# data[].attributes.headline
Post #1 (August 15, 2019) Germany’s economy is now shrinking

# data[].attributes.subject
Post #1 (August 15, 2019) Germany’s economy is now shrinking

# data[].attributes.body
This article is about Germany’s gross domestic products (GDP) dropping in comparison to the past three months. The main point is that companies are not exporting products and because supply and demand is slow it is affecting their economy. Companies are not the only ones who are being affected, but the people who work for companies who produce exported goods.

This article relates to economic globalization along with the videos we have watched like, The Global Banquet and No Logo. Germany is dealing with a fluctuating economy that is affecting not only their trade, but also the working population. These driving forces have led to a decline in jobs and ultimately a deficit in their GDP.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
T HE MOOD music had grown so ominous that the shock was somewhat muted. After weeks of dismal survey and industrial-output numbers, it was little surprise to learn on August 14th that Germany's GDP had contracted by 0.1% in the second quarter of 2019 compared with the previous three months. The economy has been essentially flat over the past year. Household spending, bolstered by wage growth in a tight labour market, has held up but the slump in manufacturing, which represents over one-fifth of output, is deepening. Companies are cutting work hours and issuing profit warnings. Many analysts think Germany is heading for outright recession.

This has triggered two debates. First, are Germany's woes home-made or imported? A year-on-year 8% slump in exports appears to be the main driver of the slowdown. The uncertainty spawned by the US-China trade spat and the prospect of a no-deal Brexit are largely out of the hands of Angela Merkel's government. Demand for German products in China is slowing. Germany will be badly hurt if Donald Trump follows through on his threat to whack tariffs on car imports later this year.
Get our daily newsletter
Yet this is only half the story. Analysts have long urged Germany to wean itself off its export-dependence. Despite a mild rebalancing, the current-account surplus still stands at a whopping 7.4% of GDP in the world's fourth-largest economy. Coddled by government, the automotive industry, which runs a larger trade surplus than any other export sector, has been slow to adjust to the rise of electric and autonomous cars. Politicians, from Mrs Merkel down, have done too little to ready an ageing society for challenges like digitisation. Every euro-zone economy is buffeted by headwinds, but so far Germany's is the only one to have contracted in the past quarter.

A second discussion is raging over the German government's steadfast aversion to borrowing. The "debt brake", enshrined in the constitution since 2009, rules out borrowing to finance the structural deficit beyond 0.35% of GDP. A related political commitment, the sc hwarze Null ("black zero"), pledges a balanced budget for current spending. This has ensured low debt and, since 2014, a surplus that last year stood at 1.7% of GDP, or €58bn ($66bn). Germany has thus been able to raise spending on infrastructure, social security and defence without extra borrowing. Yet as the euro zone's largest economy grinds to a halt, the debate over whether to open the spigots further is gathering pace.

So far the government remains unmoved. But Sebastian Dullien, director of the IMK research institute in Düsseldorf, says the pressure will increase. Reuters recently reported that a climate-change package due next month might include a pledge to issue fresh debt. This week Mrs Merkel said her commitment to a balanced budget remains intact, but added: "We will react depending on the situation." Inside the finance ministry a lively debate has begun over how and whether to raise investment-although the minister himself, Olaf Scholz, remains cautious, to the disappointment of many in his Social Democratic Party (the junior coalition partner to Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats). Outside government the Greens are urging a massive boost to investment in climate protection. The government's budgetary rules are "voodoo fiscal policy", said Robert Habeck, the party's co-leader, this week.

A short-term bump in spending, as Mrs Merkel argues, would rub up against bottlenecks in areas like construction. Nor would it help remove the pall of uncertainty facing German firms. So some analysts want a credible, possibly cross-party, commitment to establish a fund that would disburse several hundred billion euros over the next decade. Possible targets include transport infrastructure, broadband networks, house building and help for local governments struggling under debt loads. Other ideas include cutting taxes on Germany's army of low-paid workers or its corporations, or introducing incentives for climate-friendly policies like retrofitting buildings and clean fuel.

