If you're getting tariffs anyway, why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders? Let French engineers sell jailbreaking hardware for iphones, or Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors.
It is sold by Israeli engineers for at least a decade and mostly bought by law enforcement.
> Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors
That infrastructure exists since year 2000. Called chiptuning tools, but it is usually done by Italians or Swiss. And specifically for John Deere we had some Ukrainian company, I don't remember exact name.
Because they are terrified that there will be unpredictable and turbulent times for the major industries?
Just look at the public opinion polls, EU citizens are ready to take on Americans and even the most pro-US countries are barely on the green in public opinion towards US. The problems is that the old guard, the establishment is fanatically pro-US and pro stability. Which means that the current politicians are in odds with what the public wants and eventually either the public will have to become pro-US again or the anti-US politicians will take stage. US Doing stuff like tariffs that can destabilize the stability folks can push things to much earlier.
This article is just wrong about the facts. Doctorow says "Anticircumvention law originates in the USA", but anticircumvention law originates in the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which all EU members and all their major trade partners are signatory to. The DMCA was passed to 2 years after this treaty was signed to implement the American obligations under it.
> why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders...
Because that means we in the US may as well quasi-nationalize major European investments in the US like VW, Siemens, Saint-Gobains, OnSemi, NXP, Arm, and Nexperia and target European luxury cultural exports like Cognac (LVHM), Wine (LVMH), designer clothes (LVMH), designer purses (LVMH), and others like China did.
As a result, oligarchs like (eg.) Arnault (LVMH) would metaphorically slap Macron like they did on multiple occasions [0][1], and threaten to switch to supporting the RN. If they made Macron in 2017 [2], they can unmake him in 2026 [3].
It's the same story across Europe [4][5]. And any domestic capacity that could have remained within the EU is going to start leaving on January 27th [6].
Edit: can't reply
> how you get from IP law abrogation to 'quasi- nationalization'
IP Law protection is sacrosanct in any US trade deal, as we are a services exporter. If faced by actions like those mentioned above, we wouldn't be above retaliating.
This is why American tech companies successfully lobbied both the Biden and Trump administration to tamp down on any attempt on a Digital Services Tax by any country, such as with Canada [7] and the EU [8].
> As a result, oligarchs like (eg.) Arnault (LVMH) would metaphorically slap Macron like they did on multiple occasions [0][1], and threaten to switch to supporting the RN. If they made Macron in 2017 [2], they can unmake him in 2026 [3].
I don't think americans quite understand how much the population has shifted from being pro-USA to anti-USA
in the space of a year, as the orange cretin has been throwing his wrecking ball around
we don't have the cancer that is fox news
some billionaire who makes fancy handbags saying he's going to support a different political party will have zero impact on election results
I'm saying it won't get to that, because any European leader who even threatens such an action would face the threat of a no-confidence motion by a now well funded opposition.
Took a century to bake the biggest cake ever. Clown enters the stage, applause. Clown throws cake to the ground. Audience waits for the joke. Curtain falls. 38 trillion dollar bill for the cake. Audience is the joke.
True. Those who think they are being unfair just now, this is actually the fairest they've been since forever. Fairest in terms of arm twisting and other tactics being applied to everyone equally instead of being selective. Previously it was on the lines of the west and the rest, but now its just America and the rest.
Try continuing this line of thought instead of stopping at one novel half-thought. Perhaps there is something to the western world order that's worth defending?
As an American I will argue against my government's unilateral global adventurism all day long. That certainly doesn't mean that expanding the behavior is progress.
Maybe. I feel like I watched live on 4chan as Trump was presented as a joke and then true believers started posting as well. Maybe 4chan was documenting the phenomenon but it always felt like it willed it into existence like it did q-anon.
Fox News has never cared about Greenland, and was energetically anti-Trump during the 2016 primary, most of his 1st term, during the Biden presidency, and during the 2024 primary. They're almost fully in the bag for him right now, but hate tariffs.
But even now, Fox News refused to sign on to the new Pentagon press pass requirements, and gave up their access.
Important things are going on. It's not good to mindlessly repeat tropes; we have to actually engage with the world as it is.
It's not about Fox News pushing the Greenland annexation bullshit, it's for everything else they did to be a mouthpiece to spread the "libs are bad!". These acts have a direct link to the power Trump amassed.
Refusing the Pentagon prrss requirements is a nothingburger when for the past 10-15 years it brainrotted a large cohort of the American population.
