The Duran Podcast - Germany's Habeck in China, pushes trade war

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Germany's Habeck in China, pushes trade war by The Duran

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Habek's recent trip, Vice-Chancellor and I believe he's economic minister as well. Yeah. His recent trip to Beijing, a three-day visit where he planned on seeing the Chinese Premier. The Chinese Premier snubbed him. I want to understand that meeting never did take place. And he ended up seeing a lot of other officials.

Of course, we have a looming trade war between the European Union. Union and China. I believe the tariffs are 38% tariffs that the EU is going to impose on on EVs from China, electric vehicles. And Hobbik goes to Beijing and he wonders why things are so tense between Europe, Germany, and China. And actually, Hobbik blamed Russia for it. That was who we put the blame on Russia, not the fact that Europe is placing tariffs on Chinese goods. it's Russia's fault. Anyway, a disastrous trip from a politician who's a disastrous politician, actually. Anyway, what are your thoughts?

I agree. I mean, the fact that, you know, members of the Green Party, including Annalina Berbock, who is, let's remember, still Germany's foreign minister, have said unbelievably horrible things about China. You know, incredibly rude things about China. That supposedly doesn't play a role either. in expanding why relations between China and Germany and Europe are now so bad. She called Xi Jinping a dictator. She called Xi Jinping a dictator, exactly, on Fox News.

So all of this. So, I mean, you know, this is, and, you know, she's his green party colleague and friend. Just saying. So, I mean, this isn't, this isn't something that Habeck is apparently aware of. And, of course, he comes along and he says, you know, I demand, I insist that China must stop all supplies of dual use. goods to Russia and the Chinese of course which are simply not listening. Now, things to say about this, first of all, as I understand it, this is Robert Harbeck's first trip to China since he became vice-chancellor and economics minister.

Now, I say that, I'm not absolutely sure that is the case, but I believe it is the case. If so, that is extraordinary given that China is a. such an important trading partner for Germany. And the European Union has now imposed 38% tariffs on Chinese EV vehicles. Now, what is so interesting about this is that this has been done supposedly in order to protect Europe's own EV industries. it's the automobile industry and its development of EV cars, except that the core of Europe's automobile industry, which is the German car industry, has opposed these tariffs.

And the reason they've opposed this tariffs is because the German car industry has been a major exporter of cars to China. the most well certainly when you go to china i mean i was there some years ago but i remember the cars that you saw uh the foreign cars that you saw were predominantly german so the germans export cars to germany they've exported machine tools they've exported all kinds of things germany absolutely shut does not need to be drawn into a tariff war between germany and china Germany has done very well from the trade with China. And if you're talking about German car makers,

I suspect that their long-term plans was to work together with the Chinese on EV technology, very different from the perspectives of the US, for example. And it's a bit of a strange thing anyway. that we are arguing at this particular point in time about EVs, because as everybody who has been following the automobile news closely, as I do, in Britain and in Europe, sales of EV cars anyway are falling. There's not a great demand in Europe for these things. Now, I don't want to get into the details as to why that is,

but suffice to say that for the moment, European consumers appear to be turning their backs on them. So it's a very strange thing to enter into a battle over. Now, the Chinese are retaliating. They've already started to take steps to impose tariffs on imports of pork. Doesn't sound like it's a big thing, but it's a $3 billion trade. It's going to affect severely Spanish farmers, where a lot of this port comes from, apparently. More importantly, the Chinese are gradually shifting towards restrictions on imports of machine tools from Europe.

Once upon a time, they needed to import machine tools from Europe. China now is the biggest machine toolmaker in the world. It doesn't need that so much. and the Chinese are gradually also moving towards cutting back, curtailing their imports of aircraft, aircraft from Airbus as China's own aerospace industry develops. Now, I don't think that had been the Chinese intention because the Chinese have always wanted to maintain a close connection economically. with Europe. They wanted to import goods from Europe and similarly to export goods from Europe because they saw Europe's economy, especially Germany's economy, as complementary to themselves.

