more to support them in his support that the international community has to invest more on their. preventing young people. kind of the courses. it's still growth but germany's expansion of just 0.6 percent is the weakest in years we'll find out if it's just a blip or part of a cooling trend also china and the united states prepared to sign phase one of a deal aimed at ending their months long trade war major issues remain on result and the trade war has caused huge disruption to companies in both countries to take a look at one u.s. fight makers uphill battle. on for scoble welcome to the program europe's biggest

economy is in choppy waters german economic growth slow sharply last year 20.6 percent it's the weakest expansion in 6 years in the wake of increasing headwinds from international trade disputes experts have anticipated economic growth to cool a way back to more strength though is uncertain. 2019 was a tough year for german exporters the trade war between the us and china and the brakes and drama took their toll as customers put orders on hold and that meant europe's biggest economy kept slowing down just 2 years earlier german g.d.p. had grown by 2.5 percent in 2018 it was down to 1.5 percent and last year growth was just 0.6 percent. but there are also domestic reasons for this dramatic drop off economists have complained for years

about insufficient investment both on the part of companies and the government what little growth there was was thanks to german consumers willingness to keep on spending record employment rates meant there was money to go around and construction has kept on booming not least because of historically low interest rates but better days may lie ahead experts expect germany's economy to grow by one percent this year. let's bring in our financial correspondent here only better days may lie ahead but that is certainly not a given. no because the issues that served as retarded and for german growth and. the slowing factor in many other countries as well will continue for 2020 that's becoming clearer and clearer we're going to have the signing of the phase one of the trade deal today us china but people expect not

much substance to become realized implemented this year tariffs may only be reduced after a phase 2 and that could not happen this year or very late this year that there will be a bracks at end of january but what after that there has to be be a deal until the end of the year or otherwise there's no deal bracks and so that continues to loom over the market just like it did 2019 and consumer confidence yes high level but it has been waning recently now beyond these international geopolitical just feuds what can germany do internally to grow stronger. i think the state must invest more we just heard about that in the piece already there's lots to do a surplus is nice but you need more investment. in creating jobs for teachers for policeman for people in nursing you need more digital services here you need more

i.t. competence all that takes money and all that takes support from the state you need a faster bureaucracy less hurdles for people wanting to do construction and germany needs in the medium term to address the mega issues climate change demographics the receding population here in the country the german economy growing at its slowest pace in 6 years only bards in frankfurt thank you. now this us china trade dispute that we just talked about could be taking a big step towards being resolved later today when the 2 sides signed what they're calling phase one. trade agreements in it beijing has committed to buying more from the united states including energy and agricultural products and both sides have held off on imposing further terrorists on each other but many other hot button issues remain unsolved china's leo hood is in washington to sign

a cease fire in a trade war that has slowed global growth i.m.f. managing director crystal ina george reminded the trades are this was only a truce not a permanent peace deal leaves in place tower of some 360000000000 dollars worth of chinese goods it doesn't address technology transfers china's huge subsidies for state owned firms and cyber teth. these terrorists will stay in place until there's a phase 2 if the president gets a phase 2 quickly of consider releasing terraces part of phase 2 if not there won't be any terror leave so there's no has nothing to do with the election or anything else there's no secret agreements. what this modest deal does is prevent escalation the u.s. is agreed to stop labeling china as a currency manipulator beijing will buy $200000000000.00 worth of u.s. farm products manufactured goods and services asian markets were lower on reports the trumpet ministration was preparing to further tighten controls on technology

exports to china sua way i think it will be a fight she will fight to fight a cycle between china and the united states and so both sides. continue to try to be with us directly you got a manager. no solution could be expected any time soon on the strategic rivalry between the world's 2 biggest economies u.s. presidential elections are coming up in november and the chinese side feels it has enough domestic strength to avoid major compromise as. well for more as i'm joined in the studio by max current field he is an analyst at the mercator institute for china studies walked into the program x. let's look at some of the details that have been emerging from from this phase one trade deal china has to buy a lot more you as goods and agree to leave its currency alone all demands that the u.s. had prior to the signing what is china getting in return of the u.s.

