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‘They have us over a barrel’: Inside the US and German standoff over sending tanks to Ukraine | CNN Politics

Published

1 year ago

January 19, 2023

‘They have us over a barrel’: Inside the US and German standoff over sending tanks to Ukraine | CNN Politics

Washington
CNN
—

The Biden administration is caught in a standoff with Germany over whether or not to ship tanks to Ukraine forward of a key assembly of Western protection leaders in Germany on Friday.

In latest days, German officers have indicated they gained’t ship their Leopard tanks to Ukraine, or permit another nation with the German-made tanks of their stock to take action, until the US additionally agrees to ship its M1 Abrams tanks to Kyiv – one thing the Pentagon has stated for months it has no intention of doing given the logistical prices of sustaining them.

“They’ve us over a barrel,” a senior Biden administration official advised CNN Thursday, including that the Germans are demanding tanks for tanks, and never budging on contemplating another provides the US has made to spur Berlin to ship the Leopards.

The tank standoff comes amid a a lot bigger debate between the US and its European allies over whether or not to ship more and more refined weaponry to Ukraine, together with longer-range missiles that might permit Ukraine to hit targets so far as 200 miles away.

The UK, Poland, Finland and the Baltic states have all been pushing for NATO members to supply heavier gear to Kyiv amid what they consider is a key inflection level within the battle. Each Ukraine and Russia seem like gearing up for brand spanking new offensives and there are indicators that Moscow may very well be getting ready a further troop mobilization.

Final week, the British added strain to their Western allies once they introduced they might ship 14 of their Challenger tanks to Ukraine. However Germany and the US have been nonetheless against the thought of sending their very own tanks as of Wednesday.

Berlin then dragged the Biden administration deeper into the standoff, suggesting their supply of tanks was contingent on the US doing the identical.

“If America will determine that they’ll carry battle tanks to Ukraine, that may make it simpler for Germany,” German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck advised Bloomberg from Davos on Tuesday.

Requested on Wednesday at Davos about supplying tanks to Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made an analogous level, saying Germany was “Strategically interlocked along with our pals and companions” and that, “we’re by no means doing one thing simply by ourselves however along with others, particularly the US.”

A Western official defined that for Scholz, the tanks query “is a pink, pink, pink line. German tanks [fighting] Russia once more. Ethical difficulty. Comprehensible, from the historic viewpoint. Nonetheless, talking of ethical burden, I want Germans have been these days extra sympathetic with Poland. Not to mention with Ukraine. Didn’t German tanks kill Ukrainians 80 years in the past as properly? Now they will defend them from Russian barbaric aggression.”

Forward of a gathering on Thursday in Berlin between US Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin and his German counterpart, a senior US protection official stated that the US is “very optimistic that we are going to make progress” on the tanks query.

However not everybody within the US authorities shares that optimism. Numerous senior administration officers privately expressed frustration with German officers for making what the US believes is a false equivalency between the US and German tanks.

“It’s foolish,” a senior administration official stated of the German request for American tanks alongside German ones. “It’s as in the event that they assume they’re the identical they usually’re not. It doesn’t really feel like they perceive the distinction.”

US officers acquainted with the scenario advised CNN on Thursday that the tank query continues to be undecided forward of Friday’s assembly, and that it could be shocking if Germany modified its thoughts, regardless of Austin’s personal strain marketing campaign.

“I believe if there was a priority about being alone in offering this functionality, that shouldn’t be a priority however on the finish of the day the German authorities goes to make a sovereign resolution,” Undersecretary of Protection for Coverage Colin Kahl stated on Wednesday.

Stress is mounting in some corners for the US to go forward and ship Abrams tanks merely as a method to get the Germans on board.

“Scholz needs to be in lockstep with the US,” Rep. Seth Moulton advised CNN after discussing the matter with Scholz this week in Davos. “I believe the US ought to give just a few tanks if that’s what is required for Germany. That is named management.”

On Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki advised that Warsaw might merely ignore any limits Germany seeks to impose on Poland’s export of its provide of the German-made tanks.

