Free Republic

Paul Krugman slammed President Trump for threatening 25% tariffs on European vehicles and auto parts as they posed potential risks to national security. The Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist also criticized Trump's refusal to turn over to Congress a report about an investigation into the national-security risks. "Pretty sure that's just plain illegal," Krugman tweeted. "Congress ... didn't make him a dictator free to set tariffs wherever he likes without even offering an explanation."

Mytilini is normally just a small, sleepy town, but today it’s thronged with people. The town center is a sea of white and blue — the colors of the Greek national flag. More than 9,000 people have followed a summons by the local governor, Konstantinos Moutzouris, and have come from all over Lesbos to Mytilini to protest against the Greek government’s migration policy. It’s the biggest protest in the island’s history. The road around the little harbor is packed with people of all ages. They’re joining forces to make their voices heard and do something about the situation on their...

In a wide-ranging speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that Germany had made a mistake during the 2015 refugee crisis. Not, she said, by welcoming asylum-seekers fleeing conflict, but by not preparing for their arrival as civil conflicts began cropping up across the Middle East and northern Africa. “The mistake was not to have paid attention to create an environment where people can stay in their own country,” the chancellor said. She warned that the mistake should not be repeated with Libya, where the conflict between the UN-backed government and rival...

Thirty years after celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe has gone on a wall-building spree. In its next budget cycle (2021-27), the EU plans to spend €34.9bn ($38.4bn) on border security, to help manage the tens of thousands of migrants trying to enter the region every year. As a result, business is booming for Europe’s border security industry. A 2019 report by the Transnational Institute has revealed that a small cohort of European arms companies profit handsomely from the huge growth in the EU’s border budgets. These large companies are increasingly influential in shaping EU policy and encouraging...

Despite its cool Green parties and ambitious wind and solar agendas, Europe remains by far the world’s largest importer of oil and natural gas. Oil output in the North Sea and off the coast of Norway is declining, and the European Union is quietly looking for fossil fuel energy anywhere it can find it. Europe itself is naturally rich in fossil fuels. It likely has more reserves of shale gas than the United States, currently the world’s largest producer of both oil and natural gas. Yet in most European countries, horizontal drilling and fracking to extract gas and oil are...

Fiat Chrysler is in talks with the Chinese company Foxconn to develop and manufacture battery-powered vehicles, the U.S.-Italian automaker said Friday. Fiat Chrysler is in the process of merging with France’s PSA Peugeot, which is 12% owned by Chinese company Dongfeng Motor Co. Both Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot have lagged in developing electric powertrains and also have been struggling to increase sales in China, the world’s biggest auto market. It was unclear what impact Fiat Chrysler’s proposed joint venture with Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Ind. Co., Ltd., would have on the wider merger, which is expected to...

US threats to impose tariffs on European autos did not come up in trade talks in Washington, European Union Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said Thursday. “It was not mentioned; it was hardly mentioned,” Hogan told reporters in the US capital. “I think it should be good news for Germany.” The Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to put tariffs on European automobiles imported into the US, citing threats to national security. But a deadline to make a decision passed last November without a comment from the White House after the EU threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs on US imports. Hogan’s remarks...

Tehran, Iran — Iran's president warned Wednesday that European soldiers in the Mideast "could be in danger" after three nations challenged Tehran over breaking the limits of its nuclear deal. Tehran's top diplomat meanwhile acknowledged that Iranians "were lied to" for days following the Islamic Republic's accidental shootdown of a Ukrainian jetliner that killed 176 people. President Hassan Rouhani's remarks in a televised Cabinet meeting represent the first direct threat he's made to Europe as tensions remain high between Tehran and Washington. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's admission that the Islamic Republic lied to its own people, meanwhile, came...

BERLIN - German industrial orders fell unexpectedly in November on weak foreign demand and a lack of major contracts, data showed on Wednesday, suggesting that a manufacturing slump will continue to curtail growth in Europe’s largest economy. Germany’s export-dependent manufacturers are struggling with sluggish demand from abroad as well as business uncertainty linked to trade disputes and Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. “The misery in manufacturing continues,” VP Bank economist Thomas Gitzel said, noting that the military escalation between the United States and Iran was now posing an additional risk for businesses. Finance Minister Olaf Scholz told reporters...

A German conservative writer who promotes pro-life causes was the victim of arson on New Year’s Eve. Gunnar Schupelius, a conservative blogger and columnist for the Berlin newspaper BZ, is well-known for his pro-life views. He frequently promotes the German March for Life through his writing. Recently, in the German blog Chronik, radical pro-abortion feminists took credit for setting Schupelius’s vehicle on fire on Dec. 31 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. The blog also identified where Schupelius lives with his children, potentially a means of further intimidating him. “We torched his SUV today. The BMW SUV parked in front of his apartment on...

