Trump to announce 25% steel and aluminum tariffs in latest trade escalation

HOHENFELS Germany: Deep in a Bavarian forest, a black reconnaissance drone buzzes overhead, piloted by US soldiers hoping to put lessons learnt from the war in Ukraine into practice.
Cheaper and more plentiful than in the past, drones are changing the face of modern warfare, particularly in Ukraine.
Both Moscow and Kyiv use them for armed attacks as well as surveillance, making it hard for combatants to hide.
“It’s a transparent battlefield. That’s why in Ukraine you see troops deep down in bunkers or consistently moving,” said Brig. Gen. Steve Carpenter, training with the army at a base in Hohenfels, in the southern German state of Bavaria.
“You stop, you die.”
Army Chief of Staff General Randy George said the US military is changing as a result of what it sees in Ukraine and the way drone warfare is developing.
That means making a unit’s footprint smaller and more mobile, making them harder to target.
During the exercise, involving soldiers from the US army’s 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, the battle headquarters changed position four times in nine days.
No more than about 20 personnel are usually there at any one time — far fewer than in past campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, when upwards of 100 may have been at a command post.
Of the lessons drawn from the Ukraine war, “I think the most important is the speed with which we need to change,” said George, urging the army to become more “flexible, nimble, adaptive.”

With new technology moving fast in Ukraine, the US military also wants to speed up its procurement processes.
There were tentative signs of this at Hohenfels.
New transport trucks were being tested just three months after the army asked General Motors to repurpose a civilian vehicle, a period that Alex Miller, George’s science and technology adviser, said “might be” record time for the army.

But building drones at scale could prove more challenging for the United States.
Russian and Ukranian forces often deploy cheap, off-the-shelf Chinese drones.
But the United States, amid rising tensions with Beijing, does not want to have to rely on a potential adversary for its supplies.
The US industrial base has meanwhile eroded in recent decades.
The number of people employed in defense industries in the country dropped by 1.9 million, or 63.5 percent, in 2023 compared to the level in 1985, according to the Department of Defense.
“American industry doesn’t have the ability to produce drones like the Chinese,” said Col. Dave Butler, George’s communications adviser.
And he believes there is only one person in the United States who could potentially produce drones at scale in the event of war.
That businessman is Elon Musk, since Tesla makes far more of its own components than other vehicle makers.
“If we had to suddenly flick on a switch and make 10,000 drones a month, only Elon could do it,” he said.
Musk, the multi-billionaire entrepreneur, has been a fixture on the American political scene since President Donald Trump made him one of his closest advisers.
For technology adviser Miller, the need is acute and the United States could use help.
“We are trying to incentivise... an American industrial base for things like flight controllers, things like cameras and antennas,” he said.
But he added that NATO allies must join in, saying that it “can’t just be us — it’s got to be Europe too.”
 

BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the US could take ownership of the Gaza Strip, relocate its population and redevelop it as a “scandal” in a pre-election debate Sunday. His main challenger also voiced unease but suggested there’s “a lot of rhetoric” coming from Washington.
The center-left Scholz and center-right challenger Friedrich Merz, the front-runner in the Feb. 23 election, discussed top domestic issues such as Germany’s struggling economy and migration, and also addressed foreign policy three weeks into Trump’s new term.
Asked what he made of Trump’s proposal to redevelop Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” Scholz replied: “A scandal. Besides that, a really terrible expression,” given the extent of the destruction that is now visible there.
“The relocation of populations is unacceptable and against international law,” he added in the debate on ARD and ZDF public television. He pointed to the position of Egypt and Jordan.
“I share this assessment,” Merz said. “But it is one of a whole series of proposals coming from the American administration that are certainly disconcerting, but one has to wait and see what is really meant seriously and how it is implemented — there’s probably a lot of rhetoric in this.”
The two candidates differed in their assessment of a Trump order directing the federal government to recognize only two sexes — male and female. Merz said it “is a decision I can understand.”
“I think it’s inappropriate,” Scholz said. “Every person should be happy the way they want to be happy.”
Merz said the new US president is “predictably unpredictable.” He said that “there are significant concerns on this side of the Atlantic about what else is coming; so it’s all the more important that we on this side of the Atlantic are as united as possible.”
He said that, if elected, he would put a great deal of effort into ensuring such European unity.
Scholz said that his strategy for dealing with Trump is “clear words and friendly conversations.” He pointed to his public statements after Trump said he wouldn’t rule out the use of military force to take control of the Panama Canal and Greenland that all countries must respect existing borders.
He also pointed to the importance of European unity and said he and other countries are working on proposals to increase NATO’s presence in Greenland.
Asked about a response to possible US tariffs against the EU, Scholz said: “We are prepared ... We can act in an hour as the European Union.”