chairman of AI advertising firm WriteLabel, is withholding $3.5 million in contributions pending Biden’s ouster. He told the Times that he and almost every other big donor he’s in contact with think “a new ticket is in the best interest of defeating Donald Trump.”

Amid all the angst, some wealthy donors are turning on each other. Many are angry with Hollywood tycoon and top Biden fundraiser Jeffrey Katzenberg, who’s seen as having perpetrated a sort of fraud by concealing Biden’s mental decline as he persuaded reluctant donors to give him their money. As one unnamed Hollywood figure and Democratic booster told the Financial Times: 

“[Katzenberg] would say, ‘He’s fine, I was just with him. He had this famous quote for everybody, which was ‘I’m happy to put you in a room with him and you’ll see for yourself.’ But nobody did it.”

Ironically, the Katzenberg angle and the entire “Biden-is-sharp-as-a-tack” scam have the makings of a great Hollywood movie…that is, if Hollywood would allow some frank introspection. 

Via SchiffGold.com,

In 2023, the U.S. spent 1.04 trillion dollars on Medicare, which is over $3,000 per citizen. For an inefficient, problem-ridden program, that number is difficult for Americans to stomach.

Medicare is a health insurance program for seniors and specific disabled individuals. It has provided coverage for millions since it originated in 1965. However, the benefits it offers are far outweighed by its inefficiency and inadequacy, which cost trillions.

Medicare spending has grown exponentially since its creation under Lyndon B. Johnson. As of 2023, Medicare expenditures comprised 17% of the federal budget. The Congressional Budget Office projects Medicare’s spending will rise to $1.6 trillion by 2032. The Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, which finances a large percentage of Medicare, is set to be depleted by 2028. This threat of insolvency has the potential to leave millions of seniors without adequate coverage.

The causes of these burgeoning costs have a common thread: government inefficiency. Medicare’s fee-for-service model incentivizes quantity over quality—the program awards medical professionals for unnecessary procedures and artificially inflated costs. The American Medical Association approximates that 25% of Medicare spending, about $250 billion annually, is wasted on overtreatment, care administration inefficiencies, and excessive managerial costs.

Much of these administrative costs are due to the difficulty of complying with Medicare. A 2016 study showed that physicians spend an average of 785 hours per physician per year on Medicare regulatory compliance, costing an annual total of $15.4 billion.

These administrative complexities are due to the program’s intricate rules and regulations which often need to be clarified for both beneficiaries and healthcare providers. This often results in significant delays in care and excessive unnecessary costs. Medicare’s bureaucracy creates numerous obstacles for both physicians and patients which prevent seniors from getting the adequate care that they need.

This inefficiency is also passed on to seniors in the form of taxes and fees. Despite the common belief that Medicare is “free,” it comes with numerous hidden costs. The 2021 standard monthly premium for Medicare Part B was $148.50, with recipients with higher incomes paying up to $504.90 every month. Since 2000, these premiums have increased by 226%, far outpacing inflation. Additionally, the Medicare payroll tax is set at 2.9%, with those earning over $200,000 facing an additional 0.9% tax.

The aging of the U.S. population is putting unprecedented strain on Medicare. As the baby boomer generation continues to reach retirement age, the number of Medicare beneficiaries is growing faster than the working-age population that supports the program through payroll taxes. In 2022, there were 65.0 million Medicare beneficiaries, with 57.1 million aged 65 and older. This number is projected to increase substantially in the coming years.

The Medicare Trustees Report projects that Medicare spending will grow from 3.8% of GDP in 2023 to approximately 6% by 2047. This rate of increase is unsustainable, and the increasing ratio of beneficiaries to workers means that either taxes must increase significantly, benefits must be cut, or both.