“Consent is a secondary difficulty. Both we are going to get this consent or we ourselves will do what have to be completed,” Morawiecki stated. “Germany is the least proactive nation out of the group, to place it mildly. We are going to proceed pressuring the chancellor.”

A US Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV) patrols the countryside of the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province, on April 20, 2022.

This all comes because the US on Thursday introduced a brand new $2.5 billion Ukraine safety package deal, together with for the primary time Stryker fight autos and extra armored Bradley Preventing Autos.

However the package deal doesn’t embody M1 Abrams tanks, and it’s unlikely that the US goes to supply them anytime quickly as a result of they’re troublesome and costly to provide and preserve, US officers stated.

“One of many issues that Secretary Austin has been very centered on is that we shouldn’t be offering the Ukrainians programs they will’t restore, they will’t maintain, and that they over the long run can’t afford as a result of it’s not useful,” Kahl stated on Wednesday. “And this isn’t a couple of information cycle or what’s symbolically invaluable, it’s what’s going to truly assist Ukraine on the battlefield.”

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh poured extra chilly water on the German demand on Thursday, telling reporters that offering the Abrams tanks “doesn’t make sense.”

Singh painted Leopards as the higher possibility for Ukraine.

“It’s a bit bit simpler to keep up, they will maneuver throughout giant parts of territory earlier than they should refuel. The upkeep and the excessive price that it could take to keep up an Abrams it’s simply – it simply doesn’t make sense to supply that to the Ukrainians [Abrams tanks] this second.”

Western tanks would characterize probably the most highly effective direct offensive weapon offered to Ukraine thus far, and if used correctly, they may permit Ukraine to retake territory in opposition to Russian forces which have had time to dig defensive strains. The US has begun supplying refurbished Soviet-era T-72 tanks, however fashionable Western tanks are a era forward when it comes to their capability to focus on enemy positions.

The M1 Abrams, a third-generation American main battle tanks, are seen at the end of the joint military exercises, at the training ground in Nowa Deba, on Sept. 21, 2022.

Ukrainian officers have stated they’ll want round 300 of those fashionable tanks to beat again the Russians, and the European Council on International Relations estimates that round 2,000 Leopard tanks are unfold throughout Europe.

“We welcome the daring and really well timed resolution of the UK to switch the primary squadron of Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine,” Ukrainian Minister for International Affairs Dmytro Kuleba and Protection Minister Oleksii Reznikov stated in a joint assertion on Thursday. “Nonetheless, it isn’t ample to attain operational objectives.”

The Ukrainian ministers appealed to international locations with the Leopard 2 tanks of their stock, together with Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey, and promised to “use these weapons responsibly and solely for the needs of defending the territorial integrity of Ukraine inside internationally acknowledged borders.”

The talk amongst the allies about how far to go in arming Ukraine, significantly in terms of long-range missiles, displays a broader disagreement over the dangers of escalation between NATO and Russia.

Thus far, the US has refused to ship long-range missiles often known as ATACMS to Ukraine out of concern that they may very well be used to assault targets inside Russia. However consistent with London’s extra forward-leaning perspective towards army assist for Ukraine, some British officers have expressed an openness to supplying the longer-range programs, sources acquainted with the matter advised CNN.

For now, the US continues to be against the thought.

“On the ATACMS difficulty, I believe we’re sort of on the, ‘comply with disagree’ place on that,” Kahl advised reporters on Wednesday.

In this file photo released by the South Korean Defense Ministry, U.S. Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) fires a missile into the East Sea during a South Korea-U.S. joint missile drill in July 2017.

Being attentive to the Brits’ extra aggressive public posture, Ukrainian officers have requested the UK to take extra of a number one position in Friday’s assembly, individuals acquainted with their requests advised CNN. Additionally they need British officers to extra aggressively temporary allied international secretaries and protection ministers on what the Ukrainians consider are the operational realities of the battle – and what they should win it.

These discussions are occurring quietly, as a result of the UK has historically not needed to be seen as out of step with its allies. However there are indicators that London is turning into extra keen to interrupt with the US publicly – most lately with its announcement that it’ll provide tanks to Ukraine.