Even being the slimeballs as they are, they all each knew how bad Trump was for their party and for our country. Yet one by one they kissed the ring and now we're expected to lick the boot.
See the recent news about Canada strengthening economic ties with China and welcoming them into their auto market. This wouldn’t have happened in a million years had it not been for US tariffs and hostilities towards Canada. America is truly uniting the world (against them).
The EU/Mercosur deal looks like it’s going to pass too. This move will only make it more likely. America first will become America alone pretty quickly.
I think this is the biggest indicator of permanent damage. The EU politicians aren't as impulsive and loud as the US, they won't do anything drastic when necessary changes take time to implement. They will buffer this hurt as much as they can, to cut their losses. However, the fact the trade deal now suddenly passed, after 20 years(?) of talk, points to a fundamental shift behind the scenes. Things are clearly in progress.
I presume, it's the lack of opposition and outrage. Americans letting it happen. It's evident, there is no waiting this out. Today it's Trump, tomorrow it's Vance or whatever lunatic. 38 trillion debt, but nothing to show for it, foreign assets abandoned, power projection crumbling and spread thin. Things are expected to get unstable. The US will never be trusted or even respected again, not any time soon.
> Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland would face the tariff and that it would climb to 25% on June 1 if a deal is not in place for “the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland” by the United States
What's next? Will he stamp on the ground like a five year old? I mean, there's this treaty between the US and Denmark that they can build military bases etc.
“The U.S. has such a free hand in Greenland that it can pretty much do what it wants,” said Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen.
Great point... Whichever country Donnie forgot to put on the list will become the country of import... This would not even require physical move of goods. What a joke this is....
I wish Europe would just push back. More than what they are currently. There is so much potential there, but somehow the EU all look at the US as some form of idealogical father figure. Excuse the hyperbolic-talk.
I don't think it is true. It's like saying "I wish those kids didn't let the bigger one bully them". The reason the bully is bullying is because he is in a position to do it.
The EU is being careful because the US are more powerful.
Trump has repeatedly backed off when he's challenged. It's happened time and time again. It's the reason TACO is a thing. The best strategy against him is to be relentless about pushing back, even if on paper the US is more powerful.
It seems you can also just lie to help him save face, like Canada did when it agreed it would adopt very strict border control policies to stop "drugs coming into the USA," and listed out steps that all were just existent Canadian laws and policies.
The problem that US generals have right now is that Trump has gotten the idea that the US (viz., he himself, in his mind) ought to literally own Greenland and he does know how real estate works. Treaties, mineral deals, guarantees for additional military bases that would mean de facto control over Greenland would work with a rational person. However, they won't work with someone who insists on buying or annexing a country to own its territory.
Yeah, another strategy is to just give him something he can claim as a W even if it's bullshit, or to glaze him enough. He's so hyperfixated on owning Greenland though, that I'm not sure those will work this time.
The problem is NATO, a lot of the EU is reluctant to push back because at the end of the day the US guarantees that Russia cannot pursue the type of landgrab it is currently trying to do in Ukraine against other states. The risk that the US runs into when trying to take Greenland is that this argument loses weight instantly, so the expectation is that the EU will be much more willing to use its anti coercion tools if Trump tries to make it a reality.
Russia already fails in Ukraine where they are fighting with our old junk, and the other EU States are kicking their defense industry in full gear. What makes you think they could win a full scale war against the EU
Russia don't have to be able to win a full-scale war against the EU for such a war to break out, it suffices that deterrence breaks down sufficiently that Russia get the idea they can get away with some land grab, e.g. in one of the Baltic countries.
The war in Ukraine illustrates very well the difference between perception and reality. Perception counts for deterrence.
The EU has a huge strategic problem because they let their own defenses and industry rot for decades and can't functionally stand alone against Russia, US pressure, and Chinese economic infiltration / industrial replacement at the same time. At least, not without great sacrifices the population isn't willing to make, like pension reform.
So they are playing gentle with the US because it's the least bad choice right now.
The EU is 450 million people! It's the size of the entire continent of south america! It was the richest part of the world for centuries! They absolutely should be able to function as an independent block with international trade for convenience and not survival.
That may actually be an advantage: position Europe as a neutral block that trades with everybody, and it may actually be valuable enough as a neutral that anytime one of those three has designs on it, the other two would naturally have to combine to thwart them.
