to 0 investigates if the global hands that make treaty can end vaccine and that could see the floss in the curved point. now to 0, the hello, i'm adrian said again this is counting the cost on i'll just say or you'll, we can look at the business of the comics this week. a good deal or distortion. ukraine has agreed to part access to a revenue from its mineral wells to the us, us when it gets a ton of the deal, help washington reduce its dependents on china. germany is stocked in stock nation manufacturing. the main driver of its economy is puncturing. so installations,

business model in danger of breaking up kind of new tough with much success. the possibility of this, i'm asked more from the combined wells to book the choice of the world's population . and that isn't just the 1st month of the year. so what's behind the extreme inequality gap of china? the bridge they are seen as a foundation of the economy of the future. critical minerals are crucial for the production of high tech products, including electric vehicles, mobile phones, a on infrastructure and weapons. it's estimated that maybe 5 percent of the world's ro elements are renew. crane keepers agreed to jointly develop its riches, including oil and gas, with the us and setup an investment funds. the ukraine's reconstruction ukraine also wants guarantees on security of money for weapons. the us wants to break china is grip on the world's middle supply chains. boss. what does that deal will be

signed remains to be seen off to that route between the leaders of the 2 nations at the white house. alexandra biased reports for decades, ukraine's been known as the bread basket of europe. but it's also one of the consonants. most mineral rich nations holding vast reserves of elements needed to power technology like lithium and titanium. essential for batteries, aviation, and military industries. anything with a micro chip needs a rare earth mineral, and rapid advances are powering a global raise to develop and source these key raw materials. on the ground beneath ukraine is believed to hold 5 percent of the world's total reserves worth an estimated 12 trillion dollars. the u. s. has just a fraction of that. and for years china's been the world's number one supplier for america, the world's biggest economy, that's become more and more of

a problem. it's and he can on a national security risk. they all know so many american companies was able to mine and produce rats within the us. and in order to avoid the chinese will take over britain in raf commodities and build up potentials mine. there is an option for the americans, but more than half of those deposits are now in russian occupied territory where the worst of the fighting still rages. last year, the ukrainian president presented a victory plan to western partners. foreign firms could gain access to that mineral wealth in exchange for continued support and help bringing an end to the war to meet what i'm in my, these deposits a priceless stay with huge amounts of money. huge. that is why we need to protect it. so if we're talking about the deal, that's what the americans want. then let's do

a deal. us president donald trump had been pushing for access, but he wanted it to be in return for aid. he claims the us has already given keys by the way, throwing money around like it's cotton, candy and. busy it's a very big deal. it could, it could be a trillion dollar deal. it could be whatever, but it's rivers and other things. and even the lensky refuse to sign an agreement that would have given us $500000000000.00 worth of ukraine's resource wealth. but no security guarantees, but then democratic republic of congo and russia made offers of their own looks. that's a good yes. yes to us. we would be ready to all follow american partners when i say partners. i mean, not certainly governmental and administrative structures, but also companies an opportunity for joints work if they showed interest. we on file to be have significantly more results of this kind of then ukraine. trump says

he'd be willing to do deals with russia to only out into european fears over warming ties between washington and moscow. the minerals deal is at the heart of zelinski, is pushed to win us support. he's made it clear, his priority is peace and security for his country, but any agreement has to benefit both sides and protect the future of generations of ukrainians. alexander buyers, alda 0 for counting the cost of a full, that contentious meeting between the us president donald trump and ukraine's president for a lot of his landscape. so place i spoke with griffin boscoe, and she's the director of the critical mineral security program at the center for strategic and international studies. i began by asking if it was a win win for both sides, or if you train is being exploited, does it have a choice? i asked, thank you so much for having me here today. it's definitely a very exciting time in the world of minerals diplomacy. so i think there's one

