US President Donald Trump threatens France with the Customs Club - this already has an impact on the stock market. There, especially luxury goods companies such as the Louis Vuitton parent LVMH, Kering and Hermés have come under pressure, their stock prices lost up to two percent.
Meanwhile, the French government has formulated a reply to Trump. Paris strongly condemns the new US tariff threats and does not rule out EU countermeasures. The US threats are "unacceptable," said Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire a radio station. "In the case of new US sanctions, the European Union would be ready to fight back." Economic Secretary Agnès Pannier-Runacher announced that the government would not abandon the new digital tax, which was cited by the US as the reason for the tariff threat. It makes economic sense. "We have to be combative on this point," she told Sud-Radio.
The US government announced on Monday that it would examine the introduction of punitive tariffs of up to one hundred percent on French goods such as champagne, handbags and cheese worth around $ 2.4 billion in response to the digital tax. The digital tax was not compatible with the principles of international tax policy and a burden for US companies, it had been justified. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said it is investigating whether similar investigations into digital taxes in Austria, Italy and Turkey are underway.
Trade conflicts with numerous states
The OECD countries aim for an internationally agreed minimum tax for cross-border companies at the end of 2020. With its digital tax, France had made a national leap forward to prevent companies from paying taxes by cleverly shifting profits. The tax is likely to hit mainly US technology companies like Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon.
However, the dispute with France is only one of many trade conflicts that Trump is currently carrying out in parallel.
- The trade dispute with China is unresolved. The US has been overpowering Chinese imports with massive import tariffs in order to persuade Beijing to make extensive trade concessions. A breakthrough, however, is still waiting - even if rumors about an alleged upcoming agreement have made the rounds. In October, for example, Trump himself had announced a general agreement on a partial agreement in the trade dispute and announced a signing in mid-November. Shortly thereafter, he rowed back.
- The decisive factor for the German automotive industry, on the other hand, is the question of how the US government decides on the question of possible car duties . Trump and his colleagues have repeatedly threatened to impose fines of up to 25 percent on vehicles from the EU, Japan and South Korea. Such a step could hit the German carmaker sensitive.
- Meanwhile, Trump opened a new front line earlier this week, announcing punitive tariffs on steel and aluminum from Brazil and Argentina . Both countries have "made a massive devaluation of their currencies, which is not good for our farmers," Trump tweeted.
How does the Civey method work?
The opinion research institute Civey works with a multi-level fully automated procedure. All representative real-time surveys are played in a Germany-wide network of more than 20,000 websites ("Riversampling"), so it is not only users of SPIEGEL ONLINE interviewed. Anyone can participate in the surveys online and will be included in the representative result with their answers if they have registered. From these users, Civey draws a quoted sample that ensures that it matches the population, for example, in terms of age, gender and population density. Finally, in a third step, the results are weighted by other attendees' socio-demographic factors and attitudes to correct distortions and prevent manipulation. More information can be found in the Civey FAQ.
Why is a registration necessary?
The registration helps to weigh the answers, thus allowing a result for the surveys, which is representative of the voting population in Germany. Each participant is asked for their gender, year of birth and place of residence. After that everyone can give their opinion in further surveys on different topics.
How do the results become representative?
The answer of each participant is weighted so that the result of a survey is representative of the population. For the Sunday question and the government monitor, this population comprises the population entitled to vote in Germany. The weighting is done fully automatically on the basis of the personal details at the registration as well as the history of earlier answers of a user. More methodological details can be found in the Civey whitepaper.
Will you reach enough participants online?
Opinion polls are usually conducted by phone or online. The significance of the results depends on how many people can be reached and how many actually participate in a survey when they are approached. Internet connections and landline connections are currently about equally widespread in Germany - with about 90 percent of households, mobile phones even 95 percent. The willingness to participate in all methods in the single-digit percentage range, especially experts estimate it for telephone surveys.
Thus, in both methods there is a group of people that can not be reached because they either have no connection to the respective network or do not want to participate in the survey. Therefore, a significant number of people must always be approached for a meaningful result. Civey surveys are currently in addition to SPIEGEL ONLINE in more than 20,000 other websites involved, including various media. This ensures that as many populations as possible can be reached.
How do I recognize the quality of a result?
Until the result of a survey becomes representative, enough different people have to participate. Whether this is already successful, makes Civey transparent, in that for each survey result a statistical error probability is specified. The number of participants and the interview time are also published for each survey.
What does it mean when the colored areas in the graphics overlap?
In our graphs, the statistical error is shown as a colored interval. This interval shows the uncertainty associated with a poll score. For example, on the Sunday question, one can not say exactly how many percent a party would get in a poll, but specify an interval where the outcome is likely to be. If the intervals of two survey values overlap, then strictly speaking no statements about the difference can be made. For the Sunday question this means: If the poll numbers of two parties are so close together that overlap their error intervals, it can not be derived from which would currently perform better in the election.
What happens with my data?
The personal data of the users are stored encrypted on German servers and remain secret. Civey employees use only user IDs for reporting and can not associate users with their votes. The main purpose of the users' personal information is to weigh the answers and to ensure that the surveys are not manipulated. To prevent this, Civey uses both statistical and technical methods. In addition, Civey works with external partners who create audiences. Only when users have accepted the privacy policy of both Civey and an external partner, may your responses be used by the Partner to model those audiences. However, a partner does not receive information about your political and religious attitudes and those that can identify you. Civey users are also not ads based on their answers. You may object to the distribution to partners at any time here as a logged in user. More information about privacy at Civey can be found here.
Who is behind Civey surveys?
At this point, readers in the app and on the mobile / stationary website have the opportunity to participate in a representative Civey survey. Civey is an online opinion research institute based in Berlin. To compile its representative surveys, the software of the company, founded in 2015, merges websites into a nationwide survey network. In addition to SPIEGEL ONLINE include, among other things, the "Tagesspiegel", "World", "Wirtschaftswoche" and "Rheinische Post". Civey was funded by the ProFit funding program of Investitionsbank Berlin and the European Regional Development Fund.