It's like when every liberal scoffs at leftists opposing US imperialism, nothing about the power balance has changed. Europe was always a vassal of the empire. This is the liberal international order, this is what that means, not what they tell you it means, but what it actually means.
That's why they can kidnap Maduro, have the BBC censor the word "kidnapped" in their reporting on it. Have every European politician applaud it, point to Maduros case against him at the ICC and have Netanyahu fly over France. You can't do anything about Greenland, the same way you can't do anything when he comes for Norways state-owned extraction industry next. Liberals can scream hypocrisy tears all they want, this is the world they built. The empire is coming home.
The fact is that there is no potential there. Europe has no leverage over the US. It is not holding back anything, it has nothing.
Somehow when the US went to war with Russia, it ended up completing the conquest of Europe. Europe used to just be stagnant. Now it is stagnant and isolated from everywhere except the US, and the US treats it accordingly.
My impression as a European is that trust in the United States has now been burned, and that companies are slowly, but inexorably, completely rethinking their dependence on the U.S. I believe this is a process that is not reversible in the medium term.
Trump, like any politician, will sooner or later pass. How many institutional reforms will the United States have to undertake, and how long will it take before the world trusts them again?
It is wildly fascinating to experience, in real time, how fragile the US system is. Trump really did show that the US is built on the assumption that people in power will behave, basically a honor system. Trump is stress testing every single aspect of the US.
He's dousing the US with gasoline, and fumbling around with matches. The people around him, knee deep in gas, are too afraid to take the matches from him.
In so many other countries, Trump would face a no confidence vote. Snap elections.
Yeah those checks and balances that Yanks are always waxing poetic about have turned out to be basically horse shit. There are no checks and balances, they elect a king for 4 years and then hope for the best. That's the American system.
Also from the EU and I think the EU cannot back down here. The only way the US gets Greenland is if they seize it or the population votes for it. A tariff is just not going to make a difference and underlines to the EU how craven the US has become.
Europe cant afford to have enemies on both sides. It will align with the US reluctantly because even a bat shit crazy US is better than Russia. China plays it too close to the chest to be a friend.
I think Europe can handle Russia by itself quite well. The Baltics are vulnerable, but Poland will definitely kick Russia's butt in a military engagement. Poles will defend EU's eastern flank.
I expect Europe to distance itself from US. Let's see.
I don’t buy this at all. Russia is a relatively small economy with a tiny fraction of the EU population. The US is not going to launch a shooting war with Europe. Europe is not going to back down here. This Greenland thing is deeply unpopular in the US. It’s only a conflict because of one senile old man who will be dead soon.
Germany is used to that, and it never seemed to deter them in the past. Us has a hard time deploying lots of troops vs Europe. Shoulder and truck launched weaponry, 3 shifts, 7 days.
It will not align with the US if that means territorial losses. Russia is an economical lightweight that's causing a bit of a headache on the eastern border but for the EU looking weak would make things so much worse.
Fascist states get at least one free pass. For Germany it was Poland, for the USA I believe they're deciding between Venezuela and Greenland. Personally I think the better bet is Greenland because they can probably get Venezuela for free after since nobody cares about Venezuela. A "two in one deal" if you will, perhaps one of America's greatest inventions.
Edit: I meant to write Austria but am so used to writing "German invasion of Poland" that that's what came out of the thumbs
The Greenland situation is more like Germany annexing the Sudetenland (the border regions of Czechoslovakia) in 1938. And after that Hitler got his homeland Austria as another freebie. That's stretching the analogy a bit, but Venezuela might be Trump's Austria. His Poland would be something like Canada
A badge of honor. Although it's good to be cautious about retaliatory measures, it is perhaps time to think about imposing a digital services tax.
That being said, it's quite weird that these tariffs are imposed only on some EU countries (plus UK). How could that possibly work? EU companies can just export goods via other EU countries.
Of course, the DST should be instated ASAP regardless of what the US does - not having one is completely absurd in this day and age, one needs domestic industry to survive as a country (or federation) and that doesn't happen with 0% tarriffs, which is what "no DST" is the equivalent of for tech.
They're too big of a market to have companies pull out over this. China has even worse conditions for foreign companies and everyone bends over backwards for a chance to sell there. Counter to popular sentiment in US tech circles, as of this year the EU is the world's second biggest economy (beating China to third place).
When we look back in a few years and ask the question: who actually got to pay for the Epstein crimes and coverups, we come to the surprising answer it is the Greenlandes and other innocent societies that got ripped apart by this maniac and his supporters.