really big point worth noting, which is that the deal now looks very different to the deal that was going to initially be negotiated originally. for example, president trump wanted to read be repaid for $500000000000.00 of military and a through, you know, mineral resources. however, there was a lot of controversy around and figure pressing zalinski wouldn't agree to it because he said, well, we haven't spent, you haven't given us a 500000000000. we know that figure to be closer to a 128000000000. now present zelinski however, didn't see any fear security guarantees included which he was really hoping for. so the final agreement is a much softer landing spot that you know, a fund will be set up. we're future resources, so not things that are currently being mind. but future resources, 50 percent of the revenue, the generate will go into the find. but again, it can be used for investment in ukraine. personally, while i think that, you know, present to lensky, didn't really have a choice if you wanted to continue kind of having the support he needs in,

in the face of conflict. but i do think that he came out with a much better deal. the us is not going to secure minerals from this in the next year or 2, because he negotiated that it's only for future asset. that means that not only do we sold a lot of mapping to do of ukraine, but on average from the time that we identify a deposit to the time that it's producing is 18 years. so the us is kind of in it for the long run here, but in a shorter term, president lensky has an agreement with support from the us. is there any kind of precedent for this sort of deal hasn't been done before? you know, it's not really a tool out of the u. s. foreign policy play, but, but what we've seen is already that president trump, is it a very aggressively incorporated minerals into foreign policy? and i've seen research canada going mr. greenland for red, or is ukraine for? there is precedent from other countries. however, so when we look at the democratic republic of congo,

back in 2007 after the conflict, trying to negotiate a $3000000000.00 infrastructure deal, whereby they gave the t or c $3000000000.00 in exchange for 9, for access to $93000000000.00 a cobol and copper inc. busy lazy and obviously we've seen that the geography is become of, it's been a very strategic place for china where they've established that dominant. so there's something precedent elsewhere, but it's new for america. what are the implications of the fact that many of these minerals are under territories that is currently occupied by russia? so there's a lot of minerals and occupied land. there's a lot of minerals non occupied land, so there's minerals all around ukraine. ukraine is mineral rich. you have a country that has about point 4 percent of the world land and 5 percent of the world's resources. now it's important to note a couple of things. one of the big, big red flags that you know, we've seen in the last couple days is that present who is looking to cut his own minerals deal, not only with minerals and russia,

but in russian occupied territory. that's not actually his own done, but it has a lot of resources, but we know at least a 3rd of which sits on that land is probably cold, which is a little bit less of a resource that you know are chasing after you know, fiercely at this moment, but more broadly is the resources are across ukraine. the question is, is, will the private sector go and given the challenges on the land? and if the us is able to source these resources from ukraine, what does this mean for china? ultimately, china has currently we're going to, let's look at rear versus an example because it's, we are a lot of the, the rhetoric is focused in the negotiation. rare is obviously being vital for, you know, national security. and because they're in defense technologies, it'd be a semi conductors and energy technologies like wind turbines. china, currently volt processing capabilities for 90 percent of the world's rare earth. but they don't actually have gone much. they have about

a 4th of the world's rivers, and then they strategically source from across the world and process them. a project like this starts to create a comp competitor, rare or is processing facilities are extremely expensive to build. but in the last 5 years, the us government has spent $300000000.00 under trump one invited to build rare or separation facilities in texas in california. however, because we have less than 1.5 percent of those are rare. are we are sourcing them, are looking to source them from other places. what we're hoping to do is have an alternate supply to china. the china will still be dominant for many decades to come. grace on, it's been great to talk to your accountant the cost buddy. thanks, and thanks for being with us. thank you for having me. the german economy, the wealth, 3rd largest, was once the n v of europe. it's now seeing global rivals waste positive g d. p has barely grown since the pandemic and the nation has been a recession for the past 2 years. the manufacturing sector,

which was traditionally considered your power house is faltering exports are falling, and companies are flushing thousands of jobs as they struggle with rising costs. many experts say the german economic business model is broken, but it will discuss start with, i guess shortly. but 1st on it came reports from the city of bites law, as the crowd is continental workers gathers outside the workplace, invents law. many of them have been told the jobs that the composite jobs are going over. they are trying to fight the decision. this is the last year we still felt about $300.00 employees would be transferred to other locations, button house, in frankfort event. in january. the decision was made not to do that anymore. to completely eliminate over jobs here. which means the police out. so many of these people look, all the people have a full house is all made plans,

