09 May
News and Analyses, A Foreign Perspective
Nearly all of these are English-edition daily newspapers. These sites have interesting editorials and essays, and many have links to other good news sources. We try to limit this list to those sites which are regularly updated, reliable, with a high percentage of “up” time.


Donald Trump has issued a new ultimatum in his tariffs dispute with the European Union. Although his strategy may appear erratic, it has its own logic. Things could get dangerous if the EU decides to play his game.

Donald Trump: president and gambler
Hilary Swift /The New York Times / Redux /Laif
Donald Trump is extremely familiar with gambling. Before becoming the president of the United States, Trump was a real estate magnate with casino properties in gambling cities like Atlantic City, Las Vegas and elsewhere. And he’s never dropped the gaming mentality. Indeed, playing his foes against each other is what got him into the White House in the first place.
In the dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs, Trump proved again this week that he sees politics in much the same way as he does casinos: as a big game in which he wants to write the rules and be the croupier at the same time.
Trump already abandoned the playing field of the World Trade Organization (WTO), with its clear provisions for tariffs and procedures for resolving disputes, back at the end of March. At the time, he threatened the European Union and other trading partners with high tariffs on steel and aluminum if they didn’t voluntarily reduce their exports to the U.S. He issued an ultimatum, which he extended by a month this week.
Trump is also using the carrot-and-stick approach in his relations with China. He ultimately threatened billions in tariffs against the country, but then dispatched a delegation this week to negotiate with Beijing. The president has disparaged the WTO, but his administration has also lodged its own complaints with the WTO’s dispute settlement court as part of his trade tiff with adversaries.
As erratic as all that may seem, it would be inaccurate to view Trump’s activities as irrational. Economists often use game theory to explain why countries sign trade deals and establish rules — and why they then break them. It can also be used to explain Trump’s behavior. “Trump’s economic premises may be wrong, but going by his own logic, he is playing the game skillfully,” says Christian Rieck, a game theory expert at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences.
The president’s declared goal is that of reducing the U.S. current account deficit from its 2017 level of more than $466 billion. In particular, the U.S. imports more goods from places like China, Japan, Germany and the EU than it exports in return.
Sowing Discord
The sources of the trade deficit are varied and complex, but Trump is intent on addressing the problem primarily via trade policy. He wants to force his partners to lower import tariffs for products from the U.S. or to limit their exports to America through quotas. To achieve that, Trump is sowing discord among trading partners and he is attempting to negotiate bilaterally, thus undermining the WTO.
From his perspective, Trump has already scored some preliminary victories. South Korea and Argentina have announced they will limit their steel exports to the U.S. while Australia and Brazil could soon follow suit. For its part, the EU is divided over how it should proceed with Trump — with Germany and France, in particular, proving difficult. Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron represent different interests, something that even German members of the European Parliament find irksome.
“We need less Merkel and Macron when it comes to trade issues and more Malmström,” says Daniel Caspary, a trade expert with the conservative Christian Democrats in the European Parliament. Cecilia Malmström is the European commissioner for trade and she is prone to remain tough in her position toward Trump. She is also eager to remain within the framework of the WTO, whose authority the U.S. president has directly questioned.


World Politics
United States
Novartis confirms it paid Cohen’s company nearly $400,000 and was questioned by officials from special counsel’s office last year
Novartis said it had paid Essential Consultants, a shell company set up by Michael Cohen in Delaware. The arrangement related to ‘US healthcare policy matters’. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Robert Mueller, the special counsel, has been investigating payments made by corporations to Donald Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen, one of Cohen’s clients said on Wednesday.
The Swiss pharmaceuticals company Novartis said it had been contacted by officials from Mueller’s office in November last year.
“Novartis cooperated fully with the special counsel’s office and provided all the information requested,” the company said in a statement.
The company confirmed that for a year, starting in February 2017, it had paid Essential Consultants, a shell company set up by Cohen in Delaware. The arrangement related to “US healthcare policy matters”, the company said.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, declined to comment. Mueller is primarily investigating possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russians who interfered in the election.
Cohen is the subject of a separate criminal investigation by federal authorities in New York. His home and offices were searched in surprise raids by FBI agents last month. Prosecutors have said the inquiry relates to Cohen’s personal finances.
Novartis was one of several companies revealed to have paid Cohen in a document published on Tuesday by an attorney for Stephanie Clifford, the pornographic actor known as Stormy Daniels, who is engaged in a legal dispute with Cohen and Trump.
A subsidiary of the Swiss company made four payments to Cohen’s company totalling almost $400,000, according to the document. Confirming the arrangement, the company said: “The terms were consistent with the market,” in its statement on Wednesday.
Cohen and his attorney, Stephen Ryan, did not respond to requests for comment on the disclosures.
Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, sought to connect the payments from Novartis to the company’s incoming chief executive, Vas Narasimhan, being invited to a group dinner with Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 25 January 2018.
But Novartis stressed on Wednesday that the company’s contract with Cohen predated Narasimhan, and said he had “no involvement whatsoever” in the arrangement.
Cohen was also paid by Columbus Nova, the US affiliate of a corporate empire belonging to Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch closely linked to Vladimir Putin. Avenatti’s document said the payments totalled about half a million dollars.
Columbus Nova said Vekselberg had no involvement in the arrangement with Cohen. Vekselberg, too, was reportedly interviewed by investigators for Mueller’s team. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing.



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