Since the only thing Trump understands is force, I am looking forward to the retaliation from and military positioning of EU member states to defend Greenland. Perhaps it is what is needed to finally impeach.
7. If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.
Hopefully the supreme court comes to its senses and realize that if they don't stop the madness now, the American people are going back to king rule, and their legacy as well as survival of their institution has one big question mark on it.
As a American, given what the US is becoming now, also given that Denmark actually has reliable public healthcare and the US canceled it for its own people, Greenland is better off staying with Denmark than with the US. If Russia were to invade, NATO still holds.
This is about more oil mining, about Trump appeasing to his oil friends, considering Greenland very likely has a substantial quantity of it.
I don't think any oil execs are interested in this, just like they weren't interested in investing in Venezuela after Maduro's ouster (at least if you believe the Financial Times).
Rather these invasions appear to be the pet projects of neo-imperialist advisors in the government who see national growth as a zero sum game, a Starcraft-esque race for a finite set of resources where powerful countries can generate wealth only by using their power to steal from others. In Steven Miller's own words: "[The world] is governed by force, [is] governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time."
I think he knows the end* is drawing near and he hasn't got long to cement his legacy in painting more of the map in his colours.
* 'end' being anything from nature's course, to losing the support of his own inner core as they jostle for succession, upcoming midterms leading to impeachment...
In my personal life, I've learned the hard way that when people seem to be acting irrational with regard to an iterated game, before ascribing irrationality to them it can be very helpful to examine if they're short timers, acting rationally with regard to a game that won't be iterated.
So Trump doesn't like the fact that some European countries dare to oppose his dictat, so in response he's going to... raise the prices on US consumers?
He was actually asked about why he is even doing this nonsense by the NYT, since they can get Denmark already to agree on any new military bases (they already have one) or mineral extraction anyway:
David E. Sanger:
Why is ownership important here?
President Trump:
Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document, that you can have a base.
Katie Rogers
Psychologically important to you or to the United States?
President Trump
Psychologically important for me. Now, maybe another president would feel differently, but so far I’ve been right about everything.
Just imagine the amount of lives that it will cost to carve him from his bloody throne and drag his supporters into deprogramming camps. It will only get more costly with each passing month.
Why didn't Russia think of that? They could have just placed tariffs on France, Germany, the UK, etc. if they don't facilitate Russia purchasing Ukraine for a price of their choice /s
I liked this bit by Doctorow recently https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/
If you're getting tariffs anyway, why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders? Let French engineers sell jailbreaking hardware for iphones, or Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors.
> Let French engineers sell jailbreaking hardware
It is sold by Israeli engineers for at least a decade and mostly bought by law enforcement.
> Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors
That infrastructure exists since year 2000. Called chiptuning tools, but it is usually done by Italians or Swiss. And specifically for John Deere we had some Ukrainian company, I don't remember exact name.
> That infrastructure exists since year 2000. Called chiptuning tools,
Sure, but it's a crime to provide these tools to people or instruct them how to bypass controls, is it not?
If it is a crime, then chip tunning companies are having suicidally noisy marketing.
Furthermore one of HN users has this repo up https://github.com/bri3d/VW_Flash
It is doing what chip tunning companies are doing but in less polished package. If it is a crime, why is it still up?
Because they are terrified that there will be unpredictable and turbulent times for the major industries?
Just look at the public opinion polls, EU citizens are ready to take on Americans and even the most pro-US countries are barely on the green in public opinion towards US. The problems is that the old guard, the establishment is fanatically pro-US and pro stability. Which means that the current politicians are in odds with what the public wants and eventually either the public will have to become pro-US again or the anti-US politicians will take stage. US Doing stuff like tariffs that can destabilize the stability folks can push things to much earlier.
This article is just wrong about the facts. Doctorow says "Anticircumvention law originates in the USA", but anticircumvention law originates in the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which all EU members and all their major trade partners are signatory to. The DMCA was passed to 2 years after this treaty was signed to implement the American obligations under it.
> why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders...
Because that means we in the US may as well quasi-nationalize major European investments in the US like VW, Siemens, Saint-Gobains, OnSemi, NXP, Arm, and Nexperia and target European luxury cultural exports like Cognac (LVHM), Wine (LVMH), designer clothes (LVMH), designer purses (LVMH), and others like China did.
