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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: This is the Bloomberg DAYBAC podcast. Good morning, It's Wednesday,

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Speaker 2: the seventeenth of December. I'm Caroline Hepkeitt in London and.

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Speaker 3: I'm Stephen Caroline Brussels. Coming up today, the US identifies

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Speaker 3: prominent European companies for potential retaliation over the way the

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Speaker 3: EU treats big tech firms.

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Speaker 2: President Trump says he is blocking all sanctioned oil tankers

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Speaker 2: from entering or leaving Venezuela.

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Speaker 3: Plus Jared Kushner's luxury dreams collide with political reality in

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Speaker 3: the Western Balkans.

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Speaker 2: Let's start with the roundup of our top stories.

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Speaker 3: The Trump administration is threatening retaliation against the EU in

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Speaker 3: response to efforts to regulate and tax American tech companies,

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Speaker 3: naming prominent European firms as potential targets.

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Speaker 4: Bloomberg's Uan Pots has.

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Speaker 5: More European efforts to crack down on big tech of

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Speaker 5: long being in the crossairs of the White House. Now,

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Speaker 5: the Office of the US Trade Representative says it has

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Speaker 5: no choice but to begin using every tool at its

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Speaker 5: disposal to counter what it calls the EU's unreasonable measures.

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Speaker 5: As issue of policies governing digital commerce, as well as

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Speaker 5: digital taxes imposed by individual countries. The role call of

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Speaker 5: European companies named for potential retaliation includes Accenture, Siemens, Spotify, DHL,

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Speaker 5: SAP and others. In response to the Commission says that

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Speaker 5: EU is an open market where rules apply equally and

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Speaker 5: fairly to all companies, but the tensions over tech regulation

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Speaker 5: and taxes look set to continue to hang over trade

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Speaker 5: negotiations in London.

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Speaker 4: I'm you in pots Spooberg Radio.

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Speaker 2: The price of crude oil has surged after President Trump

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Speaker 2: said that sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela would

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Speaker 2: be blockaded. Writing in a social media post, the US

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Speaker 2: leader added that he is also designating President Maduro's government

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Speaker 2: a foreign terrorist organization. It's an escalation of the Trump

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Speaker 2: administration's pressure on Maduro, who they accused of presiding over

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Speaker 2: a drug trafficking operation. Here is Bloomberg's oil reporter, Nicholas lua.

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Speaker 6: Heez threatened a blockade around Venezuela, and I think that's

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Speaker 6: a big deal because it represents an escalation on earlier

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Speaker 6: behavior hostile behavior between the US and Venezuela. The US

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Speaker 6: has earlier seized a oil tanker of Venezuela's cost and

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Speaker 6: as it is, things are very dicey, and now with

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Speaker 6: this new social media post and the threel of a

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Speaker 6: loca it thing, it looks like things are getting even disier.

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Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Nicholas Lewa speaking there, as the price of both

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Speaker 2: Brent and West Texas Intermediate both advanced from the lowest

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Speaker 2: level since twenty twenty one after the US President's comments.

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Speaker 3: Amazon has in talks to invest ten billion dollars or

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Speaker 3: more into open Ai in exchange for using its semiconductor chips.

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Speaker 3: Sources tell Bloomberg talks or at an early stage, but

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Speaker 3: the deal could value open Ai at more than half

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Speaker 3: a trillion dollars. In recent months, Wall Street have started

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Speaker 3: raising alarm bells about the scale of investment into the

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Speaker 3: AI space and whether it might be a bobble. Representatives

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Speaker 3: for open Ai and Amazon declined to comment.

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Speaker 2: Britain's labor government passed its flagship workers' rights package in

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Speaker 2: a major win for the party's left wing. The bill

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Speaker 2: entitled workers to stronger protection from unfair dismissal, sick pay,

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Speaker 2: and parental leave from day one at a new job

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Speaker 2: and empowers trade unions. Business Minister Kate Diden says it

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Speaker 2: marks the biggest overhaul of workers rise in Britain in

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Speaker 2: a generation.