people's lives and families depend on it and is hoping wiped out and one stroke because that's done. like everyone else, i'm losing my job. i started training here and never imagined this. i thought i could carry on working here for a while because i was enjoying it and it was going well with job losses. here are some domestic of the problems. the fulton, most of industry is being facing in recent times. it doesn't stop that. many german industries are struggling to remain competitive with millions of people unemployed and millions more worrying about the future. at the time when germany is falling behind in new technologies, while labor costs remain high, many german experts say the economy is stagnating. so what kind of income and government do about it? so it be great expectations of german phones is that is a more to the, it can be policy. so when we look at the policy last month's research, we have seen a lot of uncertainty among firms and firms are looking forward to see

a picture of this perspective policy. that's what firms are looking for. the political policies agree something must be done, but not going to king al jazeera in western germany. it was running us now from brussels. is natalia spouse who is director and senior economist at the european center of international political economy. good to have you with us again because the incoming government certainly has a lot on its plates. what should its priorities be? economically speaking of the city you is in the driving seat and you know, having a coalition negotiation with the social democrats, much of what it will be suggesting real strongly rely on its agenda 20 for t, which foresees text cuts. it cuts um a good next ation or for oak received a few tweaks here and there as concerns to

a single market. and it will be very challenging to press through these the monster with his own democrats in my eyes. we should not so much talk about the realization of the dep rate, but really as to why for cold, potentially unprecedented reforms. meaning that structural reforms should be set on the very up on the priority list of reforms takes costs for workers, takes costs for businesses, reduction, social security contributions, energy security, leading to the lower energy prices compared to what we see right now. all that will be where we cost too small. oh, for the social democrats, but i think this is watched a german government the next german government, if there will be the next german government composed by the conservative ends over democrats. needs to to do is to push for some of the highest what's going wrong. so

china is the german economic model, broken. why has joined the industry failed to remain competitive? yeah. okay. i'd be a small company company, economic model. it's of course, a, a big feeling these days in germany being widely discussed, many germans, my fellow citizens here in germany. they are very much concerned about the state of germany's economy and where it is heading to in the future. i wouldn't say that everything is bad, so we still have many companies that do well. export companies, service and sector companies. smaller medium size companies including large companies that are still leading in global in each market. we still have a well functioning labor market, high employment, rising view of wages, but at the same time, over the past 12 months or so, we've seen many select ship companies, you know,

the big names and it wants to manufacturing the big names in germany's automotive industry. starting to lay off people in germany starting to close down. barnes and not only postponing investments in germany, but also announcing that they will in the future interest more outside bureau then in your own country or warner. and many people in germany hearing these stories, they are increasing the feeling insecure. do you see germany returning to its, its status as the economic powerhouse of, of you or any time soon? germany will most likely remain the economic powerhouse of europe. but it will never get back into position that, you know, it's, it how in the decades full like world war 2, the growth has changed. so germany will probably manage to main, maintain

a solid industrial base. there will be a few industrial leaders here and there and menu fix during the automotive industry of the service industry. but global competition is going to intensify for there will be much more internationally competitive companies that will be much more competitive than germany companies alone for the reason that companies in these 2 jurisdictions, china and the united states, they have in front of their doors strip a large single market where companies can scale to competitive nose to international competitiveness. and that's a very different story in germany. we do not have a single marketed to you, but to us manufacturing date to be with us on counting the cost. super, thank you very much. what i mean? well, i'll jump it is economy as faltering portugal is expected to be

a clear out performer in europe. this year. economic growth is accelerating, mainly driven by the tourism industry. the nation is aiming to attract for an investment to grow its economy even further. however, like the rest of the e. u, it faces potential us terrace. the portuguese permit us to have slammed donald trump strengths. but how much clout does portugal really have globally? i spoke earlier with ricardo at all, caught the chairman and c o ice up the portuguese trade and investment agency. i began by asking him the very question we are rising enough terms of our importance on the level sites. indeed, portugal today can be a platform for global outreach. so many different countries may different customers . we have the traditional sectors which we have specialize over the previous decades. and at the same time, we have increasingly use sectors which are modernizing, which are becoming ever more competitive onto the national scene. so at this current time, i think the course you as a no great opportunity to bridge that role from being

