© Francois Lenoir/ReutersGermany's Chancellor Angela Merkel
"We are at the moment in a situation in the European Union, in our country and worldwide where there is an argument about how we want to shape globalization," the chancellor said at a meeting of Germany's BDA employers association.
Donald Trump has widely criticized international trade agreements, saying they hurt American workers and the country's competitiveness. In his campaign, Trump promised to "get tough" with China as well as to quit TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), which has not been finalized yet.
The German government led by Merkel is urging the EU to join a similar trade deal with the US known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
After suggesting last week Trump work based on democratic values, Merkel reportedly used the speech to point out the case for deepening international trade cooperation.
"Globalization is happening. We can arrange it such that we strengthen multilateral instruments... or such that we seal ourselves off and become protectionist," she said, stressing that globalization must be fashioned in a multilateral way.
The chancellor promised to make globalization a key subject for debate during Germany's presidency of the G20 next year. "This dispute over openness or sealing ourselves off will keep us very busy in the coming years," Merkel said.
What I see in 'globalization' is that capitalization has reached yet another 20 year threshold that demands that another 'middle man' be inserted so that the new generation can avail themselves of the 'so called' new markets. As everyone can plainly see there are no 'new markets,' merely the reworked old markets as to enable yet another extraction of profit in the manufacturing stream.
This 'globalization' sham is a perfect example. You take the old manufacturing stream that had goods manufactured here and shipped there by independent shippers. Rework the entire flow and arrive at manufactured there from raw materials from somewhere else, and ship it back to the marketplace via transportation now owned exclusively by ---no, not Haddon Industries---the elites. The entire shebang: the trucks, the cargo containers put aboard ocean ships, the semis contracted to haul the cargo containers across the US from one coast to the other--can you imagine the tax write offs garnered from paying license fees in these states, cost of maintenance, fuel--you can see why they would want to get rid of the last non deductible cost of the human driver----it boggles the mind to think of the tax return with zero tax liability due to high operating costs.
The only cost is the raw materials and thanks to chicanery almost no third world country has been allowed to develop their own raw resources and if her people are lucky they get to work at the factory making goods that are shipped back to the marketplace. Until robotics replace them of course. But maybe by then the pollution and toxins and depleted uranium will have reduced our selves to the lowest common denominator.