Angela Merkel secured her fourth term as Chancellor of Germany. Members of the Social Democrats voted for the coalition deal with Merkels’ CDU/CSU. Months of political uncertainty has now ended. The SPD’s vote results were overwhelming, with 66% supporting, and only 34% rejecting.
Italy election: No clear winner, Euro steady
In Italy, based on the early vote counts, there will be no clear winner in the election. Center-right coalition of former Primer Minister Silvio Berlusconi is heading for a win in the election, but falls short of a majority. That means, it will take weeks of negotiations before a government could be formed. Anti-establishment Five Star movements to come in second place. Center-left coalition by the governing Democratic Party will come in third.
Euro has little reaction and is steady.
NTC Director Peter Navarro: Exemptions on steel and aluminum tariffs possible, but no exclusions
White House Director of the National Trade Council, Peter Navarro commented on Trumps’ tariffs on Sunday:
- Exemptions and exclusions are different
- “There’ll be an exemption procedure for particular cases where you need to have exemptions so that business can move forward.”
- ” At this point in time, there’ll be no country exclusions.”
- “As soon as he (Trump) starts exempting countries, he has to raise the tariff on everybody else.”
- “As soon as he exempts one country, his phone starts ringing with the heads of state of other countries.”
Trump is expected to formally sign an order for the 25% tariff on steel and 10% on aluminum this week.
Trump: EU has been brutal to us
Trump counter-attacked on EU’s criticism on his steel and aluminum tariff. He tweeted again during the weekend that the European Union has been “brutal to us”. And he warned that “if the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S.”
That was in reaction to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s statement that “we will not sit idly while our industry is hit with unfair measures that put thousands of European jobs at risk.