Hello im sammys day than this is counting the cost on aljazeera your weekly look at the world of business and economics this week how u. S. President Donald Trumps overhaul of the u. S. Tax system could spark an International Trade war also this week electric cars why the road to zero emissions may be built on illegal cobalt mining the democratic republic of congo. Plus when is a taxi not a taxi how resolving it was identity crisis has implications for the gig economy. Two thousand and seventeen if nothing else was the year when boring all taxation became a hot topic we had the release of the palomar papers followed by the paradise paper showed us how the worlds wealthiest hid their money from revenue collectors and then this week billionaire u. S. President donald trump rewrote tax law for the worlds biggest economy and some of the worlds Biggest Companies trump and republicans say is tax bill will pour rocket fuel into the engine of the u. S. Economy spurring growth and creating jobs democrats say the bill is mostly a boon to businesses and the rich can really help it reports. With nearly every republican lawmaker at his side donald trump did not pass up his chance to enjoy his first legislative victory after almost a year in office its always a lot of fun when you win the passage of the most dramatic changes to the u. S. Tax code in thirty years i always say the most massive but its the largest tax cut in the history of our country and the reform but tax cut the tax reforms are controversy big cuts to Corporate Tax rates from thirty five to twenty one percent democrats say will benefit the wealthy at the expense of ordinary americans its a ponzi scheme. The tax cuts are going to be meaningful for working families and every day americans and the jobs will never materialize republicans argue the cuts will make the United States more competitive with countries like china with similarly low Corporate Tax rates its hoped this will encourage companies to do business in the u. S. And bring back jobs a key Trump Campaign promise but while this legislation is about reforming taxes it is also about winning donald trump failed to deliver on a Campaign Promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care act or what Many Americans call obamacare its a frustration donald trump has lamented for months. Passing the tax legislation now allows trump to claim victory on both tucked inside the tax reforms is a repeal of an obamacare requirement called the individual mandate that forced all americans to buy Health Insurance or pay a tax fine the legislation still must go through legal review and may not be signed into law until the new year the president says americans will start to see tax relief as early as february the g. O. P. Tax skin is a monumental job but Many Americans remain skeptical most members of congress did not have time to read the hundreds of pages of changes to the hastily passed tax legislation thank you very much everybody and according to most polls two thirds of americans are doubtful the tax changes will have any positive impact on their lives. Its a big win for republicans of course they insist americans will learn to love the bill when they see their paychecks in the new year despite trump calling it a gift to the middle class many economists say one of the major winners here is Corporate America tax for big business is cut from thirty five percent currently to twenty one percent indefinitely and tax breaks for individuals and families on the other hand expire after a decade because the president hasnt released his tax returns we dont know exactly how it will impact his businesses and theres another big unknown republicans of knowledge nobody knows if the sweeping one point five billion dollars tax bill will produce enough growth to pay for itself instead economists worry it could accelerate the growth of the National Debt and the to benefit cuts down the line. Well joining me from new york is James Henry James is a global justice senior fellow with Yale University good to have you with us so last week we know the finance ministers of the top five e. U. Economies roselle i thought to the u. S. Trade secretary and they were concerned that was saying the u. S. Tax reform bill as it was proposed a week ago might contravene global fath taxation rules now looking at the bill as it has been polished is that in fact the case i think it may well be the ministers are referring to a fact that you know the United States like many other. Countries is a signatory to tax treaties and is also signed up for frameworks that committed to you know a system of rules in this case this latest tax bill which was just rammed through congress contains measures that penalize some kinds of transactions internationally that is totally outside the scope of of those rules and you know i think they have a legitimate concern but my concern is more general which is that this is going to set off as it already is doing in this letter an enormous amount of. International tax competition were going to have countries fighting with each other and competing for lower and lower tax rates what youre really talking about now is more related to investment and trade in the mrs wanted that this is going to stop a trade war with it especially harmful to developing countries like lets say argentina they have a thirty five percent Corporate Tax rate and the