The direct route would be through NRW, but the one this train takes is going further south via Erfurt-Frankfurt-Strasbourg. Strasbourg has a proper hsr on the French site, which helps a lot. It technically would be faster to go via Cologne and Brussels, but that would cause a lot of problems.
For the current route the big missing section is between Mannheim-Frankfurt-Erfurt. There are plans for it, which are being pushed right now.
It is not just tariffs, but also the Saudis pushing oil prices down. They have the lowest production price, so lowering the global oil prices gives them market share. US oil production is the one to loose. However the EU is going with sanctions against Russia, trying to force them to cut first. They much rather see the US keeping their current level of oil production.
We will see, but low oil prices are good news. It means less money for lobbying. So the cheaper green alternatives gain market share.
China lacks the massive oil and gas reserves the US has. The only fossil fuel they have a lot of is coal and they do use that.
The regional service sucks to a large part due to a lack of capacity on German main lines. Regional trains and freight trains run at about the same speed, which is great for capacity. However high speed trains are faster and therefore need to overtake them. You need to plan for that, which require additional capacity. In other words, when you take ICE trains of the old main lines, you massivly improve regional rail as well.
There is also the Saarbrücken tram train, which goes to France.
For anybody wondering, why DB being able to meet minimum service is so incredible, it is rather simple. Both passenger and freight demand in Germany have grown over the last decades. However the government did rarely invest in new track or even repairs of old railway infrastructure. Basically Germany needs a high speed rail network parallel to the exisiting slower lines to meet demand, as well as some additional freight lines. Without that DB has no chance in hell to actually be a good rail provider.
So the fact that they can somewhat meet demand is an incredible achievement by DB.
Tankie is not an anarchist....
Liberalism is the old establishment. They want an extreme alternative to that. So of cause they do that.
It is not just about copying technology, but also about systems. If you are smart, you can see what worked for other countries in the past and copy that. South Korea and Taiwan basically copied Japans approach to development and now China copies that approach as well. Modified, but they know it works.
Netherlands has 35.1% BEV