this is deja vu news live from berlin could this be the beginning of a thaw in the korean nuclear standoff president trump and north korean leader kim jong un have agreed to hold the first ever u.s. north korea summit. to put its nuclear program on the table if the right conditions are met. and present making good on a campaign promise but could this spark

a trade war the u.s. leader imposes controversial tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum he says he's stopping an assault on the united states. and turkey's crackdown on the press seventeen journalists from the opposition jim her yet newspaper are on trial of supporting terrorism they're still trying to get their voices heard from behind bars. i'm brian thomas a warm welcome to the show is this a breakthrough in the nuclear standoff between north korea and the united states president trump a north korean leader kim jong un are set to hold the first ever meeting of the two countries leaders on twitter president from saying kim jong un talked about denuclearization not just the phrase great progress being made but sanctions will remain until. agreement is reached meeting being planned earlier trump received the

south korean national security director children you young in the white house brief trump and other top officials about a rare meeting with him in the north korean capital that was on monday this is what he had to say. i told president president thought no meeting north korean leader kim jong un. he is committed to do provide. pledged that north korea with ukraine from any for them to kill me so tests he understands buttin joint military exercises between the republic of korea and the united states must continue that he stressed he said even if we meet president promptly that's known as impossible for the very latest on this let's go straight to jason strother in south korea jason this is an incredible development

one of the reactions where you are and i will south korean president moon j.n. as called this this opportunity. he's been advocating for many months to get the u.s. and north korea to the negotiating table and it looks like after is envoys visit it john young and brought this message to washington with them from kim jong il himself it appears that this this dream of president moons is in the works ok now there is the possibility though that this could be a propaganda ploy by north korea is it that or is it the first step towards a nuclear free korean peninsula. all right well we have been down this road many many times before really since the early one nine hundred ninety s. the u.s. has been trying to negotiate with north korea so that it would end its nuclear weapons programs many deals and promises have been made and just as many have been broken. north korea has said for many years now that it would never give up its

nuclear weapons but now all of a sudden it says that it's up it's up for discussion that it could potentially give them up so it is a gamble that the trump administration has taken ok now you have to look at the prospect of a meeting between two world leaders who've tossed vicious insults publicly against each other what would be the timeline moving forward for the possible meeting between the two we're hearing that they could be as early as next. right and that's about all right now it's being said we also have a summit between president mungy and kim jong un coming up by the end of april so there's a real flurry of diplomatic activity happening but as far as the u.s. north korea summit there an exact time and location has not been set ok what about the people where you are a south koreans how are they perceiving this right now would they like to see

a meeting between kim jong un and donald trump to help resolve the nuclear standoff . well you know as you alluded to earlier with the threats that were being tossed back and forth between the u.s. and north korea i think many south koreans felt. fairly you know and not at ease last year while all these tensions were happening you know so of course since the beginning of this year with the with the chang'e paralympics happening in this major breakthrough in diplomatic relations between north and south korea and now talk of these both of being summits i think many south koreans are feeling some relief but south koreans too they know that these deals have been made before and but not long after all these promises get broken jason strother phil for us joining us from pyongyang in south korea thanks very much thank you helen is here now the u.s. terror of slammed on trading partners raising the prospect of

a global trade war that's right the u.s. president following through on his threats to add tariffs to key imports pushing forward with levees on imports of steel and alan minium of this week ten and fifteen percent trump says the penalties and he had to address what he calls unfair trade and to boost the u.s. economy u.s. business need is an prominent members of his own republican party have warned that his is administration is crossing economic disaster with the move through with the stroke of a pen donald trump shook up international trade. the president signed the have the new tariffs into law flanked by metal workers he said he was stopping what he called an assault on the u.s. . today i'm defending america's national security. by placing tariffs on foreign imports of steel and aluminum. the levies will take

effect in two weeks but steel industry executives in south korea set up a crisis meeting right after trump signed them now korea is threatening to bring its case to the deputy oh. we're actively considering filing a complaint with the world trade organization. we've already discussed the issue with the european trade commission and. other countries including japan and australia are trying to placate the u.s. they are praising washington for sparing canada and mexico from the tariffs on steel and aluminum and they're hoping for more exceptions trumps executive order makes it possible for other countries to deal directly with the u.s. to remove tariffs. we will closely investigate the details of these measures and potential impact on japanese industries we would like japan to

be exempted from this. china has sharply criticized the tariffs the trade ministry in beijing has called on washington to drop them but it's announced retaliatory measures tariffs on american liquor tobacco and other products. the international monetary fund warns that this constant breezing of the stakes could lead to a trade war. so a warning from the i.m.f. that the economic fallout could potentially be very large indeed and that is not going down well with american trade experts on the country's allies are also angry here's why american steel makers employer about one hundred forty thousand people but when it comes to companies which need steel those manufacturers a much bigger they employ six point five million people so the new tariffs mean