current law u. S. Companies are able to credit the taxes they pay in argentina the Business Activities there against their u. S. Taxes under this bill that century will be no option. For the taxes to credit. You know they can that they can credit against and so argentina is an example of a country like you know countries like korea mexico much of latin america south africa theyre going to wake up and find that theres enormous pressure on the part of. You know the Corporate Community to cut their taxes so this is going to have an enormous you know sort of feedback of sacks its by no means clear that the financial projections. That support of this bill are going to hold up well have larger deficits less. Economic growth on the margin than was predicted so i mean do you agree with those economists who say alternately this is just going to increase the income of corporations its not going to have that effect where it actually trickles down to all the classes. Well it depends on what they do part of it you know the story depends on what they do with the repatriated two point six trillion right i think the holders of the bill say its going to turn into Capital Expenditure and investment and so on and so forth and create jobs and well live happily ever off the last time we tried this in two thousand and four under president george w. Bush. You know there were no jobs created the companies basically took the money and used it mainly for shareholder buybacks and here again we see you know trillions of dollars basically being allowed tax free back in the u. S. With no conditions theres no requirement that they invest in jobs or plant the put in the United States its unconditional so that is a major fault in this bill even apart from all the others but what im pointing to is the fact that as the United States now signs up for this territorial tax with essentially very low taxes on its foreign. Corporate Activities Companies like apple and google and microsoft you know theyre benefiting from this one time kind of tax faced. But longer term you know the question is will they continue to invest here when they can still continue to save money offshore do we have any idea for sure how this will benefit the Trump Organization oh in many ways i mean one immediate benefit the only reason for example we know that President Trump paid any taxes at all in the one tax year that we have a return for which is young we actually have two pages of his five hundred page journ from two thousand and five and that showed that a provision called the alternative minimum tax was responsible for him not having not being able to pay as low as five percent on his income that year so yeah the repeal of that has come back home to some that hes been saying that hes actually closing loopholes which he has benefited from in the past oh thats nonsense i mean hes benefiting from the estate tax repeal here or basically the or the state thats not being repealed but the exemption is being doubled the alternative minimum tax is worth Something Like six hundred thirty seven billion dollars of. Income of tax revenue loss that is going directly to the top one percent of people who would otherwise not pay any taxes because of the loopholes and hes one of the key beneficiaries of that hes also a beneficiary of the socalled past the rules that are very favorable to the kind of rents and loyalties that he receives and income so yeah thats just i mean he needs to read his own bill on balance i think its you know amounts to one of the largest transfers of public wealth. To a tiny elite in u. S. History with Global Implications to find so much james for analysis on that quite welcome. Still to come on counting the cost im wayne hay in the vietnamese capital hanoi where well tell you why motorbikes could soon be disappearing from the city streets. Is it a taxi or is it then sounds like a philosophical question but thats exactly what the European Unions top court had to rule on this week and its verdict should be classified as a transport service and regulated like all the taxi operators of that landmark ruling resolving it was identity crisis also has implications for the gig economy needs barker reports from london its a landmark judgement with big implications for other Online Companies the European Court of justice ruled that is a taxi service and not a Technology Firm as the company insists it will have to comply to the same regulation as other transport firms rules that can be set a country level the long running court case was first brought by taxi drivers in spain with a backlash against being explosive. Thousands of taxi drivers took to the streets accusing the company of unfair competition there were similar scenes in several other cities this was paris and this demonstration brought Central London to a standstill and deliberate on has been under mounting scrutiny after a driver with previous criminal convictions allegedly murdered a British Embassy workers this month. Here in london and its license revoked back in september for breaching operating rules including its handling of alleged sex attacks still there were three and a half million users here and many were angry with that decision part of the companys ensuring appeal is that is sufficient and cheap once cheaper than traditional black cabs for now its been allowed to continue operating in the capital while it appeals the