There could hardly be a better time. Yields on 30-year government bonds are negative, meaning in effect that investors pay the government for the privilege of lending it money. Even if the European Central Bank cuts rates further next month, the monetary toolbox is nearly exhausted. Tax cuts and, in time, investment in infrastructure would help rebalance the German economy from its exports-first approach. Mrs Merkel, now in the twilight of her chancellorship, has U-turned before, notes Mr Dullien. But the headwinds may need to blow a little harder first. ■

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
T HE MOOD music had grown so ominous that the shock was somewhat muted. After weeks of dismal survey and industrial-output numbers, it was little surprise to learn on August 14th that Germany's GDP had contracted by 0.1% in the second quarter of 2019 compared with the previous three months.

# data[].attributes.headline
Post #2 (October 9, 2019) Tech Giants Shift Profits to Avoid Taxes. There’s a Plan to Stop Them.

# data[].attributes.subject
Post #2 (October 9, 2019) Tech Giants Shift Profits to Avoid Taxes. There’s a Plan to Stop Them.

# data[].attributes.body
This article is about multinational companies like Facebook, averting taxes through sharing profits with other countries. The main point is that companies who sell products/services online are getting way with not having to pay taxes because they are considered the digital economy, and can “move’ their profits from country to country.

This article is an example of economic globalization interconnected with cultural globalization. Multinational companies are abusing the power they have to move profits in order to not be taxed in the country that they sell most of their products in. The companies are taking advantage of the fact that they are connected both on an economic and cultural platform, which means they can manipulate the system in order garner the most profit.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Digital tax dodgers, take heed: International leaders have advanced a plan to prevent large multinational companies like Apple, Facebook and Amazon from avoiding taxes by shifting profits between countries.

It's an effort to de-escalate a global battle over how to tax the digital economy.

The framework proposal, released Wednesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, would allow countries to tax large multinationals even if they did not operate inside their borders. If international negotiators can now reach agreement on its key details, the plan will pave the way for new taxes not just on tech companies but on automakers and any other large multinational firms that operate online.

Political and corporate leaders have clashed in recent years over how - and where - to tax companies that operate across national borders, particularly those that sell goods and services online.

Traditionally, companies have paid taxes in the countries where their economic activity is generated. But in the digital economy, firms can "move" the source of their profits, like patents and other intellectual property, to countries where tax rates are extremely low. That allows them to pay lower rates than companies that operate only in a single country like the United States.

Many countries, particularly those in Europe, have moved to curb that practice by approving new taxes on large multinational companies that sell to their citizens but pay little or no tax to their countries. France approved a new digital tax this year that would hit large American tech companies like Google. The Trump administration responded by threatening tariffs on imported French goods, like wine, before the countries agreed to pause their plans in hopes of finding a multilateral agreement through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Wednesday's release brought an 18-page framework plan that officials hope will form the basis of an international agreement on digital taxation as early as next year. That framework would fundamentally alter how and where companies that operated across national borders were taxed, though it leaves the details of those tax rates to future negotiators. It suggests new rules on where companies should pay taxes - largely based on where their sales occur - and on which profits are subject to taxation.

"In a digital age, the allocation of taxing rights can no longer be exclusively circumscribed by reference to physical presence," the framework states. "The current rules dating back to the 1920s are no longer sufficient to ensure a fair allocation of taxing rights in an increasingly globalized world."

The framework applies only to multinationals with annual revenues of about $825 million or higher. It excludes manufacturing suppliers and resource extraction companies, like oil companies.

As it stands, the framework appears to be a victory for large, consumption-heavy countries like the United States, China and much of Western Europe, and a loss for so-called tax havens, like Ireland. Advancing the negotiating process is a win for large multinationals, even though a final deal could put them on the hook to pay more in taxes, because the alternative appears to be a series of country-by-country digital taxes that could be expensive to comply with.

"Amazon welcomes the publication of these proposals by the O.E.C.D., which are an important step forward," a spokeswoman said Wednesday in an email. "Reaching broad international agreement on changes to fundamental international tax principles is critical to limit the risk of double taxation and distortive unilateral measures and to provide an environment that fosters growth in global trade, which is vital for the millions of customers and sellers that Amazon supports around the globe."

A Treasury Department spokesman said on Wednesday that the United States "is studying the O.E.C.D. Secretariat's proposal and is actively engaged in the process aimed at forging a consensus on international tax issues," before reiterating the administration's opposition "to unilateral digital services taxes."