As a result, oligarchs like (eg.) Arnault (LVMH) would metaphorically slap Macron like they did on multiple occasions [0][1], and threaten to switch to supporting the RN. If they made Macron in 2017 [2], they can unmake him in 2026 [3].
It's the same story across Europe [4][5]. And any domestic capacity that could have remained within the EU is going to start leaving on January 27th [6].
Edit: can't reply
> how you get from IP law abrogation to 'quasi- nationalization'
IP Law protection is sacrosanct in any US trade deal, as we are a services exporter. If faced by actions like those mentioned above, we wouldn't be above retaliating.
This is why American tech companies successfully lobbied both the Biden and Trump administration to tamp down on any attempt on a Digital Services Tax by any country, such as with Canada [7] and the EU [8].
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arna...
[1] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2023/08/07/how-be...
[2] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-05/lvmh-s-ar...
[3] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la...
[4] - https://www.ft.com/content/9b3d057c-16cc-4ab9-93bb-ed82c9ca5...
[5] - https://www.ft.com/content/cc06031c-f4a9-45db-ba3a-a3a23404b...
[6] - https://www.euractiv.com/news/exclusive-eu-india-trade-deal-...
[7] - https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/06/can...
[8] - https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/-wyden-and-cra...
> Because that means we may as well quasi-nationalize [...]
I'm not quite sure how you get from IP law abrogation to 'quasi-nationalization', care to explain your reasoning here ?
> As a result, oligarchs like (eg.) Arnault (LVMH) would metaphorically slap Macron like they did on multiple occasions [0][1], and threaten to switch to supporting the RN. If they made Macron in 2017 [2], they can unmake him in 2026 [3].
I don't think americans quite understand how much the population has shifted from being pro-USA to anti-USA
in the space of a year, as the orange cretin has been throwing his wrecking ball around
we don't have the cancer that is fox news
some billionaire who makes fancy handbags saying he's going to support a different political party will have zero impact on election results
I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying that would be a bad thing?
I'm saying it won't get to that, because any European leader who even threatens such an action would face the threat of a no-confidence motion by a now well funded opposition.
SGTM? :D
Took a century to bake the biggest cake ever. Clown enters the stage, applause. Clown throws cake to the ground. Audience waits for the joke. Curtain falls. 38 trillion dollar bill for the cake. Audience is the joke.
Totally bizarre to watch the US transform from the endearingly crazy and rich friend to the one who holds you at gunpoint and robs you.
Transforms. Look at history, they’ve always done that when convenient to them.
The first world is now getting the third world treatment
True. Those who think they are being unfair just now, this is actually the fairest they've been since forever. Fairest in terms of arm twisting and other tactics being applied to everyone equally instead of being selective. Previously it was on the lines of the west and the rest, but now its just America and the rest.
So edgy, much wow.
Try continuing this line of thought instead of stopping at one novel half-thought. Perhaps there is something to the western world order that's worth defending?
As an American I will argue against my government's unilateral global adventurism all day long. That certainly doesn't mean that expanding the behavior is progress.
As resources become more scarce, tribalism emerges.
A tale as old as time, for those who have even the slightest education in history.
To think Ted Cruz was partially on the money when he said in 2016 that "Donald might wake up one morning and nuke Denmark".
What has happened to the US...
Fox News happened.
Maybe. I feel like I watched live on 4chan as Trump was presented as a joke and then true believers started posting as well. Maybe 4chan was documenting the phenomenon but it always felt like it willed it into existence like it did q-anon.
And social media. Trump is the social media president.
Fox News has never cared about Greenland, and was energetically anti-Trump during the 2016 primary, most of his 1st term, during the Biden presidency, and during the 2024 primary. They're almost fully in the bag for him right now, but hate tariffs.
But even now, Fox News refused to sign on to the new Pentagon press pass requirements, and gave up their access.
Important things are going on. It's not good to mindlessly repeat tropes; we have to actually engage with the world as it is.
It's not about Fox News pushing the Greenland annexation bullshit, it's for everything else they did to be a mouthpiece to spread the "libs are bad!". These acts have a direct link to the power Trump amassed.
Refusing the Pentagon prrss requirements is a nothingburger when for the past 10-15 years it brainrotted a large cohort of the American population.
Even being the slimeballs as they are, they all each knew how bad Trump was for their party and for our country. Yet one by one they kissed the ring and now we're expected to lick the boot.
This is great news, though a higher percentage would be welcome. The sooner Europe rips off the bandaid, the better.