decision. The European Courts ruling isnt legally binding but it does send a message to other high tech firms is one of several Companies Facing legal battles in recent years. Another San Francisco based firm allows people to rent out their homes to visitors but cities such as barcelona and berlin want to regulate usage to avoid driving up rents and forcing out locals experts say its important to uphold Regulation Without stifling innovation if you look at many of the new take firms yes they have a new way of delivering things but the main reason theyre making money is often by getting around roles techs regulation the kind of things that the average companies have to apply with the digital revolution to advancing at breakneck speed now the law needs to pick up the pace. Now one of the big changes facing the Global Transportation industry is electrification big corporations and Car Manufacturers agoing electric can ditch in the Combustion Engine was just this week toyota said it will have an electrified or hybrid version of all vehicles by twenty twenty five but Amnesty International has shine a light on the dark side of this revolution cobalt is one of the key ingredients added in electric backed trees and if we talk about cobalt we have to talk about the democratic republic of congo the worlds leading source of the compound now im to see says children as young as seven work in dangerous conditions in the r. C. Coble mines the d r c could benefit from electric cars the same way as how to rave you did from oil however mining is pretty much on regulated than the country continues to struggle with corruption and warlords joining me from sydney is gavin wendt gavin is the founding director and senior resource analyst at the strike be abased mine live good to have you with us so theres a lot to talk about so lets focus if we could on one mysteria like cobalt how much regulation is there of ethical issues when it comes to the mining of this important material thats necessary in the manufacturing of electric cars well at the present time youd have to say that there isnt a lot of regulation around the the mining of cobalt you have to understand that about half of the worlds current cobalt reserves. Are located within the democratic republic of the congo in africa the d r c and they account for about fifty four percent of the cobalt thats mind each year internationally and the present time the industry over there is its not very well regulated you could probably say that a lot of the cobalt thats mind is is generated from illegal. Illegally operated mines that employ all my slave labor if you like underaged work his. Illiterate work his. Work is that dont get paid very much money we should put it that way. And they control the i wont and the industry its appalling the run now the balance of the production that comes out of the call of the day i say is controlled by the chinese and the d. S. E. Government would very much like more of that cobalt to be upgraded in country processed but at the present time a lot of that kobold is simply exported back to china to further value reading so its a very precarious situation to have so much production coming out of one of the poorest least well governed countries in the world not a bit shocking gavin to what extent are commonly fact shrews aware that explains also how the actual supply chain works well very much so so it can manufacture is a dependent on that at least comment the factors that are looking at going down the electric vehicle route. They are looking to source batteries from a specialist producer so for example someone like a panasonic or whatever it might be now currently a group like tesla the average battery thats used in their vehicles is currently weighs about eighty five kilograms about eight kilograms of that is comprised of of cobalt and the forecasts that were probably going to need about three times as much cobalt as its currently mined in the world within about two decades to satisfy electric vehicle to none and worldwide the manufacturers like false flag and one of the biggest manufacturers in the world he says is is very chain to not only source cobalt but their publicly stated that one of their major priorities is to source source. Plate derived cry bolt so that means that they are looking outside say to try and source that cobalt places like north america places like australia for example so if we want to make the supply chain ethical is the only way to do that to look outside of the d. R. Say or is that a way to make the supply chain globally ethical i mean what have we learnt about the whole controversy over blood diamonds and diamonds mind in some of the conflict places youve been talking about. You probably have decided that we havent learned at last. That certainly in the case of the cold manufacturers they have a reputation to protect particularly some of the larger manufacturers such as fall squarely and such as toyota that have been involved in scandals of course internationally over recent times you know were saying more and more consumer pressure were seeing more and more. Since sociological pressure pressure from society to ensure. That these commodities are ethically sourced now given the estimated growth in it in cobol and i think we were looking at Something Like about nine thousand percent growth in demand over the next two decades a very big issue is going