institute at the free university of berlin when imposing these tariffs president trump invoked a seldom used section of trade or from the one nine hundred sixty s. in fact allowing him to impose trade barriers when there is a threat to national security was was there any sign of that. i thought canada i thought the european union i thought mexico were all friendly countries and also that we're all in the same boat together speaking about security so it's clearly one of these distant ideas of industrial policy if you don't have something very specific then somehow you're less of a nation less secure but it is clearly just made up the only way he could get to do what he's just frightened to do and he's doing it does seem rather obscure but the u.s. common. saying that not enough had been done to reduce that trade deficit we do have to acknowledge it is it is very large does he have a point that sometimes you can say you got there is that deficit now the question is do we agree what the cause of the u.s. deficit are economists are actually pretty much in a great agreement it has to do with

institute at the free university of berlin and imposing these tariffs president trump invoked a seldom used section of trade or from the one nine hundred sixty s. in fact allowing him to impose trade barriers when there is a threat to national security was was there any sign of that. i thought canada i thought the european union i thought mexico were all friendly countries and also that we're all in the same boat together speaking about security so it's clearly one of these distant ideas of industrial policy if you don't have something very specific then somehow you're less of a nation less secure but it is clearly just made up the only way he could get to do what he's just threatened to do and he's doing it does seem rather obscure but the u.s. congress. saying not enough have been done to reduce that trade deficit we do have to acknowledge it is it is very large does he have a point that sometimes you can say you got there is that deficit now the question is do we agree what the cause of the u.s. deficit are economists are actually pretty much in a great agreement it has to do with t

of things. i have seen temple half airstrip in berlin, because it is not in the center of the city, it is near the free universityf berlin. what happened after the second world war is that stalin went back on his word after the armistice. he decided he would partition germany and try to get a large section of the city of berlin under soviet control. one of the ways he was going to do that was with the food blockade. he managed to do that and, as a result, supplies that were not coming to the rest of the city, had to be airlifted in. it is one of the unintended crises as the cold war began. it was the problem of food supply. when the soviets blockaded berlin and they blockaded the rail access -- people were not flying food into berlin, most came in by train. first of all, there was not very much. it wound up where the u.s. and are in were flying over 8000 tons of food into berlin between 1948 in june and 1949 in may. here is another problem to think about. most of the united states planes were no longer in europe. they were outside of the european theater he does -- because the war was over. it's meant a whole mov

carefully ok i have some os the professor at the graduate school of east asian studies at the free university of berlin thank you for spending time with us. all right in other news on marigolds face a stormy reception in the german parliament as she delivered a speech on her government's controversial draft budget for the year two thousand and eighteen the german chancellor said she would be cautious regarding higher spending with darling under pressure for france to increase its contributions and chance america rejected suggestions that bolstering defense is a defense spending rather amounted to a military build up. all right to correspondent kate brady joins me now a kid how exactly at the chancellor americal defense plans to expand the german defense budget this year. of course defense is one of the most contentious issues in this new budget muckle said today that the planned increase of one point five billion euros to germany's defense budget is not about upgrading the bundestag the german military but actually equipping it was you might remember there's been several reports over the past few month

institute of the for university here in berlin and to my near right my colleague indeed of the business anchor helena i'm free to both of you welcome back to the big table so let me start with you how is the u.s. commerce secretary how is he justifying taking punitive measures against the european union which is supposed to be one of the united states best friends not to mention one of its biggest trading partners exactly of course that friendship going paul straight as well so fairly shocking perhaps. you know he announced the terrorists from paris so he didn't waste any time he was of course that in paris for the meeting of the o.e.c.d. where they were trying to negotiate with you elitist to a vote of those terrorists that wilbur ross said simply that not enough progress had been made to warrant a further over a preview of that to the european union canada or mexico and he did say though that president trunk can then if those tariffs any time he wants that was kind of the justification of course what european leaders have said is that it's not how you act with an ally we will not come back to the negotiatin

and for more of this i'm joined here at the big table by korea expert professor has mostly from the free university here in berlin professor it's good to see you again you know we didn't think we were going to be talking about this this soon the it appears the entire world was caught off guard by this decision and what did you think when you heard about it yeah i was surprised by it too i heard from my students during my lecture today and we discussed it but it's not only i think also the. people around triumphal themselves they were surprised by that of course moon of the south korean president was taken by surprise he visited for president only one day before and they had very good composition but what does this mean i mean we heard that president moon was trying to make sense of what happened today. what does this mean for him moving forward he has invested a lot in the trump plan as we know it has he completely lost face in credibility with the south koreans through this. well i think first of all the efforts by a south korean president were very well received even even in the white house and they were very s

and for more of this i'm joined here at the big table by korea expert professor has mostly from the free university here in berlin professor it's good to see you again you know we didn't think we were going to be talking about this this soon the it appears the entire world was called off guard by this decision what did you think when you heard about it yeah i was surprised by it too i heard from my students during my lecture today and we discussed it but it's not only i think also the. people around trump for themselves they were surprised by that of course moon of the south korean president was taken by surprise he visited for president only one day before and they had very good conversation but what does this mean i mean we heard that president moon was trying to make sense of what happened today. what does this mean for him moving forward he has invested a lot in the trump plan as we know it has he completely lost face in credibility with the south koreans through this. well i think first of all the efforts by a south korean president were very well received even even in the white house and they were very succ