The framework will be taken up for discussion by finance ministers from large countries, who are due to meet in Washington next week.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tech Giants Shift Profits to Avoid Taxes. There's a Plan to Stop Them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Digital tax dodgers, take heed: International leaders have advanced a plan to prevent large multinational companies like Apple, Facebook and Amazon from avoiding taxes by shifting profits between countries. It's an effort to de-escalate a global battle over how to tax the digital economy.

# data[].attributes.headline
Post #3 (October 16, 2019) Will the United States Ever Reach a Trade Deal 

# data[].attributes.subject
Post #3 (October 16, 2019) Will the United States Ever Reach a Trade Deal 

# data[].attributes.body
This article is about President Trump claiming the U.S. and China have reached an agreement to end the 18-month trade war. However, this is not true because neither of the countries have came to an agreement and are very much at conflict because they cannot come to agreeable terms, due to intellectual property and unpredictability.

This article is an example of economic globalization, specifically the WTO and free trade zone. The United States is economically hurting and if the trade war does not end soon then American companies cannot profit off China. It is evident that China is not budging and does not want to easily give into Trumps policies because it makes them less powerful in the trade market.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Welcome to Foreign Policy's China Brief. The highlights this week: The problem with the U.S.-Chinese preliminary trade deal, the U.S. Congress takes action on Hong Kong, and China's facial recognition technology is spreading overseas.
If you would like to receive China Brief in your inbox every Wednesday, please sign up here. Deal or No Deal?
Last Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that the United States and China had reached a partial trade deal, agreeing "in principle" on some first steps to end the 18-month trade war, including the United States' postponement of plans to increase tariffs on Chinese goods this week. Initially, Chinese media was considerably more cautious than Trump, but eventually it converged with the White House messaging: No deal was inked, but the foundations for an initial agreement were there.

The problem is that the two sides still don't agree on anything, as the economist Christopher Balding writes in Foreign Policy. While both sides face considerable domestic pressure to strike a deal, the United States and China don't concur on key issues such as intellectual property protections or currency controls. Trump said Wednesday that a final trade deal will be signed next month at the earliest, but recent history gives little reason to believe it will go forward.

What comes next-in November or later on-depends on trust between the two countries. China has broken numerous pledges on issues like intellectual property, and the Trump administration has proved itself to be unpredictable and even deceitful in the trade war. Who would trust an unenforceable deal with either?

Where's the beef? Hoping to assuage the concerns of U.S. farmers hit hard by the trade war, Trump touted the only concrete number to come out of last week's talks: that China agreed to purchase $40 billion to $50 billion of U.S. agricultural goods. But the Chinese side has not confirmed that figure, and analysts say it's unlikely to come to fruition. Plus, countries like Brazil have already moved in to fill the space once occupied by U.S. exports, particularly soybeans.

As shown below, until recently China was heavily reliant on the United States for soybeans-they made up nearly 64 percent of its agricultural imports from the United States.

Peter Navarro's blunder. There are a number of trade hawks in the Trump administration, including the trade advisor Peter Navarro. But a report this week about Navarro's expertise could provide ammunition for China's negotiators: It turns out that a so-called expert Navarro had quoted about Chinese business practices, Ron Vara, is actually an alter ego. (Ron Vara is an anagram of Navarro.) It's an embarrassing blunder, not least because it calls attention to how little experience Navarro has with China, as Melissa Chan wrote in Foreign Policy in 2017.

U.S. Congress acts on Hong Kong. On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill threatening to reconsider Hong Kong's special trading status if mainland repression in the city continued. The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act has strong support in the Senate but could face a presidential veto, especially with Trump angling for a trade deal. Predictably, China quickly condemned the legislation as " arrogant and dangerous" in state media. But Hong Kong's special status is still extremely important for the Chinese elite, and losing it could empower those bitter at what they see as Chinese President Xi Jinping's mishandling of the situation in Hong Kong.

And Hong Kong's dysfunction grows. Meanwhile, Hong Kong's political crisis continues: As the legislature opened for the first time since June early Wednesday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam's annual policy speech was interrupted by pro-democracy lawmakers. (She later announced via a television feed that the city was in a "technical recession" amid the unrest.) And on Tuesday, the activist Jimmy Sham was assaulted by a group of men, the latest in nearly a dozen attacks on dissidents. Sham leads the Civil Human Rights Front, which has organized some of the biggest protests in recent months.