Even as The Economist drifts further and further into progressivism and away from the liberalism of its founding, it still claims to be liberalism’s true, authentic voice. The Economist fashions itself a liberal magazine, in the original sense of the word. The weekly was founded in 1843 to argue against the corn laws, which discouraged food imports with tariffs and other restrictions and kept domestic food prices high. It chalked up the repeal of those laws only three years later to “a fearless reliance upon the truth and justice of a great principle”: liberalism.Today we usually call the intellectual descendants...

The climate crisis, the digitalization of the labor market, and European solidarity on migration formed the main themes of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s traditional New Year’s address, to be broadcast on Tuesday evening. But the scale of these challenges was no reason to be discouraged, the chancellor insisted, in a speech that strived for an optimistic tone to begin both the New Year and the new decade. “I believe we have good reasons to feel confident that the 2020s, the decade that will begin in a few hours, can be good years,” she began, before ending with a resolution: “Let’s surprise...

Poland risked blundering out of the EU with a new gagging law on judges, former EU Council president Donald Tusk and others have warned. And its rejection of EU energy policy was a form of treason, Tusk added. Simultaneously, Polish anti-LGBTI mores were making it look even more like a pariah, the European Parliament (EP) indicated. “We [Poland] are leaving the EU step by step. It’s not an exaggeration. This departs from all the norms on which the European Union is built,” Tusk told press in Gdansk, on Poland’s Baltic coast, on Wednesday (18 December). […] The law would ban...

Although Washington is one of Germany's closest allies, public trust in the US has significantly eroded under President Donald Trump, a new YouGov survey showed. Germans were asked who was more dangerous: North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Russian President Vladimir Putin or US President Donald Trump. Some 41% of Germans said they thought Trump was the most dangerous out of the five world leaders. In second place was Kim with 17%, followed by Putin and Khamenei with 8%. Coming in last was China's Xi with 7%. Over 2,000 people...

The European Union and Britain will struggle to seal an agreement on trade and other aspects of their future ties after Brexit next year and should consider extending the negotiations beyond 2020, a top EU official said in an interview published Friday. The U.K. is scheduled to leave the EU on Jan. 31. If it does, it will be the first time a country leaves the world’s biggest trading bloc. Negotiations between the remaining members and the British government on future trade, fisheries, education and transport relations can only begin after that date and must conclude by the end of...

Germany is struggling to deport rejected asylum seekers, the country’s top police chief said on Wednesday. Federal police chief Dieter Romann blamed a lack of pre-deportation facilities for deportations not being carried out. Speaking to Germany’s Funke media group, he said, “there are far too few detention centers in the country.” For the 248,000 foreigners required to be deported, there are just 577 deportation centers for them to be held and processed before leaving the country, Romann told Funke. However, 119,000 of those have been granted a stay of deportation as local authorities see a reason why they cannot currently...

The European Commission urged Germany late Monday to accept children from overcrowded migrant camps in Greece. “The Commission is concerned about the difficult situation for unaccompanied minors on the ground in Greece and remains in close contact with the Greek authorities, notably as concerns the situation on the heavily overcrowded islands and the very challenging situation in the hotspots,” a spokesman told DPA news agency. “In particular as regards the more than 5,000 unaccompanied minors, the Commission has repeatedly called upon the member states to continue relocating from Greece on a voluntary basis, with funds provided by the Commission,” the...

The Baltic States earn a lot on transit of goods and raw materials from the East to the West, but Moscow intends to deprive them of their income, moving its transit to its own ports. Moscow uses a combination of military and economic means against the Baltic states that may be workable. The American Ministry of Finance within the so-called Global Magnitsky act introduced in December included a black list of people, blocking their assets in the United States. That list include several high-ranking foreign officials and politicians suspected of involvement in large scale corruption. Magnitsky was a lawyer and...

US sanctions targeting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany were signed into law on Friday evening after President Donald Trump signed off on a massive defense bill. The sanctions target companies that are involved in constructing the $11 billion (€9.93 billion) energy project that will transport Russian gas supplies under the Baltic Sea and deliver them directly to Germany. […] On Saturday, the group behind the project said it would aim to complete the project quickly in an effort to minimize the damage of US sanctions. “Completing the project is essential for European supply security. We,...

I could tell the way things were going when, in the last week of the election campaign, it became clear that the Conservatives were ahead in Ynys Môn and nervously confident in Newport West. Two very different seats that in their different ways told me the sort of movement that was going on. If voters on Anglesey were ignoring the selection problems of the Conservatives and criticism of the candidate from other parties, where else would they be ignoring such issues? And although the Tories didn’t win Newport West, the fact that they were actually worried about saying they were...