to be with this cobalt will come from and Hence Companies are looking to source cobalt outside of the day on a c s as much as possible in order to ensure that this this material is produced ethically if were going to see that sort of demand explode is sort of painting the picture that are we going to see me even more chronic shortage of cobalt supplies in the world market what does that ultimately mean for the future of electric cars absolutely i mean one of the big major drawbacks for electric cars at the present time is the sourcing of the four key materials that are involved in it and they manufacture well you know were looking at things like lithium and graphite and and cobalt for example some of the cane materials and because of the prices of those key materials have been rising so i quickly in order to make electric vehicles. Economics the purchases governments have had to have had to step in and subsidize them to this point now thats not something that governments are going to want to do. In perpetuity so what we need to see is the cost of Energy Production come down and there have been estimates that have suggested that currently were looking at about four hundred thirty dollars per kilowatt hour thats the thats the current cost there are forecasts that over the next ten years thats going to come down to somewhere around about one hundred dollars per kilowatt hour now i think thats a key figure because at around about one hundred dollars per kilowatt hour in my view thats where electric vehicles start to make sense you know consumers can start to buy with confidence knowing that you know the costs are reasonable but until you reach that point you know its a major stumbling block and so you know the you know they the essence of what were talking about here is they the commodities themselves have to come down in price that automatically means that more needs to be found but in the case of cobalt course were talking about potential substitution and i think thats another sort of aspect that we could look at actually reducing the amount of cobol thats actually currently consumed in days in these typical batteries has been great talking to you thanks so much for that gavin thank you pleasure and finally in many cities motorbikes the scene is part of the solution to Traffic Congestion rather than the problem but the bike boom in viet nam means more than five million of them clogged the capital now the government supplying the brakes with a ban on motorbikes deigns to reduce traffic jams and pollution as one high reports from hanoi. Vietnams road to economic success is becoming clogged one of the costs of the communist governments embrace of capitalism is Traffic Congestion and. Narrow streets of hanoi cant cope with the influx of cars and motorbikes so government leaders in the capital have decided that after a gradual phase out motorbikes will be completely banned from the city center by two thousand and thirty. Itll be a major change for vietnamese so reliant on two will transport our culture actually i think its kind of an convenient. Yeah there that was made. In vietnam using metta bikes its like a tradition for people but i think traffic is getting worse so if the government does this i think youll be good to reduce traffic jams. Even some who have benefited from the motorbike boom think it change wont be so bad. The number of blacks coming here to be repaired it may go down but it wont affect me too much because maybe i can focus on quality rather than quantity. As recently as the late ninetys the roads were significantly quieter more people rode pushbikes which is something todays government also wants to revive and this is a big part of the motivation a construction boom combined with the increase in vehicles has resulted in falling a quality the fact the government is even considering this law is perhaps a sign that vietnam is becoming a victim of its own success it has one of the best performing economies in the world and while there are still big problems with poverty wages are rising and with that comes an increase in purchasing power. But not everyone can afford a car and if they could in the congestion and pollution problems would get a lot worse so if the governments plan is to work public transport will need to play a big part but construction of the rail network in the capital has ground to a halt because. Funding problems experts say all forms of public transport will have to be overhauled planned live here the government needs to prepare to guarantee the policy can be implemented for example the public bus system needs to be improved to meet increased demand before the new law can be introduced city leaders in hanoi have already done the easy part by passing the law now the hard work begins to try to put it in practice and free up the city streets. And that side show over this week for remember you can get in touch with us via twitter use the hash tag j c t c when you do or drop us an email counting the cost of aljazeera dot net is our address theres more for you on line with aljazeera dot com slash c. T. C. That take you straight to our page which has individual reports links and entire episodes for you to catch up on. There for this edition of counting the cost time sam is a dam from the whole team here thanks for joining us the news an aljazeera is now. 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