a great to risk destination and to being also. busy a very good place, excellent place to do business. you export more to germany than you. it was how important to portugal is, is germany as an economy. how important do you think germany is still to the you would some, some economic, a gross. well, germany is obviously still a major power house in terms of the economy and will remain so because the i was gonna say you, you say it will remain. so do you do think it really kind of we just have the election? yes. vehicle. so what do you think the priorities which for germany's new government will be well approached in germany is more or less a common theme around europe, europe for the, you know, previous that kids have specialized and so called mid technologies. and the challenge for european countries is indeed to migrate some new technology is into high technology in which the us and china had been able to focus more in the recent sort of past. although when you look at the conceptual condition and background conditions, what you'll see is that in the, in your,

you have highly qualified people and you have a borderless market in the you. so it's a huge market. and then you have these countries that provides us exports, will not provide plucking for other customers for other, you know, reasons of the world where they are comfortable affinities, where there is, uh, their passports, the length. and that in that process perspective, i think that there is a competitive force in who will remain. so that's obviously we have to have more investments. and then these frontier technology is that's mental technology assessments and type in biology such as robotics such as a i know the things that to the public perception today associates more with the us in china. but that indeed in portugal. and now overall across here, if we can also do totes, you go, may be a dynamic, expand the growing economy right now. i mean can, can that be said the whole of the you to a certain extent, as you say, it's playing catch up behind the us and china kind of ever, you think being equal in terms of economic talents of the us in china? well, we all understand that to the admins that says the background,

the deal is different from the west and always it's in china as well. so they are the think us in europe that must always be uh, you know, understood. but that said, what we see in portugal is that, you know, the export side of our economy has grown from 30 percent of g d p to you as it goes to 60 percent the g d p. as of today, you know, the form direct investment is still confused to flow. and indeed in the past, the recent past, we've been able to attract investments from countries that until now we're not, you know, having portugal really on their radar. and that today they are president trump, seems intent on offending will economic or just political see that as a flight or an opportunity? well, we see that the current trade between us in europe is very dynamic between the 2 countries. we have the most favored nation principal. so basically we have very little terrace from both sides. and so there's nothing to reciprocate about. and, but indeed, what you see is that the,

the linkages economic linkage is between the 2 constants are very strong. so you don't see president trump to make america great again, protectionist policies as dangerous in any way. i think that said, well should remain, uh, you know, as cooperative as possible. so free trade benefits all in the and then type of section. and as you read, tells us that our system has told us is indeed a tax on a company's on consumers. so unfortunately, we strive to remain open very friendly and attract some smart as well. because it is be great to talk to you on counting the cost many things to the for the wireless . thank you. in 2024, on average of newly for new 1000000000 as women to each week, bringing the total to more than $2700.00 super rich people globally. the wealth is ballooning. it's searched by $314000000000.00 in january alone. that's an increase of $10000000000.00 a day. that's more than the combined wealth of 2800000000 people who make up the

poor us 3rd of humanity. the tax, the super rich movement says that it would take $15000000.00 work cuz i didn't tie a year to collectively on that same amount of money. but more than 50 international organizations, a cooling on g 20 of months to follow through on the pledge to ensure the super rich of text. last year, the group's finance ministers agreed to cooperate to tax the wealthy more fairly. the organizations also urging g 20 leaders to invest the billions of dollars raised in factoring poverty, climate crises, and ending extreme in equality south africa, which now hose the g, 20 presidency. that's cool for equality reduction to be placed at the heart of economic policy making. joining us now from grand canal area is alex called him, he's the chief executive of the tex justice network. good to have you with us, alex. why is it the fortunate few have been able to a mass such a huge amount of wealth?