In addition, Medicare’s current structure limits beneficiary choice and stifles innovation in healthcare delivery. Telemedicine has shown promise in reducing healthcare costs, especially chronic disease management. However, Medicare hasn’t embraced these innovations due to stifling regulatory constraints. A market-based approach would allow for greater experimentation and adoption of cost-effective healthcare solutions, driving innovation and improving care quality for seniors.

The current trajectory of Medicare spending is unsustainable and threatens the fiscal stability of the United States. With projected expenditures reaching $1.04 trillion in 2023, the system requires bold action from Americans and politicians who want to preserve the country’s future.

Healthcare systems will continue to fail as long as the government continues to heavily interfere. A reformed system should prioritize consumer choice, encourage provider competition, and reward innovation in healthcare delivery. This approach would utilize market forces to drive down costs and improve quality while ensuring seniors have access to comprehensive health coverage.

The time for incremental changes has passed. Medicare has cost tens of trillions and is not adequately serving seniors’ needs. Only through bold, market-oriented reforms can we hope to achieve an efficient healthcare solution that benefits both seniors and the rest of the American people.

The last many weeks (or even months) of Ukraine coverage by mainstream media has seen a major shift. One might observe that Western reporters are actually starting to do their jobs for a change, and digging into to ‘inconvenient’ truths and stories which a year ago no outlet would have touched amid the general pro-Kyiv euphoria.

A military correspondent with The New York Times has issued the newest bombshell report this weekend which shines a spotlight on not just Ukrainian troops but American and foreign fighters who’ve volunteered with pro-Kyiv forces and have committed potential war crimes. The report, titled Killings of Surrendering Russians Divide an American-Led Unit, reveals how US troops are participating in units which conduct extra-judicial killings of Russians who have legitimately surrendered.

Much of the eyewitness accounts come from a German volunteer identified as Caspar Grosse, a medic in an all-foreign unit led by an American who says he witnessed clear war crimes and that his conscience has forced him to speak out.

He described how last August, a wounded, unarmed Russian soldier was seeking a peaceful surrender by crawling and calling out to Ukrainian front lines. Grosse relates to the Times that he “saw the soldier plead for medical attention in a mix of broken English and Russian. It was dusk. A team member looked for bandages.” And then he was shocked to observe the following turn of events:

That is when, Mr. Grosse said, a fellow soldier hobbled over and fired his weapon into the Russian soldier’s torso. He slumped, still breathing. Another soldier fired — “just shot him in the head,” Mr. Grosse recalled in an interview.

Mr. Grosse said he was so upset by the episode that he confronted his commander. He said he spoke to The New York Times after what he regarded as unwarranted killings continued.

The unit in question goes by the “Chosen Company” – widely considered the most reputable and well-known volunteer group of international troops. Grosse further verified this and other similar incidents in his journal, which he provided the Times.

But the outlet also had video evidence to go on which verified separate such killings. “In a second episode, a Chosen member lobbed a grenade at and killed a surrendering Russian soldier who had his hands raised, video footage reviewed by The Times shows,” it documents. “The Ukrainian military released video of the episode to showcase its battlefield prowess, but it edited out the surrender.” This means Ukraine’s military censors and these volunteer units are literally editing out clear war crimes before releasing to the world what amounts to official propaganda.

And given it was a “Chosen member” who lobbed the grenade, this means a foreign fighter is being singled out by the paper for the extrajudicial killing which violates the Geneva Conventions.

The Times further reviewed text messages from a group chat it has reviewed. “In a third episode, Chosen members boasted in a group chat about killing Russian prisoners of war during a mission in October, text messages show,” the publication writes. “A soldier who was briefly in command that day alluded to the killings using a slang word for shooting.” He said he would take responsibility.:

“If anything comes out about alleged POW blamming, I ordered it,” wrote the soldier, who uses the call sign Andok. He added an image of a Croatian war criminal who died in 2017 after drinking poison during a tribunal at The Hague.

“At the Hague ‘I regret nothing!’” he wrote. It was one of several text messages reviewed by The Times that make reference, directly or obliquely, to killing prisoners. Andok said in an interview that he had been joking.

