Tag: Justin Trudeau

Policies Matter: Volkswagen, Mercedes, & Hyundai React To Inflation Reduction Act

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Policies Matter: Volkswagen, Mercedes, & Hyundai React To Inflation Reduction Act

In June, Johan DeNysschen, the COO of Volkswagen of America, told Bloomberg his company is considering the construction of a battery manufacturing facility in North America. That would satisfy the requirement in the Inflation Reduction Act that batteries are manufactured in the US or other countries that are approved trading partners. According to the current North American free trade agreement, American trade officials consider anything made in Canada or Mexico to be domestically produced.

But manufacturing is one thing, The IRA goes further and requires the materials used to manufacture products also be sourced from approved trading partners. Canada is certainly one of them.

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Then the roof fell in. The IRA only applies to vehicles built in the US, and that Georgia factory was not scheduled to be up and running until 2025. Two weeks ago, Hyundai and Kia vehicles imported from South Korea were eligible for the federal EV tax credit of up to $7,500. After the IRA was signed into law, they are eligible for nothing. The South Korean government is considering bringing the matter to the World Trade Council, but according to Reuters, Hyundai will now speed up construction of its new Georgia factory.

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In the final analysis, that may be a good thing for America. Globalization left many countries like the US vulnerable to the machinations of crooks, thieves, and lunatics. The cheapest solution is often not the best solution.

Interesting that South Korea isn’t an “approved trading partner”. Then again, they’re not part of the USMCA. I suppose this is good for bringing some jobs to America.

Mirotvorets/Myrotvorets: The illegal and extremist activities of the Ukrainian website “Peacemaker” were discussed in Moscow + More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The illegal and extremist activities of the Ukrainian website “Peacemaker” were discussed in Moscow

Related:

Western media continues to ignore Ukraine’s public ‘kill list’ aimed at those who question the Kiev regime

American military officer Bentley: I am ashamed that the US authorities support the site “Peacemaker”

US to Appoint New Arctic Ambassador With Eye on Russia

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

US to Appoint New Arctic Ambassador With Eye on Russia

The US military is preparing for a future conflict in the Arctic with Russia, as well as China, by revamping its forces in the region. The US Army released a strategy document last year that said the Arctic has the “potential to become a contested space where United States’ great power rivals, Russia and China, seek to use military and economic power to gain and maintain access to the region at the expense of US interests.”

The US Navy released a similar strategy document in early 2021. Then-Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite suggested that the US could start challenging Russian claims to the Arctic by sending warships near Russia’s northern coast, similar to how the US Navy makes provocative passages near Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea.

Related:

Melting ice will change the economics of extracting resources from the Arctic

Of the 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,700 trillion cubic feet of natural gas estimated to lie north of the Arctic Circle, 84% lies offshore. And while Arctic conditions can still be as harsh as they were on the Seabees, the infrastructure of oil and gas extraction has improved vastly. “If people aren’t drilling all over the Arctic now, I don’t think it’s because there’s a gap in technology,” said Stig-Mortean Knutsen, a petroleum geologist at the Arctic University of Norway. “It’s more to do with cost.”

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These extractive ambitions rub against the urgency of our environmental moment: the need to cut down, rather than pursue, fossil fuel use. As part of their sustainability goals, banks claim they’re now making it difficult for oil firms to get funds for new Arctic projects. Knutsen calls this decision to withhold financing an easy one to make, “like kicking down an open door,” because the upfront expense of a project is so steep today. If those expenses shrink in a warming Arctic, banks might well step up once again, he said. One sustainability executive at a London-based bank, who asked not to be named, pointed out: “In any case, China and Russia will be happy to fund new projects.”

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Ironically, to best transition away from carbon fuels, the Arctic may first have to yield up another kind of resource: metals. The batteries, electric vehicles, and fuel cells of the future will need huge quantities of copper, nickel, manganese, rare earths, and other metals, said Gerard Barron, the CEO of The Metals Company, which hopes to mine the sea floor once the International Seabed Authority, a body within the UN, finalizes an undersea mining code. Barron’s miners are most actively studying the Clarion Clipperton Zone, a region just south of Hawai’i, where there is, Barron believes, enough metal to build 280 million EV batteries.