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Speaker 1: Really really crowd there. As a government, we are delivering

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Speaker 1: this and really delighted that we are now out of

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Speaker 1: the parliamentary process and heading towards royal sense so we

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Speaker 1: can deliver for millions of working people across this country

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Speaker 1: and upgrade workers rights so it's fit for the twenty

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Speaker 1: first century.

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Speaker 2: Did and took over the bill after former Deputy Prime

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Speaker 2: Minister Angela Rayner resigned from government in the Autumnoi attack scandal.

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Speaker 2: Rainer is widely seen is a potential successor to Prime

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Speaker 2: minis a kiss starmer, and this bill was her flagship

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Speaker 2: piece of legislation.

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Speaker 3: Britain is sticking to ambitious electric vehicle targets right at

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Speaker 3: the point where carmakers decide where to invest in their

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Speaker 3: next factories. The EU announced plans to water down it's

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Speaker 3: combustion engine phase out planned yesterday. Bloomberg's Climate reporter John

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Speaker 3: Ainger says it's a bid to protect industry.

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Speaker 7: The mood music in Europe, I think has really changed

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Speaker 7: over the last couple of years. Or so, and there's

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Speaker 7: been a big push to focus on safeguarding industry and

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Speaker 7: of industry. Car makers, particularly those in Germany and also

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Speaker 7: the parts manufacturers that supply all the elements needed to

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Speaker 7: make cars have really they've really raised like the red flag.

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Speaker 7: They say that the market is not ready.

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Speaker 3: British consumers have embraced evs faster than other European countries,

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Speaker 3: but with the EU still being the main export market

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Speaker 3: for British cars, any split in rules adds uncertainty at

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Speaker 3: a sensitive moment.

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Speaker 2: Un present, Immanuel macart has told The Financial Times that

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Speaker 2: he believes tariffs on Chinese exports would be uncooperative. Writing

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Speaker 2: in an op ed, the French leader argued against using

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Speaker 2: tariffs and quotas to address the trade imbalance between the

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Speaker 2: world's second largest economy and the EU. Macro, however, said

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Speaker 2: that rebalancing is still quote urgently needed, and he called

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Speaker 2: for measures to be taken on both sides. He added

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Speaker 2: that the EU must address competitiveness concerns and foster innovation

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Speaker 2: at home, while China should move towards a more favorable

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Speaker 2: fiscal policy to promote its domestic spending and bolster investment

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Speaker 2: in Europe.

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Speaker 4: Those are your top stories on the markets.

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Speaker 3: The msciosh Pacific Index is currently up by three tenths

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Speaker 3: of one percent, European stock futures pointing a little higher,

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Speaker 3: up by a ten for euro stocks fifty. At the moment,

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Speaker 3: we're keeping an eye on those oil prices brankcrewed one

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Speaker 3: point four percent higher, just below the sixty dollars a

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Speaker 3: barrel still though the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index two tenths

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Speaker 3: stronger the euros two tenth weeker at one seventeen twenty eight.

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Speaker 2: Now in a moment, we'll bring you more on the

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Speaker 2: latest spike intentions between the US and the EU, plus

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Speaker 2: why Jared Kushner's big real estate projects in the Western

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Speaker 2: Balkans are colliding with the realities of doing business in

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Speaker 2: the region. But before that, another story is caught all

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Speaker 2: right today, how much are you willing to pay for

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Speaker 2: your coffee?

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Speaker 3: Stephen caroll Well, I mean, it's a question that I

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Speaker 3: think a lot of people have been thinking about because

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Speaker 3: of the all of the reporting around the high price

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Speaker 3: of the commodity coffee. I suppose due to climate and

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Speaker 3: other issues as well that have made for poor harvest

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Speaker 3: and hitting supplies too. But our reporters Harry Black and

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Speaker 3: Lena Pang have been talking about how this is actually

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Speaker 3: affecting the coffee drinkers and looking at the changing habits

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Speaker 3: that people are, I suppose, adapting to this new trend,

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Speaker 3: like making coffee more at home. For example, They point

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Speaker 3: to a city group survey from trees around the world

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Speaker 3: from the US to Thailand showing that thirty seven percent

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Speaker 3: of people are making more coffee at home, and those

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Speaker 3: that aren't already doing so two thirds of them said

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Speaker 3: that they plan to in the next twelve months. As

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Speaker 3: well as the sales of coffee machines, there are people

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Speaker 3: are buying more order to home beans, for example in

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Speaker 3: the US, it's meant more people going to drive through locations.

