America Frozen Out of World Trade

 

Yet another trade agreement excludes the U.S.

A new trade agreement that covers more than 13 percent of the world economy, accounting for 15 percent of global trade, was ratified by its first six countries on December 30. The Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (cptpp) will cover 500 million people.

Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Singapore will be joined by another four countries that have already signed but not yet ratified the agreement. Vietnam joins on January 14, while Brunei, Chile, Malaysia and Peru will join the deal 60 days after completing the ratification process.

‘Man-made crisis’: Venezuelan hell destabilizes region

Venezuelan refugees line up for food donations at Simon Bolivar Square in Boa Vista, Brazil. / Andre Coelho / Bloomberg

 

UNITED NATIONS — It didn’t have to be this way. An oil rich, economically prosperous middle class country, once a stable Latin American democracy, is disintegrating into a socialist dystopia plagued by hunger, corruption, hyper-inflation and churning political unrest.

While petroleum remains Venezuela’s major export, now tragically it’s the people too who are fleeing this twice California sized country.

Japan’s Shifting Power Alliances

 

I’ve just wrapped up a long trip to Japan. And I’ve taken away one lesson from all of my conversations, speeches and research: The rise of nationalism in the U.S. will cause massive shifts in global trade alliances.

One of the main beneficiaries will be Japan. Now, Japan might not be on your radar, day-to-day, but it’s about to play a very important role in the world of Donald Trump.

Here’s what I mean…

Colombia: Venezuela Crumbles Into Uncertainty

While Venezuela is drifting towards mass starvation, government collapse and civil war Colombia has managed to avoid all that and then some. What Colombia did was not easy. It required nearly two decades of effort to reach the point where a peace deal was agreed to and succeeded in disbanding the major leftist rebel group FARC. With that accomplished (as of the end of June) the second largest leftist rebel group (ELN, a third the size of FARC) now wants to talk peace as well. All these leftist rebels got going in the 1960s but by the 1990s were rapidly losing popular support. It got worse after 2000 because by then the drug gangs and leftist rebels had merged in many parts of the country, and the war was increasingly about money, not ideology. A new reform government took advantage of this and organized an offensive that sharply reduced crime and gave the economy a chance to become the most successful in South America.

U.S. To Be A Top-Ten Oil Exporter In Three Years

 

PIRA Energy has predicted that U.S. crude oil exports will top 2 million barrels by 2020, reaching 2.25 million bpd. That’s more than what most OPEC members export, the FT notes, citing the research company’s figures. As of 2016, the U.S. average daily export rate was just 520,000 bpd, although in May, the average daily was 1.02 million barrels, after the 1-million-bpd mark was passed early in the year.

Germany Makes Gains in the Scramble Over Latin America’s Resources

 

Latin America’s political shifts are opening doors for Germany’s economy.

Many nations today are casting their gaze upon a land where natural resources are found in abundance, where raw materials are yet to be extracted, and where renewable energy resources haven’t reached their full potential. They are ogling Latin America as a region that could help them secure their economic future.

For a time, China, and to some degree Russia, seemed to gain the upper edge.

But the Trumpet did not expect that arrangement to last. “[B]e assured that Europe will not stand by passively and allow Beijing and Moscow to elbow it off the dance floor,” we wrote last year.

Now, the political landscape in parts of Latin America is changing, which may open the door for greater German involvement.

Russian Naval Expansion Threatens U.S. Influence in the Western Hemisphere

 

On Wednesday, April 20, 2016, the New York Times reported that the most Russian attack submarines, in two decades, are patrolling the coastlines of “Scandinavia and Scotland, along with the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic.” This increased area of patrols and the Russian’s build up of arms is approaching Cold War levels, and signals the increasingly competitive and uneasy relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

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Russia’s activity within the Western Hemisphere has increased since the beginning of he Obama Administration. Russian activity in the Western Hemisphere first began with the sale of military equipment to Venezuela that soon transitioned into the two nations participating in joint naval exercises. It was believed that the Russia decision to launch the exercise came after the U.S. announced it would be reforming the 4^th fleet to patrol the Caribbean.