A big investment in the Pacific. China is leasing an entire island in the Solomon Islands as part of its long-term efforts to acquire more land and power in the Pacific Ocean. The secretive deal between a Chinese company and the provincial government over the island of Tulagi was signed last month, the New York Times reports. The move comes after the Solomon Islands' controversial decision to cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of China. China's Pacific efforts, which include alleged interference in the Marshall Islands' elections and other large-scale land purchases through front companies, have raised concern among U.S. strategists, who have increased U.S. intelligence presence in the region as a result, according to insiders.

The king stumbles over China. This week, U.S. professional basketball player LeBron James added fuel to the fire of the NBA-China controversy with a public statement attacking Daryl Morey, the Houston Rockets manager whose tweet supporting pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong set off a wave of backlash from China. The issue already feels like a turning point in U.S. attitudes toward the companies bending to China's will: Numerous columns in major outlets have decried Beijing's leverage over U.S. corporations-long common knowledge among China watchers.

Facial recognition spreads abroad. While Chinese surveillance firms like Hikvision and Dahua are facing new U.S. sanctions, the market for their products is growing globally. Serbia, which has also recently begun joint patrols with Chinese police in three Serbian cities, is the latest customer. The most likely future markets are fellow authoritarian states in Central Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East, especially along the Belt and Road route: Expect upcoming purchases from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

AI's reproducibility crisis: There's an upcoming " reproducibility" crisis in artificial intelligence, Wired reports: As with other scientific fields, some AI research is turning out to be dubious, making the experiments difficult to replicate. That's going to hit firms in China hard because the standards for academic publication are very low and AI firms have already been caught faking their data. The problem is worsened by increased government incentives for innovation in AI.

Targeted boycotts. Hong Kong protesters are targeting businesses they believe are tied to mainland China with boycotts and physical attacks. So far that has included Starbucks, where the local franchise is owned by a Beijing-linked businessman. McDonald's and Apple could be next on the list. Meanwhile, a global boycott of the computer gaming giant Blizzard over its perceived pandering to the Chinese Communist Party has already started to hit stock.

Dim numbers. China released gloomier than expected trade data in September, underlining the fragile state of its economy with typically bustling industrial hubs unusually quiet. It is hard to know just how bad things are, but it increasingly feels as though the Chinese government is doubling down on nationalism-especially with regards to Hong Kong-in part to prop up its faltering credibility on the economy.

" How One Tweet Turned Pro-China Trolls Against the NBA," by Ben Cohen, Georgia Wells, and Tom McGinty, the Wall Street Journal

This blockbuster article traces how Chinese information warfare networks were rapidly mobilized against the Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey last week. The incident reflects a growing trend of Chinese social media action targeting foreigners. In part, the trend may be because there is already so little space for online discussion at home that the censors need to find new ways to justify their jobs. While the scale of the operation is impressive, its political wisdom is questionable: If China hadn't pushed the NBA into a panicked reaction, would there have been such public damage?

That's it for this week.
We welcome your feedback at newsletters@foreignpolicy.com. You can find older editions of China Brief . For more from Foreign Policy, subscribe or for our other newsletters.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Will the United States and China Ever Reach a Trade Deal?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Welcome to Foreign Policy's China Brief. The highlights this week: The problem with the U.S.-Chinese preliminary trade deal, the U.S. Congress takes action on Hong Kong, and China's facial recognition technology is spreading overseas. If you would like to receive China Brief in your inbox every Wednesday, please sign up here.

# data[].attributes.headline
Post #4 (October 17, 2019) Cuban asylum seekers, once welcomed into the U.S., face new roadblocks with ‘Remain in Mexico’

# data[].attributes.subject
Post #4 (October 17, 2019) Cuban asylum seekers, once welcomed into the U.S., face new roadblocks with ‘Remain in Mexico’

# data[].attributes.body
This article is about Cuban nationals seeking asylum in the United States and are instead being forced to stay in Mexico due to Trump’s new policy of, “Remain in Mexico”. Cubans essentially have to wait in Mexico until their cases are reviewed in the U.S. immigration court system, which could take up to several months.