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Speaker 4: Where it's cheaper to buy a cup of coffee too.

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Speaker 3: But I suppose that the take The part that I'm

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Speaker 3: taking away from this is that people aren't giving up

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Speaker 3: coffee because it's more expensive. They're just choosing different ways

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Speaker 3: to try and source it, which I think is probably

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Speaker 3: a bit concerning. At the same time, kind of this

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Speaker 3: is your big moment, does lobby everyone to move to tea?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. My countertops in my kitchen is totally clear.

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Speaker 2: Does this mean I'm going to end up with a massive,

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Speaker 2: fancy coffee machine I have resisted so far. Yeah, I'm

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Speaker 2: not a coffee drinker. Anyone who comes into the radio

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Speaker 2: studio in London knows that it's al grade tea. Yes,

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Speaker 2: you have to join me. Lovely story though, But it's

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Speaker 2: not just coffee, is it. I mean there are other

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Speaker 2: commodities that have risen in price. I mean, I'm far

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Speaker 2: more fascinated by the rise in cocoa beam prices.

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Speaker 4: This affects me much more.

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Speaker 3: I think exactly if you were chocolate decorations on the

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Speaker 3: Christmas tree this year, I think as well. But I mean,

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Speaker 3: how consumers are adapting to persistent inflation is a theme

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Speaker 3: that we've been talking about all years. So great to

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Speaker 3: see our colleagues reporting there on what's happening to coffee drinkers.

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Speaker 3: Let's bring you more out though, on the latest trade

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Speaker 3: tensions between the EU and the United States. The Trump

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Speaker 3: administration is threatening to retaliate against European companies for their

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Speaker 3: efforts to tax American ferns. Our Chief Hero correspondent Oliver

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Speaker 3: Crooks with me in studio for more this morning. Oliver,

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Speaker 3: what are first of all, the measures that the US

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Speaker 3: is complaining about here and what is the Trump administration

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Speaker 3: saying about how it's planning to respond.

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Speaker 8: So they're taking aim of this idea of the digital taxes,

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Speaker 8: which are not levied across the EU at the moment,

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Speaker 8: but there are individual countries within Europe that do that. France,

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Speaker 8: for example, does target that in terms of ad revenues

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Speaker 8: from a lot.

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Speaker 4: Of these tech companies.

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Speaker 8: But it's not just about the digital tax right, that's

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Speaker 8: just one of the vast array of sort of non

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Speaker 8: tariff barriers that the United States is always talking about

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Speaker 8: within Europe. So it's a very sort of wide range

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Speaker 8: of things. It's not just taxes, it fines. For example,

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Speaker 8: Antitrust finds that the EU can levy against these massive

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Speaker 8: US tech companies, and the United States has aired their

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Speaker 8: displeasure a great many times on this particular topic, but

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Speaker 8: it doesn't always get pursued or sort of taken anywhere.

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Speaker 8: And so now we've heard from Jamison Greer from the

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Speaker 8: US Trade Representative's Office coming out on Twitter very sort

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Speaker 8: of emphatically saying that the European Union and certain U

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Speaker 8: member states have persisted in continuing a course of discriminatory

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Speaker 8: and harassing lawsuits, taxes finds directives against US service providers

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Speaker 8: and that basically if they don't stop doing this, not

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Speaker 8: only are they going to target EU companies, they've listed

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Speaker 8: into companies that they're going to target. They're going to

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Speaker 8: be Accenturemideis, cap, Gemini, DHL, Mistral public SAP, Ziemans and Spotify.