Europe waking up would even be good for the US long term. We have coasted on success and grown fat on lack of competition.
It's about time for EU to put 50% tax on American digital services, and get rid of all Microsoft products in public sector.
See the recent news about Canada strengthening economic ties with China and welcoming them into their auto market. This wouldn’t have happened in a million years had it not been for US tariffs and hostilities towards Canada. America is truly uniting the world (against them).
The EU/Mercosur deal looks like it’s going to pass too. This move will only make it more likely. America first will become America alone pretty quickly.
I think this is the biggest indicator of permanent damage. The EU politicians aren't as impulsive and loud as the US, they won't do anything drastic when necessary changes take time to implement. They will buffer this hurt as much as they can, to cut their losses. However, the fact the trade deal now suddenly passed, after 20 years(?) of talk, points to a fundamental shift behind the scenes. Things are clearly in progress.
I presume, it's the lack of opposition and outrage. Americans letting it happen. It's evident, there is no waiting this out. Today it's Trump, tomorrow it's Vance or whatever lunatic. 38 trillion debt, but nothing to show for it, foreign assets abandoned, power projection crumbling and spread thin. Things are expected to get unstable. The US will never be trusted or even respected again, not any time soon.
> Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland would face the tariff and that it would climb to 25% on June 1 if a deal is not in place for “the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland” by the United States
What's next? Will he stamp on the ground like a five year old? I mean, there's this treaty between the US and Denmark that they can build military bases etc.
“The U.S. has such a free hand in Greenland that it can pretty much do what it wants,” said Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/world/europe/trump-greenl...
So what's the point? The guy in charge just can't ask nicely?
So they will make the paperwork to ship from an EU country that doesn’t face the extra tariffs? EU is a single market. That’s the whole point of EU.
Great point... Whichever country Donnie forgot to put on the list will become the country of import... This would not even require physical move of goods. What a joke this is....
Never thought I'd see NATO under such pressure in my lifetime.
Under those conditions, one could wonder if NATO is still actually a thing.
If the Europeans plus Canada want it to exist, it exists. Otherwise, yeah, scrap heap of history.
EU has it's own more robust defence agreement.
Can Canada join, or has it? Other non-EU countries?
I'm sure Canada could join Operation Arctic Endurance; has it yet?
I wish Europe would just push back. More than what they are currently. There is so much potential there, but somehow the EU all look at the US as some form of idealogical father figure. Excuse the hyperbolic-talk.
I don't think it is true. It's like saying "I wish those kids didn't let the bigger one bully them". The reason the bully is bullying is because he is in a position to do it.
The EU is being careful because the US are more powerful.
Trump has repeatedly backed off when he's challenged. It's happened time and time again. It's the reason TACO is a thing. The best strategy against him is to be relentless about pushing back, even if on paper the US is more powerful.
It seems you can also just lie to help him save face, like Canada did when it agreed it would adopt very strict border control policies to stop "drugs coming into the USA," and listed out steps that all were just existent Canadian laws and policies.
The problem that US generals have right now is that Trump has gotten the idea that the US (viz., he himself, in his mind) ought to literally own Greenland and he does know how real estate works. Treaties, mineral deals, guarantees for additional military bases that would mean de facto control over Greenland would work with a rational person. However, they won't work with someone who insists on buying or annexing a country to own its territory.
Yeah, another strategy is to just give him something he can claim as a W even if it's bullshit, or to glaze him enough. He's so hyperfixated on owning Greenland though, that I'm not sure those will work this time.
they can't back down on this one
if the moron continues, we will go to the brink
The problem is NATO, a lot of the EU is reluctant to push back because at the end of the day the US guarantees that Russia cannot pursue the type of landgrab it is currently trying to do in Ukraine against other states. The risk that the US runs into when trying to take Greenland is that this argument loses weight instantly, so the expectation is that the EU will be much more willing to use its anti coercion tools if Trump tries to make it a reality.
Russia already fails in Ukraine where they are fighting with our old junk, and the other EU States are kicking their defense industry in full gear. What makes you think they could win a full scale war against the EU
Russia don't have to be able to win a full-scale war against the EU for such a war to break out, it suffices that deterrence breaks down sufficiently that Russia get the idea they can get away with some land grab, e.g. in one of the Baltic countries.
The war in Ukraine illustrates very well the difference between perception and reality. Perception counts for deterrence.