The report says that a Greek soldier known as Zeus was at the center of multiple episodes that involved killing Russian prisoners or those in the act of surrendering.

In Ukraine, Killings of Surrendering Russians Divide an American-Led Unit. A Greek soldier known as Zeus was at the center of all 3 episodes — tossing grenade & firing at wounded Russian – Killing prisoners of war is a violation of the Geneva Conventions https://t.co/VXADCIqq8L pic.twitter.com/fXKZxg2odw

— George Roussos (@baphometx) July 6, 2024

“Today a good friend willingly executed a bound prisoner,” a journal entry by Grosse begins, recounting one of the incidents which Zeus was behind. “As the prisoner was sitting in a trench blendage with his jacket draped over his shoulders, Zeus came up behind him and shot him into the back of the head multiple times. Going to bed.”

Via Money Metals,

Have we already entered recession? Worse, have we been in a recession for years now?

Recently I joined Jeff Tucker of the Brownstone Institute on an article about the Herculean task of trying to figure out what’s actually happening in the economy.

Which is a challenge given every official economic number out there is broken.

I’ve covered some of these in recent videos, including failing to count homeless people as unemployed, calling welfare spending economic growth, and undercounting inflation — perhaps by a lot.

Thing is, if the official numbers are wrong, it could mean we’re already in recession, masked by rising asset prices courtesy of the Fed.

Inflation: the Key to Recession

To give a flavor, the official inflation rate since Covid has been around 21%. But fast food menu prices – a go-to indicator for Foreign exchange investors – are up between 35% and 50%. People posting grocery receipts online say it’s actually more than 50%.

The problem is if inflation was actually, say, 35% it means GDP hasn’t gone up at all since pre-Covid. It means it actually went down. Implying we’ve been in recession for nearly 5 years.

This is because official growth numbers are discounted by inflation. If growth was 3% but inflation was 2%, we grew. If inflation was actually 4%, we shrank.

That means that if inflation was actually worse than 35% — if, say, it was the 50% that grocery receipts say — that would put us near Depression levels with a 13% drop in real GDP since pre-Covid.

Are We in a Hidden Depression?

The idea seems absurd — it shocked me. But, historically, inflationary depressions are hard to see for the simple reason that asset prices pump before consumer prices do. The affluent keep spending since their stocks soared and their house prices soared – sound familiar?

In Germany’s Weimar hyperinflation, for example, early on people weren’t complaining about prices, they were popping champagne over how much money they were making on their stocks. The hunger came later.

The 4 year depression theory explains a lot of otherwise mysterious data. My colleague EJ Antoni found that manufacturing orders have been flat for at least 3 years, while consumer spending has actually been negative for those 3 years. We get data points like Americans seeing McDonald’s as a luxury item, buying groceries on credit cards, selling off second cars, down-sizing to smaller homes – all hallmarks of a recession.

Even that grandaddy of statistics, GDP, may be an illusion. Because GDP counts government spending as production.

Which, of course, it is not: it’s spending, not building. So our current $2 trillion deficit is, on paper, automagically boosting GDP by nearly 7%. But the spending isn’t making us richer – it’s making us poorer as physical resources get squandered.

It’s the1970s All Over Again, but Worse

When the official numbers are lies, we’re left with data points and anecdotes like record credit card debt, financial distress among the middle class, shrinking quality of life.

My base case has been that we’re repeating the 1970’s disaster driven by out of control government spending and out of control Fed money printing. The official numbers are matching that almost to a tee.

But if, in fact, the real numbers are much worse – perhaps even as bad as voters and consumer surveys report – then we could be headed towards a proper Depression.

After the first presidential debate featuring both incumbent U.S. President Joe Biden and his challenger, former President Donald Trump, the topic of Biden’s age – currently 81 – has been thrust back into the spotlight.