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Speaker 8: So in that list you have mostly German and French companies,

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Speaker 8: a couple of others in there, so you know where

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Speaker 8: your butter bread is butter in terms of the power

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Speaker 8: within the EU, and saying that the United States will

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Speaker 8: have no choice but to begin using every tool at

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Speaker 8: its disposal to counter these unreasonable measures and should responsive

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Speaker 8: measures be necessary, the US law permits an assessment of

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Speaker 8: fees or restrictions on foreign services, among other actions. The

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Speaker 8: point that they make is basically, the US market is

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Speaker 8: fully open for European service providers. The European is not,

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Speaker 8: and that is what they're trying to take issue with.

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Speaker 8: Of course, the Trump administration is one that sees itself

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Speaker 8: as particularly aggrieved by the EU.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's notable though that the EU uses language around fairness,

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Speaker 2: things being fair and a focus on consumers.

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Speaker 4: How has the EU responded.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, you won't be surprised to learn that the US

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Speaker 8: actually has a response to that too, right. The point

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Speaker 8: that they make is that though that the U and

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Speaker 8: as we spoke to Marsefkovic earlier this week and you know,

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Speaker 8: saying that basically all of these laws are applied fairly

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Speaker 8: and universally to any business that's operating within the EU.

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Speaker 8: They're not discriminatory against the United States. But what the

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Speaker 8: United States will say is that effectively, if you have

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Speaker 8: a speed limit on a road of one hundred and

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Speaker 8: fifteen miles per hour and only American cars go up

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Speaker 8: to one hundred and fifty miles per hour, you're effectively

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Speaker 8: targeting American cars. And that is what they're saying basically

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Speaker 8: about these tech regulations, because there are no other companies

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Speaker 8: in the world with the largest scale and the antitrust

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Speaker 8: concerns that a lot of these American companies have. What's

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Speaker 8: interesting about what the United States is doing is they're

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Speaker 8: linking these sort of digital taxes also with the other

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Speaker 8: parts of the trade deal, so steal in aluminum. Howard

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Speaker 8: Ludnik last time he was here in Brussels, he said

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Speaker 8: very explicitly to Bloomberg Television. The only way for you

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Speaker 8: guys to get these steal and aluminum tariffs down, which

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Speaker 8: are by the way, at fifty percent, very very elevated,

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Speaker 8: is to cool it, hit the brakes basically on tech

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Speaker 8: regulations within Europe, and that is so far with the

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Speaker 8: Europeans have said that they are not going to do that.

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Speaker 8: There is a question about if they're going a little

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Speaker 8: bit less hard on these fines. There's some anecdotal evidence

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Speaker 8: of that they're not pursuing these American companies quite as hard,

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Speaker 8: but they're still finding x for example, very recently one

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Speaker 8: hundred and twenty million dollars, and that has of course

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Speaker 8: received the iyre from the President and a number of

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Speaker 8: others in the US.

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Speaker 3: This is cited, as you say, in a wider context

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Speaker 3: of there being a reshaping of EUUs trade relations. We

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Speaker 3: have the deal that was announced during the summer, another

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Speaker 3: outline deal from the Trump administration. Negotiations over that are

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Speaker 3: still continuing. How does this latest threat, I suppose we

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Speaker 3: can describe it as from the US trade representatives, feed

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Speaker 3: into the broader conversation about those trade relations.

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Speaker 8: I think this highlights a couple of things. Well, one

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Speaker 8: is this idea of the non tariff barrier, the sort

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Speaker 8: of amorphist idea of basically anything the US doesn't like

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Speaker 8: in regard to their corporates will basically be considered a

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Speaker 8: non tariff trade barrier and as a consequence, will be

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Speaker 8: brought into a broader discussion about trade negotiations. So from

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Speaker 8: the European perspective, and again spoke to mar Sefkovich about this,

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Speaker 8: the Trade commissioner here in Europe earlier on Monday, that

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Speaker 8: basically the negotiation is never over. It can be reopened,

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Speaker 8: it can target new things, it can go into a

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Speaker 8: much wider scope of different sort of ideas that we're

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Speaker 8: not originally strictly speaking within the trade rubric, and that

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Speaker 8: is in a constantly evolving process. And then so you

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Speaker 8: get basically effectively things are never over stealing aluminum, not settled,

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Speaker 8: pharmaceutical still some major issues. And then of course you

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Speaker 8: get these sort of complete ambushes and surprises like Switzerland

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Speaker 8: experience where they thought they had a certain trade tariff

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Speaker 8: and then they had something completely different. But this is part,

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Speaker 8: broadly speaking of the Trump strategy. Trump knows that he

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Speaker 8: has the power in this sort of region, and he

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Speaker 8: keeps his adversaries or his competitors on their toes by

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Speaker 8: constantly being sort of unpredictable and being able to morph

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Speaker 8: the sort of plane of attack.