Earlier than visiting Washington this week, British International Secretary James Cleverly additionally made the case in an op-ed that “now could be the time to speed up and go additional and quicker in giving Ukraine the assist it wants.”

“This battle has been dragging on for a very long time already. And now could be the time to carry it to a conclusion,” Cleverly added, in a dialog with CNN on the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research on Wednesday.

NATO Secretary Basic Jens Stoltenberg additionally jumped into the fray on Wednesday, calling for the allies to provide “heavier” and extra fashionable weaponry.

“The principle message [at Ramstein] will probably be extra assist and extra superior assist, heavier weapons, and extra fashionable weapons,” Stoltenberg stated, referring to the Contact Group assembly of NATO protection leaders at Ramstein Air Base on Friday. “As a result of it is a battle for our values, is a battle for democracy and we simply need to show that democracy wins over tyranny and oppression.”

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Joe Biden to raise solar import tariffs in bid to protect US industry

Published

5 hours ago

May 16, 2024

Press Room

Joe Biden to raise solar import tariffs in bid to protect US industry

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Joe Biden is set to impose tariffs on double-sided solar panel imports, as the president moves to protect US clean energy manufacturers and boost jobs ahead of November’s election.

US officials said the move would immediately end an exemption from Trump-era tariffs on imports of a type of panel unit often used in large solar projects, one of the fastest-growing forms of clean energy in the country. They will now attract a tariff rate of 14.25 per cent.

The steeper levy marks the latest protectionist move by the president, who is competing with Republican rival Donald Trump to court blue-collar voters in US manufacturing heartlands, with less than six months to go until the election.

On Tuesday, Biden sharply increased tariffs on Chinese imports including electric vehicles and solar cells, deepening trade tensions with Beijing and thrusting trade policy to the centre of the election battle.

US officials have warned that China is producing more goods than its own market can absorb, triggering fears that Beijing could use cheap exports to undercut producers in other countries.

Ali Zaidi, Biden’s climate adviser, said the US solar “investment boom” was threatened by “unfair and non-market practices taking place overseas”.

“The Chinese solar panel overcapacity, now projected to be double world demand, threatens to undercut panel manufacturing and solar supply chains around the world,” Zaidi said.

The announcement from the Biden administration comes as US imports of cheap solar panels and cells, largely from south-east Asia, have soared to record highs. An overproduction of solar panels from China has led to a collapse in global panel prices, threatening US manufacturing plans.

The US imported 55 gigawatts of panels and 3.8GW of solar cells in 2023, with more than three-quarters of cell imports coming from Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam, according to BloombergNEF.

Alongside the new tariff on double-sided panels, the US is also offering some relief to domestic developers still reliant on imported cells — the units that make up panels — by increasing the amount that can be imported without levies from 5GW to 12.GW.

While some companies have announced their intent to open solar cell factories since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act — aimed at boosting the domestic clean energy industry, among other goals — the US does not have any manufacturing capacity in operation.

The relief applies to cells imported from Asian countries except China, whose cell exports to the US face a 50 per cent tariff under the new regime announced on Tuesday.

“We know that the process of onshoring, friendshoring and frankly just diversifying the supply chains is not one that can be executed overnight,” said Zaidi.

Raising the quota would ensure manufacturers in the US would have solar cells available to them and would support expanded US solar manufacturing, he added.

US manufacturers including First Solar and Heliene had called for the US International Trade Commission to remove the tariff exemption for double-sided panels.

But the increase in the cell quota could anger large US manufacturers that make their own cells, including First Solar and Qcells, which have petitioned for antidumping duties on south-east Asian solar cells.

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Authorities seek public's help identifying baby abandoned in shopping cart at Lomita business

Published

6 hours ago

May 16, 2024

Press Room

Authorities seek public's help identifying baby abandoned in shopping cart at Lomita business

LOMITA, Calif. (KABC) — Authorities are asking for the public’s help in identifying a baby who was left at a business in Lomita.

A photo of the child was released, along with a surveillance image of an unidentified pregnant woman who authorities say abandoned the infant inside the store.

The child is believed to be seven to nine months old.