Germany’s Leading Role

BERLIN/CIUDAD DE MÉXICO (Own report) – Following her talks yesterday with Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany will strengthen its partnership with Mexico. It will train members of the police and armed forces and enhance economic cooperation with that country. Mexico, traditionally, has been one of the German companies’ two most important trading partners in Latin America. Particularly German automobile companies use Mexico as a low-wage production site for the lucrative US market. Cooperation now will also be strengthened with the military and in the field of domestic repression. This must be seen in the context of the gradual polarization on both shores of the Pacific, as Western powers and their allies take up positions in opposition to the People’s Republic of China, while several governments, which had refused to bow to western hegemony, have been recently either voted out of office or are threatened with being ousted. Berlin is offensively supporting those forces, cooperating with the West – such as Mexico, whose President Peña Nieto, in turn, explicitly recognizes Germany’s “leading role.”

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Death of Western Sovereignty

(TRUNEWS) On February 4, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is set for formal signature in New Zealand.

The TPP is a global version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which has been negotiated in secret for the last seven years and would place centralized regulation on 40 percent of the world’s economy.

NAFTA and GATT had a catastrophic effect on U.S. business competitiveness, and domestic export values, upon implementation in the 90’s, a trend the TPP is likely to follow.

Deutsche Bank to cut 15,000 jobs as it stumbles to €6bn loss

Germany’s biggest bank also plans to pull out of 10 countries and to sell units with another 20,000 workers

Deutsche Bank’s new chief executive John Cryan has vowed to chop the giant lender down to a more manageable size after it made a record loss of €6.01bn in the third quarter.

In a bid to return to a sustainable profit, Germany’s largest lender will slash its workforce, suspend its dividend for two years and pull out of 10 countries.

Next financial crash is coming – and before we’ve fixed flaws from last one

In case you missed it last week:

 

The next financial crisis is coming, it’s a just a matter of time – and we haven’t finished fixing the flaws in the global system that were so brutally exposed by the last one.

That is the message from the International Monetary Fund’s latest Global Financial Stability report, which will make sobering reading for the finance ministers and central bankers gathered in Lima, Peru, for its annual meeting.

It’s not checkmate yet: Beijing to counter US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact

 

China to speed up talks on regional accord in face of landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership deal

China will seek to quicken the pace of its free-trade negotiations with other Asia-Pacific economies to counter a mammoth Washington-led trade pact in the region, observers say.

The United States and 11 other countries that in total make up 40 per cent of the world’s economy scored a landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal in Atlanta on Monday.

Panic as China suffers ANOTHER stock market crash with largest shares fall in EIGHT years

INVESTORS in Britain and around the world have been sent into panic today after China’s stocks plummeted by 8.5 per cent – the largest one-day fall in almost eight years.

The FTSE 100 was in the red this morning after share indices in the world’s second-largest economy suffered their worst drop since 2007.

The fall in China is part of a wider slump in the country’s stocks that first began in mid-June, amid fears the China’s finance bubble had burst.

Previously China’s indices had almost doubled in the space of just a year.

The country’s Government had managed to briefly calm nerves with a raft of support measures, but today investors appeared to have lost all faith in official efforts to prop up values.

China’s big chess move against the U.S.: Latin America

China is making friends right under America’s nose.

Latin America is China’s latest business buddy. Chinese banks increased investments in Latin America by 71% last year, and the country plans to double its trade volume with the Central and South American region over the next decade.

This comes as U.S. power in the Americas is starting to erode. U.S. cash is actually fleeing the region as investors see better deals at home or elsewhere.

Mercosur Wants to Expand Cooperation With Eurasian Economic Union

Argentine Ambassador to Russia Pablo Anselmo Tettamanti says the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is an important partner for Argentina, and Mercosur wants to continue developing cooperation with their Eurasian partners. He also added that Russia is discussing new investment opportunities with Argentina.

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According to the ambassador, Argentina facilitated significant progress in reaching an agreement between Mercosur and the Eurasian Economic Union in the last six months of 2014. A number of meetings held in Moscow and Buenos Aires have led to the creation of a draft cooperation agreement in the economic and trade spheres between the two regional trading blocs.