as china's largest export markets and the tariffs have been hurting the chinese economy exposed to the to the u.s. fell by 20 percent last year so they're getting relief on their exports and sector so no fresh tariffs that is basically what well they're getting here that's obviously a very very important thing yeah but also they're also issues such as the confrontation with huawei and also the. political side of this it's not completely a trade war it spills into other realms is this a good deal then for them but we don't know yet because this bill will be very difficult to implement as you said in the opening segment dave agreeing to buy a apps. the enormous amount of u.s. goods and the u.s. has the right and according to leaked documents from the industry a deal to pull out of the trade deal whenever they want and reimposed tariffs it's not completely obvious that china will be able to live up to these commitments and those sound like a good deal to me here in the new site is i mean for the chinese at least did the

way you cited i mean the us having the right to pull out of it the us the china saying we're buying $200000000000.00 worth of your stuff within the next couple of years that's a that's a heavy load well i think what's really been going on with a lot of these things is that they make big commitments and then if they get somewhere or along the way they will be able to find an agreement so i don't i don't think it's impossible to china buys half of what they said they would but to us will say well you know we're somewhat happy with this and on that who buys these these u.s. products is that the chinese state is companies but this is a really tricky one because you know obviously in the case of china have a huge state sector which can be directly instructed to buy goods and services but for the market segments of and cutting it's much trickier so what they will have to do is they will have to do some reforms to to facilitate trade they will have to perhaps their currency appreciate a little bit against the dollar so that it will help american exports perhaps they

will have to lower they will have to lower tariffs and certain uncertain american goods facilitate american market access and that it will take a lot of work actually especially since well i mean in the case of china maybe. well the vast majority of the economy is actually market driven and those sectors can simply be told what to do and speaking of a lot of work still to be done is face 2 of this deal steve still needs to be hammered out and potentially it will be much harder because we're talking about as subjects like intellectual property rights technology transfer the fate of huawei which is a symbol of china's might as as an economic and technological leader do you see any willingness by the chinese to compromise on any of these issues and dishonest. we will have to see on this one because china has been criticized for and issues around intellectual property rights continuously for many years and this been very little progress but at the same time these tariffs are costing and in the

current deal that has been made the biggest share of america of america next chinese exports to china are still on the tariff and that's like 25 percent tariffs so unless they are happy to keep those tariffs in place they might have to make a little progress bit of progress of this bear stearns heard of the american or institute for trying to studies thank you for your thoughts. the u.s. china trade dispute has been going on for more than 18 months for many companies it's been a time of extended uncertainty our next report traces the fortunes of a us bicycle maker as it tried to move production out of china to avoid paying u.s. tariffs. when state bicycle decided to shift production of finished city fights out of china to escape u.s. tyrus it took months to find another factory in asia willing to do business with the arizona based company the from time to time but most factories that were to

swamped with business from american idol they declined it so it is because they weren't big enough to be profitable the struggle to find an alternative to china epitomizes the challenges many u.s. firms have faced since the start of the trade dispute while the phase one deal might be a step forward it's not a system action. if we knew one way for sure was going to go away or one way you know the tariffs would be here to stay we could plan long term but her right now we have to kind of be nimble and and and move in short term increment. the phase one trade deal suspends a further increase in tarik some bicycles and other chinese made goods but that leaves on the existing 25 percent import duties on products including bikes to give the u.s. leverage during trade negotiations uncertainty remains nearly 30 percent of north american companies have switched supply chains away from china according to a recent survey by by cowen and company. several manufacturers are now moving

operations to other countries in the region including taiwan thailand and vietnam but the other countries often lack the infrastructure and capacity to absorb every american company a state by school co-found out. to triple or doesn't pay 30 percent up front to a small taiwanese factory for it to take orders unlike its chinese supplier. the u.s. china trade dispute is reshaping the global supply chain. and that's our show i'm alone thanks for watching and oversell for success. to.

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mom. i love y'all story. because i'm bored. must. start january 27th on. hi there and welcome to arts and culture acclaimed jazz artist of sweden is a living legend on the trombone quite literally he's my guest on today's program and also coming up. what and how will we eat in the new twenties with climate change as the backdrop nutritional expert honey vienna talks food trends for 2020. and there are moves afoot to

resuscitate berlin's most famous rave the love parade the original organizer dr moto is on a mission to make it happen. well in the music business people know him as mr red horn that's of course because of his trademark red trombone. and is one of europe's most successful jazz musicians ever and one of its most prolific well he's also at home in virtually any musical genre and collaborate incessantly to continually widen his own horizons and he'll join me in the studio right after this.