In fact, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz shows in the chart below, Biden and Trump were the oldest U.S. presidents ever at the time of their inauguration. Trump was 70 years old in 2017 and Biden was 78 in 2021. Ronald Reagan, who was 69 in 1981, comes third. At the start of a second term, Biden would be 82, making him 86 when reaching his term limit. Trump is now 78 – the same age as Biden when he started his first term – and would be 82 at term limit.

Taking a look at all presidents’ ages at the time of their inauguration since 1789, no clear trend is visible.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Before Trump and Biden, presidents’ ages were actually well below average.

Barack Obama took office at 47 years and 169 days, according to Potus.com, making him the fifth youngest president at the time of inauguration.

Bill Clinton, who was 46 when he took over, was the third youngest – only John F. Kennedy (43) and Teddy Roosevelt (42) were younger.

Some of the oldest presidents hail from past centuries.

William Henry Harrison was 68 at his inauguration in 1841 (he died a month later of typhoid and pneumonia), making him the fourth-oldest president ever.

James Buchanan, who took office in 1857, was the fifth-oldest president at 65.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

China is proceeding with anti-dumping investigations of EU imports, targeting brandy and pork imports from the bloc, as the tariff spat entered a new phase on Friday with the start of the provisional EU tariffs on imports of China-made electric vehicles.

China’s Commerce Ministry said on Friday that it would hold a hearing later this month on its ongoing investigation into EU brandy imports. In another probe, China is investigating anti-dumping allegations for imported pork and its by-products from the European Union.

The brandy probe appears to target France, while the pork imports investigation is likely aimed at Spain, the Netherlands, and Denmark, analysts say.

With these tit-for-tat probes, China appears to be trying to force Spain’s and France’s hand in the EV tariff issue and have them persuade other EU members to drop the tariffs.

Germany’s auto industry has already said that the provisional tariffs, which came into effect on July 5, are not in the EU’s interest.

The EU launched in October 2023 anti-subsidy investigations into EU imports of EVs from China to determine whether the value chains in China benefit from illegal subsidies.

Last month, the European Commission “provisionally concluded that the battery electric vehicles (BEV) value chain in China benefits from unfair subsidization, which is causing a threat of economic injury to EU BEV producers.” 

The provisional import tariffs – which come on top of an existing 10% duty – are for a maximum duration of four months.  

“Within that timeframe, a final decision must be taken on definitive duties, through a vote by EU Member States. When adopted, this decision would make the duties definitive for a period of five years,” the Commission said on Thursday.

VDA, Germany’s automakers’ association, said this week that the “stated goal of ensuring fair competition conditions and protecting the domestic industry from unfair practices will not be achieved” by the anti-subsidy tariffs.

“The European anti-subsidy tariffs would not only affect Chinese manufacturers but also European companies and their joint ventures in particular,” VDA said, adding that the introduction of the tariffs “will lead to countermeasures and retaliatory measures and carries a real risk of escalating the trade conflict with China.”

In 2023, Belarus had a population of 9.5 million and a GDP of 71.8 billion in current U.S. dollars, according to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau and the International Monetary Fund.

As Statista’s Florian Zandt shows in the chart below, based on data from the aforementioned sources, Eurostat and the World Bank shows, its accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) led by China and Russia might help the organization close its ranks in a geopolitical sense. Its monetary contribution, however, is rather minimal in comparison.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Overall, the ten member states of the SCO, which apart from China, Russia and Belarus are India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Iran, had a combined estimated GDP of $24.4 trillion in 2023, roughly $6 trillion more than the European Union.

The G7 states of Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom contributed $46.8 trillion to the global GDP of $104.8 trillion, which equals 45 percent of the world’s total.

Broadening the scope to G20, the share of this group of countries in the global GDP rises to 78 percent, largely because of the inclusion of China, which had an estimated GDP of $17.8 trillion in current prices, rivaled only by the United States with a GDP of $27.4 trillion.