you know, we live in a, a time when compared to 50 or a 2 years ago. we've seen this public narrative pushed by, you know, corporate little bit. yes. and then we'll see individuals particularly controlling loud your thoughts with the media. but somehow we need very significant extreme wells in order for our economies to work better and thoughtful. the evidence shows exactly the opposite. our economies work best to deliver stronger gross, better outcomes, process, human beings when we have low really quality. and that's why we used to have a very high modern tax rates on extreme wells, on very large and corporate profit rates as high as 1890 percent. even in some countries they've come right down and we've had this race to the bottom of a decades, particularly since the 1980 twos may affect to that is not the we've seen high groups. of course we happened to the front of the in groups has

a slow to stagnated. over that period, what we've seen is a wrong using run prints in a quality used inequalities that are associated with all sorts of worst comes for us as societies including fools and life expectancy and, and reductions and the rate of progress and things like public education availability this inequality or the sensitivity qualities late by the extreme wealth of a busy, this is really damaging of societies and increasingly not a we see it damaging of democracy, is to you only have to look at around the world to see effective countries with that political power associated with the extreme wealth ability to is it really starting to undermine all of our abilities to choose governments and to hold those governments to account. so how do you go about texting the super rich? when wealthy individuals are able to hire the wells across various

jurisdictions and then incredibly complicated financial structures, an an attack savings, how do you get rid of tech statements? so look at all of these issues are about basic transparency. all we able to see who is the ultimate beneficial and the won't let each shipment be behind a company or a trust or a foundation of a partnership or another legal data. once we have that information in the public domain, then we come through all of this. it's almost impossible for places to operate. he says tax havens, you know, because it's not just offering a low tax rate to money that's being brought from somewhere else. it's. it's ensuring secrecy. so the potential thursdays in those other countries come and see who the owner is. if we end up secrecy we, we really talk sort of this. so that means we need public registers of the

beneficial evidence of companies. every company that the set top or trust of the, of the legal vehicles. and so we need that information in the public domain. and look, we need that publicly anyway, because markets don't work best to when some of the participants in markets a hiding through. they all, you know, we know this is a recipe for corruption and market reeking and so on. so both for the market and for the state to work properly for states to be able to tax everybody fairly, instead of letting some of the wealthiest people step out of taxation, even a slight benefit from being ultimate to societies and simply isn't sustainable. and you know, the reason i say that the only way to really address those are the policies is by ensuring transparency and making sure that goes across jurisdiction. alex has been great to have you on counting the cost many thanks indeed for being with us. thanks very much i and that's

a show for this week. if you'd like to comments on anything that you've seen, i'm at a set of goods on x. trying to remember to use the hash tag h a c t c, or you could drop us a line, comes in the cost to l, just 0, don't net is our email address. as always, there's plenty more, few online houses, 0 dot com slash ctc. that takes you straight to our page, that you'll find individual reports, links at a time additions for you to capture. but that's it for this edition of counting the cost. i'm adrian so they've gone from a whole team here. and so how, thanks for being with us, the news on al jazeera is next to the agriculture revolution promised abundance put pieces. damaging the planet to this system is destroying the habitat that allow right leeway explodes. how sacrificing by the best, the teeth, a maximum yields, is leading to pete and security and threatening of very existence. i'm leaving the

office based on able to adapt to climate change. the need to re thing what we so full hail the plan is on. i'll just say era, for months on houses era from freight was to size big shifting us policy on gaza and ukraine. president donald trump is shaking off global farmers stay updated with the latest development. rigorous debate on the flinching question upfront costs through the headlines to challenge conventional wisdom. on the 14th anniversary of the city and revolutions, the fall of the asset regime has ushered in a new era. as soon as we build the nation, made his hand case head to head with 4 most reluctant president running from a single china. it sets out its vision for its future as far as those of delegates gather for the so called 2 sessions on march. on alex's era, there is no channel that covers world news like we do, we revisit places in the state of the 0 really invests and that's and that's

a privilege. as a journalist, the as well says it will adult to us proposal for a temporary state spa regardless of throughout ramadan and policy. but there's been no comments from home on so far the . i'm hoping that this is out there a life from joe hall also coming up a 12 year old boy is short and killed by his way the full seas in the occupied westbank.