Aurelia Butler

Germany is working on a new China strategy that takes a more sober view of relations and aims to reduce dependence on Asia’s economic superpower, which has been the country’s top trading partner since 2016.”Decoupling our economy from the Chinese market would not be in the interest of jobs in Germany,” Lindner was quoted as saying by the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.He said that gradually other world regions and markets would have to become more important for German business over the coming years and decades, Welt reported.”The political conditions must be improved for this,” Lindner said. More

GOREE ISLAND, Senegal (Reuters) -U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Saturday spoke of the “unspeakable cruelty” and enduring consequences of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but said she was heartened by signs of progress and renewal in both the United States and Africa.Yellen visited the House of Slaves, a fort built in the late 18th century on Goree Island off the coast of Senegal as a transit point for human beings before they were forcibly transported across the Atlantic, as she continued a three-country visit to Africa.”I take from this place the importance of redoubling our commitment to fight for our shared principles and the values of freedom and human rights where ever they are threatened – in Africa, in the United States and around the world,” she wrote in the visitor’s log. The site, now a museum and UNESCO World Heritage site, often draws high-level American visitors, including former President Barack Obama, the first U.S. president of African ancestry, who visited with his family in 2013.South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called the island “a place of reconciliation and hope” when he visited in December 2021, noting in the log that it was the place where the talks to end apartheid in his own country began.Yellen, at times visibly moved, underscored the enduring ties that bind Africa and the United States.”Ultimately, Gorée Island reminds us that the histories of Africa and America are intimately connected. We know that the tragedy did not stop with the generation of humans taken from here,” she said after touring the museum with its curator Eloi Coly.Goree’s mayor Augustin Senghor presented Yellen with a certificate appointing her as a lifetime ambassador of the island’s history.Goree Island was a symbol of great importance to Americans of African descent, drawing thousands of visitors every year, said Joyce Hope Scott, a professor of African American Studies at Boston University.”Secretary Yellen and others have made a wise choice in visiting this important site and should embrace the truthful representation of Goree Island and what it stands for in the historical experience of Africans on the continent and in the diaspora,” she told Reuters.Yellen, the former chair of the Federal Reserve, has focused her work in economics on ending historic disparities that continued to plague Black Americans long after slavery was abolished in 1865. On Saturday, she said both Africa and the United States had made tremendous strides, but more work was needed to counter the brutal consequences of the slave trade.At Treasury, Yellen has now set up a racial equity task force that has drawn the ire of Republicans, and she and her deputy, Nigerian-born Wally Adeyemo have worked hard to boost the economic conditions of communities of color.It was critical to tell the story of enslaved people, which “while full of suffering, is also full of perseverance and hope,” Yellen said, citing the important contributions of African Americans to the U.S. economy and democracy.”With remembrance, I believe, can come progress and renewal,” she said, highlighting what she called “signs of vibrant life around Gorée — a prominent art scene, a place of education, and thousands who call this place home.” More

Yellen told reporters traveling with her in Africa that she and other U.S. officials had gone through “many details of this debt overhang situation” during her meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in Zurich on Tuesday.She said she believed Chinese officials understood the imperative to reduce the debts of some of these countries, but declined to forecast what China would ultimately do, and when.Yellen, long critical of the pace of China’s efforts on debt treatments for Zambia and other countries, on Friday called again for China and other countries to provide “timely,” “comprehensive” and “meaningful debt relief to help countries regain their footing.”Yellen said U.S. officials expressed specific concern about Zambia, whose debt restructuring effort under the Group of 20 Common Framework has taken much longer to resolve than expected. Yellen will visit Zambia next week. “It’s important for the entire world that we not allow low-income countries to slide into economic disorder,” Yellen said, noting that the goal of raising living standards in Africa enjoyed bipartisan support in the United States.Failure to act would result in negative spillovers, including conflict, fragility, war, terrorism and migration, she said, sucking up resources that would hamper a country’s ability to grow and move forward, Yellen said.”Unless it can get that burden at least partially off its back … it’s just hampered indefinitely in terms of what it’s able to do and achieve for its citizens,” she said. Partial debt reductions would allow a country to invest and grow and pay back some of the reduced debt, she said.Lenders would get less if a country “falls into economic chaos” than if it can invest and grow, she said.”I definitely think they get what the problem is, and that there needs to be a solution,” she said of her discussions with officials from China, which is now the world’s largest bilateral creditor. “Our counterparts are sophisticated economics officials who can listen to a reasoned argument and understand.”U.S. officials also discussed with their Chinese counterparts Washington does not agree that multilateral development banks should not have to take a haircut along with sovereign lenders – an argument Beijing often raises.”That needs to be worked through, but we have counterparts who we are able to talk to in a reasonable way and work through our differences. And I hope that out of that process that some progress will come, But I do I don’t have a forecast for you.” More