that the much bigger produces will suffer for the benefit of the relatively small steel industry with protective tariffs maybe a shot at china's overcapacity but it is america's biggest allies that could end up taking the most flak just take a look say canada is the biggest exporter to the united states followed by the european union brazil when it comes to china it's right down at the bottom of that lace to position and live it and the impact on our allies will be big as well you're still a satiation you're a fair says it could slash american imports of european steel which was valued at five billion dollars last year so if that does happen the likes of big industrials like german comics could be the first victims the steel tariffs will hurt partners but a global trade war of course is the ultimate nightmare scenario and something of course that the e.u. is keen to avoid so let's get the view from europe from our correspondent in brussels teri schultz good to see terry now the e.u.

has kryten good morning now the e.u. has criticized trump's move what are these tariffs going to mean for countries here in europe terry. well i think that still being evaluated because as european commissioner for trade cecilia monster has said this morning donald trump wasn't quite clear on what it would mean for everyone he left open as we've discussed a bit that some countries could have exemptions countries other than canada and mexico that he was mentioned and cecilia monster is saying clearly we expect to be among those exemptions so i think they will still be analyzing what this means for european industry mom's term has a meeting tomorrow morning with u.s. trade rep robert light hisor and she says she's expecting to get much more clarity on plans for europe from him but the e.u. saying clearly we expect these tariffs not to be imposed on europe now earlier this week the european union did promise that trumps plan would be met sweet retaliates

three tariffs i mean how close are we coming to trade territory. monster was asked this morning at brussels forum how quickly would you impose your retaliatory measures if the trump administration goes ahead and says the european union will be subject to the higher terrace and she said you know with twenty eight governments it takes us a bit more time to maneuver and they will also be consulting closely with the w t o because with all the criticism of the us the us moves possibly not being in line with rules the e.u. is not going to hypocritically fall out of line with those regulations itself so she said that they have a maximum of ninety days to be ready to impose the retaliatory measures on the list that we've been hearing so much about bourbon levi's peanut butter but it doesn't mean that the measures would come into force that quickly compared with the fifteen days that the steel tariffs would be would take in the us cumbersome as you mention

with all those e.u. member states but at the same time the us president did single out germany in justifying his tariffs why is. he did as he so often does because he returns inevitably to nato funding and the low percentage of g.d.p. that germany spends on its defense so he brought that up again last night and in his announcement so if the e.u. is is expecting to be among the exemptions but trump is especially mentioning germany as one of the problems that he sees i don't know how well that's going to go but again monster is pinning a lot of hopes on this meeting with the u.s. trade rep tomorrow all right terry schultz first aid brussels thank you and i want to check in with our financial correspondent now as well because as has been monitoring the situation for us from frankfurt i'm good he was the view of the finance world now that trump has signed off on those tariffs. but the

business leaders in germany eric guster what they're hearing and i think there are calls for a television there as well but for example there are other voices as well that call for the escalation don't provoke the chief economist of the come out spunk is one of those he says lower tariffs on u.s. passenger cars coming into the e.u. because they're higher than the tariffs that the u.s. imposes that would be a way to get on trump's good side and by the way there are not that many u.s. patched companies cars on the road here in the u.s. so probably wouldn't hurt all that much well here's something that probably won't help get on trump's good side german exports grew of eight percent in january we've just learned compared to the same time last year isn't germany's export economy more vulnerable in this particular kind of trade dispute. it's especially vulnerable because there are so many hundreds of thousands millions of jobs

dependent on exports in germany and did not make the united states is the biggest single customer of german exports and china is the largest trading partners when you take imports and but over one hundred ten billion euros in german goods went across the atlantic to the united states directly so the economy and the jobs here are directly exposed to day i also counts that playing out on the markets that way you well how's it going down right now. we see negative share price developments all across europe london and paris are holding on italy as well but here in germany with that export to dependent economy shares are going down and the euro is going down as well asia up on the news on the surprising and welcome news that there will be talks between the united states and north korea. in frankfurt for us thanks i don't. know and in other news getting places now to understanding who will

sit in german parliament over to brian and through helena will members of the new german government are coming closer into focus now and of course those u.s. tariffs only just holds about they'll be top of their list germany's social democrats have just announced the names of these six ministers from their party will be joining johns or all of them ackles new coalition government all of scholz will be the minister of finance now that is a key position heiko mosse will be a foreign minister who will be the point man for communicating with the u.s. who has high ole will take over for the labor department the former minister of family covering a barley overcome minister of justice and the family will go to francisco jaffe and spend his shoulders will become the minister for environment. talk about this now with our political correspondent nina. will these cabinet appointments be able to

work with the americans conservatives while they have a long experience most of them and working together with uncle america let's not forget eight of the past.