But if there is a trade war, Europe will lose from it. China ultimately will gain from it. So why are the Europeans doing all of this? The answer is it's politics. They are under pressure from the United States to curtail their economic links with China because the United States is in a geopolitical conflict with China. The United States is putting pressure on the Europeans, therefore, to reduce their commercial, economic ties with China. Ursula von der Leyen and all of the others, of course, follow that course. That's why we've had these imports, these tariffs on Chinese EV imports. The Chinese will retaliate. We'll gradually shift to a trade war. German business is extremely unhappy. They finally persuaded Habek to go to China to try to to turn this round and to try to see if some kind of common ground can be achieved. The Chinese are absolutely furious. Neither Li Xin, the Prime Minister, nor Xi Jinping, the president,

seem to be interested in meeting Habek. Harbeck himself isn't really motivated to stop the train wall because he basically agrees with the Americans about any. the tariffs, about ending the relationship, the economic commercial relationship with China. So he goes to China and he poses and postures and signals, virtue signals about China's trade with Russia. So this is a sign, this visit far from slowing the process of economic disengagement between China and Europe. is going to accelerate it, as I said, the Chinese are furious about the tariffs. They're furious about everything that's happening. Harbeck has gone on this visit to try to appease German business

and perhaps also to turn things around electorally for the Green Party. But in the end, nothing is going to come from this visit because Harbeck isn't really looking for solutions. he wants to intensify the conflict with China as well. Disengaging from China means disintegration for Germany. Yes. Yeah. And Habik, you know, this is the green agenda.

I think for Habik, this fits perfectly well with the green agenda. The U.S. policy for him is exactly as the Greens want Germany to become. Yes. So for him, yeah, why stop this trade war with China? probably how he sees it. And blame it all on Russia. Blame it all on Russia. For the German people.

Yeah. So they don't blame in. This is a thing that I think a lot of people just do not understand. If you're talking about the Greens in German, not all of them, but, you know, a good part of them and certainly their leadership. Deindustrialization, he's not something they oppose. They wanted to happen because, of course, it's consistent with their overriding philosophy and ideology. They want de-industrialization. And so, you know, it's all very well for German industry to be unhappy with the direction that things are taking.

And, of course, German voters are becoming increasingly unhappy as well. But Habek and Bebock and those sort of people have completely done. different priorities. And now they have the perfect excuse to blame it on Russia so that the people aren't even going to be angry with them. Not only is Germany deindustrializing, not only have they been cut off from Russia, not only are they about to be cut off from China, but when things go really bad for the, for the German people, blame it on Putin.

Don't even blame it on us. Yes, yes. It works out well for Habek. It works well for Habek and for Berbork, at least so they think. I think, I think people in, I think increasing numbers of people in Germany, as the European Parliament elections showed, are starting to get wise to this. It's not, it's taken a while to happen, but I think it is beginning to happen. But having said that, I think that's the, that's their, you know, their plan going forward, you know, end the connection with China. They are very, very

committed now, fully committed to being with the United States, with the Biden administration, perhaps to be more precise than with the United States. They're, you know, all in with that. China, of course, as far as they're concerned, is the dictatorship. So, you know, they probably want to see the economic relationship with China, built up by German industry over decades of hard work, they're probably quite happy to see it all fall apart. Just as, of course, they were very, very happy to turn off the whole economic relationship with Russia, also built up by German industry over decades of hard work. It's extraordinary how fast this is happening. And the Chinese, of course, have seen right through it. They know exactly why Harbeck is in China, that he's not

really there to change anything or to adjust everything and that's why important people are not meeting me yeah what you said about the people wising up to to what hobbit and annalina are doing that the german citizens understand that they're destroying germany an alina she said about a year and a half ago what do we care what the citizens want we'll do whatever we want she said something like that i remember her at some event saying we don't don't care what the citizens want. We're going to do what we want. She was talking about Ukraine, giving money to Ukraine and weapons to Ukraine, but I'm sure that carries over to China as well. Oh, I have no doubt it does.

What do we care if people in Germany are suffering or losing jobs or whatever? We're going to do what we want as exactly. I know, no, no, I've no doubt about that at all. I'm sure that's wrong. That's exactly what they, you know, envisage. That's exactly what they want to say. I mean, Absolutely. They're not interested in the vast majority of people in Germany, who it's important to remember have never voted for them. I think the Greens, the maximum they've ever got, which is in the last parliamentary election, was around 20%. More often, they sort of tumble around 11 to 15%. And that's basically where they are now. They're back to their core electorate, which is still there and probably will always be there for them. And, well, if they achieve their greater strategic objectives, we're worrying. All right. We'll leave it there. The durand.com.

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