This article relates to global migration because Cubans are leaving their home country due to poverty and violence. The pushing factors of violence and poverty are driving factors that have triggered an immediate response by many Cubans to leave home and go to America. However, the U.S. is reluctant to help them and instead is causing distrust and apprehension among Cubans seeking shelter in a country that once welcomed them in.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Cuban asylum seekers who have had a clear path to legal status in the United States since the 1960s are now finding that route blocked by the Trump administration's "Remain in Mexico" policy, according to lawyers representing Cuban nationals.

About 4,600 Cuban nationals have been returned to Mexico while their asylum cases proceed since the start of the policy - officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols - in January, according to government data. They account for about 12% of the total number of asylum seekers sent back to Mexico.

If those Cuban nationals had asked for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border last year, they probably would have been paroled into the United States and been eligible for permanent residency under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act.

That law, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, recognized that Cubans fleeing a communist government had strong asylum cases. It allowed access to a green card for Cuban nationals who had been inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States and had also spent at least one year and one day in the U.S.

However, this year, Cubans who ask for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border have been returned to Mexico and, like all non-Mexican asylum seekers under the new policy, must wait as many as eight months in Mexico while their asylum cases make their way through the U.S. immigration court system.

The new asylum policy has left many Cuban migrants along the southern border confused about why they cannot enter the United States as easily as their fellow countrymen have in the past.

"I never imagined I would be returned to Mexico," said a 55-year-old Cuban asylum seeker who identified herself only as Teresa for fear of jeopardizing her immigration case by speaking publicly. "I was very disappointed because I went in with the idea of entering, asking for asylum and being with my family. It felt like crashing against a metal wall."

Teresa, who said she fled Cuba because of political persecution by the communist government, has two adult sons in the United States.

Being in Mexico felt like "coming out of a tunnel with a blindfold on," Teresa said. She had no phone, no way to contact her family and was too afraid to speak to strangers for fear that they'd recognize her Cuban accent and kidnap her.

While in Mexico, Cuban asylum seekers like Teresa do not accrue any time for the one-year residency requirement under the 1966 law, making it more difficult for Cuban asylum seekers to obtain benefits available to them under the law.

"Remain in Mexico has negated the Cuban Adjustment Act," said Charlene D'Cruz, an immigration lawyer who has worked with Cuban nationals in Matamoros, Mexico, just south of Brownsville, Texas.

Some of the people in Matamoros include Cuban doctors who say the communist government forced them to work in Venezuela as well as asylum seekers with relatives in the United States.

When they fled Cuba, many of them expected to be allowed into the U.S. just as other Cubans have since the 1960s. Immigration lawyers say the Trump administration has made so many changes to the asylum process that it is sometimes difficult to explain the changing landscape.

"Cubans keep coming, and I've had old clients tell me, 'My sons, my daughters or my nephews are coming; what's going to happen to them?'" said San Diego immigration lawyer Tammy Lin. "It's really hard to tell family members here who are now citizens or have green cards that the process is completely different from what it was."

This is the first time since the Cuban Adjustment Act was signed into law that asylum-seeking Cubans have been barred from entering the United States like this, Lin said.

Cuban nationals are also subject to the Trump administration's move to effectively end asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Both policies are meant to dissuade illegitimate asylum seekers at the southern border, according to Trump administration officials who have defended the rules. Trump this week cited the strategy as one of the factors behind a 60% drop in apprehensions along the southern border from May to September.

The asylum ban, announced July 16, would prohibit claims from anyone who passed through another country en route to the U.S. if they had not sought and been denied asylum in that country first.

Because of pending litigation, the long-term status of that policy is still up in the air. But last month, the Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal by Trump administration lawyers allowing the rule to take effect while the dispute works its way through the courts.

D'Cruz said that telling Cuban migrants about that decision wasn't easy.

"There was total confusion," she said. "They were like, 'What is going on?'"

D'Cruz noted that while asylum seekers may not be eligible for asylum in the U.S. if they hadn't applied first in other countries, they are still eligible for other protections such as relief under the international Convention Against Torture or another order known as withholding of removal.
Solis writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Cuban asylum seekers, once welcomed into the U.S., face new roadblocks with 'Remain in Mexico'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Cuban asylum seekers who have had a clear path to legal status in the United States since the 1960s are now finding that route blocked by the Trump administration's "Remain in Mexico" policy, according to lawyers representing Cuban nationals.