Fighting With One Arm Tied Behind Yr Back

[Cross-posted from European Tribune – where dissent is NOT troll rated!]

Opinion analysis: Divided court upholds Trump travel ban

Continued below the fold …

Trump’s trade war with NAFTA partners … China … Europe …

Europe choosing to return in kind … geographical in Trump’s red states … 20% tariff on Harley-Davidson for example agricultural products …

On tariffs and trade war … finding someone to blame … more threats from the Big Boss:

Europe getting tired of the Brexit holdup by Theresa May …

Airbus has delivered a body blow to Brexit Britain. It won’t be the last | The Guardian Opinion |

A few days ago, I wrote about how big businesses were no longer just frustrated with Theresa May and her Brexit bumblings. Instead, they were turning hostile. “Soon the headlines will be not just about a few hundred jobs moving out of the City – but of firms scrapping their expansion plans, or factories shifting to Poland, or thousands of jobs going at a stroke of a pen.”

Today’s announcement from Airbus is just the first of those body blows to the British economy. The aeroplane-making giant has said in public what it has been telling ministers and officials in private for months: if May’s government crashes out of the EU without a deal, it will be forced to “reconsider its footprint in the country, its investments in the UK and its dependency on the UK”. Even an “orderly” Brexit, with all ducks in a carefully negotiated row, will cost the multinational billions in red tape and slower operations.

…
“Airbus should carefully monitor any new investments in the UK and should refrain from extending its UK suppliers/partners base.” Make no mistake: a multinational is now showing Brexit Britain and its shambles of a government the red card. And it will not be the last.

The significance of this is hard to overstate. Airbus directly employs 14,000 people in Britain; its supply chain supports a further 110,000 jobs here. In a country beset by low pay and low productivity, this sector is the opposite: highly skilled, highly paid, and with productivity growth of around 4% a year (compared with only 1% in the wider economy).

What UK stands to lose if Airbus pulls out the country

PM May on Heathrow expansion, shows Britain is open for business after Brexit

Prime Minister Theresa May believes the project will boost economic growth while signaling the country’s commitment to expand international trade and transport links as it prepares to leave the European Union.

MPs back Heathrow third runway project as Johnson faces criticism | The Guardian |

Boris Johnson has faced sharp criticism from fellow Conservative MPs over his decision to miss Monday night’s crunch vote on Heathrow expansion by flying out of the country on an official visit to Afghanistan.

The foreign secretary claimed that resigning over his opposition to the £14bn project, which the Commons backed on Monday night by 415 votes to 119 – a majority of 296, would achieve “absolutely nothing” and that he would lobby against it privately instead.

However, he faced disdain from colleagues for choosing to travel to Kabul on the day of the vote so he could avoid choosing between his cabinet job and his longstanding opposition to the project, which now faces a legal challenge.

Senior Conservative MPs even suggested that Johnson may have finally ended his hopes of eventually taking over from Theresa May as Tory leader by failing to live up to election promises.

Johnson, after being elected for his Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat, told supporters: “I will lie down with you in front of those bulldozers and stop the building, stop the construction of that third runway.”

Even NATO’s Stoltenberg is feeling the heat of a division in the Alliance through Brexit and the disdain of President Trump for his closest allies …

Author: Oui

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