EU-US Relations: Trump undercuts White House messaging in critical remarks about Germany’s trade surplus

 Days after President Donald Trump returned from his first overseas trip as the president, he warned that the U.S.-German trade relationship is “very bad” and suggested “this will change,” following a reportedly closed-door meeting last week when he criticized Germany’s trade surplus.

“We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday. “Very bad for U.S. This will change”

The president’s latest tweet comes two days after German Chancellor Angela Merkel hinted that her country couldn’t “fully rely” on countries like the United States in part because of “what I experienced in the last few days.” The German chancellor reiterated Tuesday that the German-U.S. relationship is of “outstanding importance,” but suggested that Europe would “take our fate into our own hands” moving forward.

Last week, Trump and Merkel both attended meetings at a NATO summit meeting in Brussels and a Group of 7 (G7) meeting in Taormina, Italy. The most contentious issues were on climate and trade, with Trump planning to pull the United States out of the Paris climate deal. His critical remarks on Germany’s trade policy raised eyebrows with German politicians, including Thomas Oppermann, the parliamentary caucus leader of the Social Democrats.

“Donald Trump is making clear with his tweet that he considers Germany a political opponent,” Oppermann said. “This is a new situation — we lived for decades in the certainty that we could rely on each other as partners in an alliance, and this certainty no longer exists today.”

Trump’s tweet on Tuesday also raises eyebrows in the United States for another reason. It undercuts the White House’s messaging from last Friday, which sought to downplay the seriousness of his critical remarks on trade and his suggestion that the country was selling too many cars to the United States.

Note EU-Digest: Trumps ignorance of the auto industry is terrifying. Before making critical remarks about trade with Germany, is he aware that Germany manufactures cars in the US and employs large numbers of US workers? Here are the facts:

Roughly 850,000 German vehicles are made in the US as reported by Reuters and some 33,000 people are employed by German car companies in the US.

VW recently built an entire plant in Tennessee, employing 2,000 workers directly

And these are just some facts about the German companies = if we add Toyota, Hyundai, Honda  to this equation the numbers of people these companies in their totality employ are staggering.  

Read more: Trump undercuts White House messaging in critical remarks about Germany’s trade surplus

Global warming may be far worse than thought, cloud analysis suggests

Global Warming Much More Serious than thought before

Climate change projections have vastly underestimated the role that clouds play, meaning future warming could be far worse than is currently projected, according to new research.

Researchers said that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere compared with pre-industrial times could result in a global temperature increase of up to 5.3C – far warmer than the 4.6C older models predict.

The analysis of satellite data, led by Yale University, found that clouds have much more liquid in them, rather than ice, than has been assumed until now. Clouds with ice crystals reflect more solar light than those with liquid in them, stopping it reaching and heating the Earth’s surface.

The underestimation of the current level of liquid droplets in clouds means that models showing future warming are misguided, says the paper, published in Science. It also found that fewer clouds will change to a heat-reflecting state in the future – due to CO₂ increases – than previously thought, meaning that warming estimates will have to be raised.

Such higher levels of warming would make it much more difficult for countries to keep the global temperature rise to below 2C, as they agreed to do at the landmark Paris climate summit last year, to avoid dangerous extreme weather and negative effects on food security. The world has already warmed by 1C since the advent of heavy industry, driven by CO₂ concentrations soaring by more than 40%.

A lack of data and continuing uncertainty over the role of clouds is to blame for the confusion about warming estimates, said Ivy Tan, a graduate student at Yale who worked on the research with academics from Yale and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

“Models have been systematically underestimating the amount of liquid in clouds, meaning that we aren’t fully appreciating the feedback,” she said. “It could mean our higher limit of warming is now even higher, depending on the model, which means serious consequences for us in terms of climate change.
“This is one of the largest uncertainties left in climate change. We need to understand these feedbacks a lot better.”

Scientists have been trying to get to grips with the extent clouds and water vapor will influence the warming already under way. A paper published last year found that short-term fluctuations in clouds have large impacts on the net rate of heat gain by the Earth.

One of this paper’s authors, Dr Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said research has already shown “major errors in climate simulations associated with clouds”.

 Read more: Global warming may be far worse than thought, cloud analysis suggests | Environment | The Guardian

Russia: MH17 – The Open Source Evidence - by Eliot Higgins

After the downing of MH17 on July 17, a number of photographs and videos were shared online claiming to show the movements of a Buk missile launcher through separatist-controlled territory. It was possible to confirm the location where each image was recorded and discover additional information that further evidenced when and where the Buk missile launcher was on July 17. The following is an approximate timeline of where the Buk was and when:

• 10:45 am: Departed Donetsk eastbound along H21
• 11:00 am – 12:00 pm: Passed Zuhres and Shakhtersk en route to Torez along H21
• 12:00 pm – 12:45 pm: Entered and then passed through Torez (eastbound)
• 1:00 pm: Entered Snizhne
• 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Buk was unloaded from the Volvo low-loader truck in Snizhne; left the city (southbound)
• 4:20 pm: MH17 shot down

Before the first reports and images of the Buk missile launcher were recorded in Donetsk, communications intercepted by the Ukrainian Security Services (SBU) provided information on the earlier movements of the Buk missile launcher. Intercepts include separatists discussing the arrival of the Buk,[1] and references to a location inside Donetsk known as the “Motel.”[2] The Motel, located in the east of Donetsk and used by separatist forces as a base, is close to locations described in social media postings by Donetsk locals who reported sightings of a Buk missile launcher being transported through the city. These sightings are also close to the location where two images showing a Buk missile launcher being transported on the back of a red low-loader were taken, later published by Paris Match[3] and Bellingcat.[4]

Read more: MH17 – The Open Source Evidence