Deputies responded around 5 p.m. Tuesday to a business in the 2000 block of Pacific Coast Highway. When they arrived, a store employee told them a pregnant woman with a baby had entered the store and asked for a taxi.

The woman went to the bathroom as the employee arranged for a taxi. When the taxi arrived, authorities say the woman got in the car and left the child behind in a shopping cart.

The woman’s whereabouts are unknown, and the child is in the care of the Department of Children and Family Services, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Lomita Sheriff’s Station at 310-539-1661. Anonymous tips can be made by calling Crime Stoppers at 800 222-8477.

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When the customer is not always right

Published

13 hours ago

May 15, 2024

Press Room

Stay informed with free updates

One of the world’s best known luxury brands recently conducted a survey of its global store network, sending local platoons of secret shoppers to assess the level of customer service. Despite their stellar reputation, the outlets in Japan fared dismally.

“The problem was not the service. It was the shoppers,” relates the senior director in charge. “In reality, we knew the service in our Japan stores was by far the best anywhere in the world, but the Japanese customers that we sent found faults that nobody else on earth would see.”

Many will see an enviable virtuous circle in this tale — a parable of what happens when a service culture seems genuinely enthusiastic about and responsive to the idea that the customer is always right. High service standards have begotten high expectations, and who would see downside in this?

The trouble is that, in Japan as elsewhere in the world, the “customer is always right” mantra is having a bit of a wobble. Perhaps existentially so.

The concept has always come with pretty serious caveats; fuller versions of the (variously attributed) original quote qualify it with clauses like “in matters of taste” that shift the meaning. But in a tetchier, shorter-fused world the caveats are multiplying.

Japan’s current experience deserves attention. After many decades at the extreme end of deifying the customer (Japanese companies across all industries routinely refer to clients as kamisama, or “god”), there is now an emerging vocabulary for expressing a healthy measure of atheism.

The term “customer harassment” has, over the past few years, entered the Japanese public sphere to describe the sort of entitled verbal abuse, threats, tantrums, aggression and physical violence inflicted by customers on workers in retail, restaurants, transport, hotels and other parts of the customer-facing service economy. One recurrent complaint has been customers demanding that staff kneel on the floor to atone for a given infraction.

However tame these incidents may appear in relative terms — comparing them with often violent equivalents in other countries — the perception of a sharp increase in frequency means the phenomenon is being treated as a scourge. The Japanese government is now planning a landmark revision of labour law to require companies to protect their staff from customer rage.

The real breakthrough, though, lies in legislating the idea that customers can be wrong — a concept that could prove more broadly liberating.

Luxury goods and virtuous circles aside, customer infallibility has not necessarily been the optimal guiding principle for Japan, and is arguably even less so now that demographics are squeezing the ability to deliver the same levels of service as before. Excessive deference to customers came, during the country’s long battle with deflation, to border on outright fear that the slightest mis-step risked losing them forever.

So much deference was paid to the customer that companies were reluctant to raise prices even as they themselves bore the cost of maintaining high standards of service. Japan, during its deflationary phase, became one of the great pioneers of product shrinkflation: a phenomenon that, from some angles, made deference to customers look a lot like contempt for their powers of observation.

Perhaps the biggest dent left by Japan’s superior standards of service, though, has been the chronic misallocation of resources. The fabulous but labour-intensive service that nobody here wants to see evaporating has come at a steadily rising cost to other industries in terms of hogging precious workers. That has become more evident as the working-age population begins to shrink and other parts of the economy make more urgent or attractive demands. As with any large-scale reordering, the process will be painful.

Worldwide, though, the sternest challenge to the customer is always right mantra arises from its implication of imbalance. Even if the phrase is not used literally, it creates a subservience that seems ever more anachronistic. In a research paper published last month, Melissa Baker and Kawon Kim linked a general rise in customer incivility and workplace mental health issues to the customer is right mindset. “This phrase leads to inequity between employees and customers as employees must simply deal with misbehaving customers who feel they can do anything, even if it is rude, uncivil and causes increased vulnerability,” they wrote.

Japan may yet be some way from letting service standards slip very far. It may be very close, though, to deciding that customers can have rights, without being right.

leo.lewis@ft.com