I'm John Batchel with my colleague Joseph Sternberg. He's in London for the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

He writes political economics. Tariffs. The talk here in North America right now is 25% for Canada,

25% for Mexico, 10 here, 10 there for China.

But European Union, the United Kingdom is not a member.

European Union, 25%. That would damage to destroy what's left of the fossil fuel car fleet and what is to be done.

Joe, I'm told that there's a trade imbalance between the EU and America, and Germany has a

big piece of it.

Is that a challenge for the Merritt's government once he emerges from his talks with SBD?

Well, I mean, it shouldn't be because these trade balance issues

are always so misconstrued by protectionists like those in the Trump administration. This is

happening not because the Europeans are taking advantage of America. I mean, to the extent that a

country like Germany

has a trade surplus with the U.S., it's because they are selling goods that Americans like to

buy, like the VWs and the BMWs and the BWs and the Lodies and all of the rest of the cars.

So now you can make that argument and say that the

U.S. is foolish to impose these tariffs. It's also true that the German economy would probably

be healthier if they could cultivate more domestic consumption just because they do need

more cylinders that they can be firing on.

And that would be a big one.

But I think that it's much better for everyone, including the U.S., if that sort of rebalancing in Germany

happens as a result of the kind of tax or regulatory reforms that Friedrich Meertzes but

talking about doing, and not because they're under the gun

...