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Speaker 2: Ollie, thank you so much for being with us today.

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Speaker 2: Good to speak to you. That is Archief Europe Correspondent

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Speaker 2: Oliver Crook. So we'll keep across. Then the latest growing,

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Speaker 2: it would seem trade tensions between the EU and the US.

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Speaker 2: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Day Bakeupe coming up after.

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Speaker 3: This to the Western Balkans now, where Jared Kushner's splashy

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Speaker 3: real estate projects are colliding with the realities of doing

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Speaker 3: business in the region. Affinity Partner is the private equity

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Speaker 3: fund owned by Donald Trump's son in law, pulled out

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Speaker 3: of plans to build a Trump Tower and Serbia's capital, Belgrade,

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Speaker 3: but a different projects in Albania is still going ahead.

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Speaker 3: Our reporter grayce Akryer joins us now for more grace,

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Speaker 3: so good to talk to you. Firstly, with the Belgrade project,

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Speaker 3: what went there well.

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Speaker 9: What went wrong in Belgrade is that the project became

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Speaker 9: deeply politicized. It was promoted as a flagship investment by

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Speaker 9: Serbian President Alexander Bushich and his pushed through special legislation

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Speaker 9: to remove obstacles, including stripping protections from the site. That

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Speaker 9: approach reignited protests that had already been going on for

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Speaker 9: more than a year. In Serbia, things escalated further when

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Speaker 9: a government official who helped clear the path for the

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Speaker 9: development was indicted. In response, Affinity Partners, Jared Kushna's private

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Speaker 9: equity fund, said projects like this should unite rather than divide,

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Speaker 9: and that it was withdrawing out of respect for the

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Speaker 9: people of Serbia and the city of Belgrade.

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Speaker 2: So then that's for the Belgrade project. What is happening

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Speaker 2: with the Affinity Partners project in Albania.

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Speaker 9: In Albania, the project is still moving forward. The government

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Speaker 9: has approved plans for luxury resort and marinnounced Asa Island,

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Speaker 9: a former military base. Officials describe it as mission critical

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Speaker 9: for transforming the country's tourism sector. It is the largest

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Speaker 9: scale Western foreign investment of Prime Minister Edi Ramas twelve

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Speaker 9: years in power. The government presents it as part of

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Speaker 9: rebranding Albania as a destination that can compete with neighboring

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Speaker 9: Greece and Croatia.

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Speaker 3: This is happening, though at the time there are corruption

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Speaker 3: investigations ongoing across several aspects of public life in Albania.

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Speaker 3: How does that affect this project in the country's image.

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Speaker 9: More broadly, well, Albania is facing a wave of high

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Speaker 9: level corruption investigations that touch some of its biggest infrastructure projects.

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Speaker 9: Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Belinda Baluku has been

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Speaker 9: indicted for aleged violations in public tenders covering projects directly

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Speaker 9: linked to the island. She's been suspended from her cabinet

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Speaker 9: roles apart from leaving the country while denying wrongdoings. Albeitian

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Speaker 9: officials save the resort project itself will continue. At the

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Speaker 9: same time, the indictment put a spotlight on government and procurement.

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Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Daybreak Europe, your morning brief on the

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Speaker 3: stories making news from London to Wall Street and beyond.

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Speaker 4: I'm Caroline Hepka and I'm Stephen Carroll.

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Speaker 3: Join us again tomorrow morning for all the news you

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Speaker 3: need to start your day, right here on Bloomberg day

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Speaker 3: Break Europe