The EU has a huge strategic problem because they let their own defenses and industry rot for decades and can't functionally stand alone against Russia, US pressure, and Chinese economic infiltration / industrial replacement at the same time. At least, not without great sacrifices the population isn't willing to make, like pension reform.
So they are playing gentle with the US because it's the least bad choice right now.
> can't functionally stand alone against Russia, US pressure, and Chinese economic infiltration / industrial replacement at the same time.
No country in the world can do that. That's not a consequence of 'they let their own defenses and industry rot for decades'.
The EU is 450 million people! It's the size of the entire continent of south america! It was the richest part of the world for centuries! They absolutely should be able to function as an independent block with international trade for convenience and not survival.
Great, but standing against Russia, the US and China at the same time? Come on.
FWIW I don't think they need to stand against China.
That may actually be an advantage: position Europe as a neutral block that trades with everybody, and it may actually be valuable enough as a neutral that anytime one of those three has designs on it, the other two would naturally have to combine to thwart them.
It's like when every liberal scoffs at leftists opposing US imperialism, nothing about the power balance has changed. Europe was always a vassal of the empire. This is the liberal international order, this is what that means, not what they tell you it means, but what it actually means.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_international_order
That's why they can kidnap Maduro, have the BBC censor the word "kidnapped" in their reporting on it. Have every European politician applaud it, point to Maduros case against him at the ICC and have Netanyahu fly over France. You can't do anything about Greenland, the same way you can't do anything when he comes for Norways state-owned extraction industry next. Liberals can scream hypocrisy tears all they want, this is the world they built. The empire is coming home.
Leftists can go eat shit. They spent over a year convincing people not to vote for Kamala. Their preferred candidate won!
The fact is that there is no potential there. Europe has no leverage over the US. It is not holding back anything, it has nothing.
Somehow when the US went to war with Russia, it ended up completing the conquest of Europe. Europe used to just be stagnant. Now it is stagnant and isolated from everywhere except the US, and the US treats it accordingly.
Europe has, in no particular order:
- ASML
- Nukes
- Large proportion of US bonds
- One of the wealthiest and most profitable markets in the world
- The world's largest trade network - currently aggressively expanding into LatAm with the Mercosur deal despite Trump's Monroe 2.0 ambitions.
Just a few off the the top of my head. There's plenty leverage there.
ASML is also hostage as well.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/techland/asml-gives-europe...
Although the articles also claims that "ASML has already started to reduce its dependence on American technology".
> ASML
Who's the customer base of ASML? Are they predominantly based in Europe?
Can this be revoked after the midterms? In that case I guess the EU can wait it out.
My impression as a European is that trust in the United States has now been burned, and that companies are slowly, but inexorably, completely rethinking their dependence on the U.S. I believe this is a process that is not reversible in the medium term.
Trump, like any politician, will sooner or later pass. How many institutional reforms will the United States have to undertake, and how long will it take before the world trusts them again?
It is wildly fascinating to experience, in real time, how fragile the US system is. Trump really did show that the US is built on the assumption that people in power will behave, basically a honor system. Trump is stress testing every single aspect of the US.
He's dousing the US with gasoline, and fumbling around with matches. The people around him, knee deep in gas, are too afraid to take the matches from him.
In so many other countries, Trump would face a no confidence vote. Snap elections.
Yeah those checks and balances that Yanks are always waxing poetic about have turned out to be basically horse shit. There are no checks and balances, they elect a king for 4 years and then hope for the best. That's the American system.
it's the same brilliant system that requires the current incumbent to certify their replacement
We will soon discover if the EU actually as a spine or is just a bendover for the US...(My money is on the latter, and I'm from EU)
Also from the EU and I think the EU cannot back down here. The only way the US gets Greenland is if they seize it or the population votes for it. A tariff is just not going to make a difference and underlines to the EU how craven the US has become.
Europe cant afford to have enemies on both sides. It will align with the US reluctantly because even a bat shit crazy US is better than Russia. China plays it too close to the chest to be a friend.
I think Europe can handle Russia by itself quite well. The Baltics are vulnerable, but Poland will definitely kick Russia's butt in a military engagement. Poles will defend EU's eastern flank.
I expect Europe to distance itself from US. Let's see.
I don’t buy this at all. Russia is a relatively small economy with a tiny fraction of the EU population. The US is not going to launch a shooting war with Europe. Europe is not going to back down here. This Greenland thing is deeply unpopular in the US. It’s only a conflict because of one senile old man who will be dead soon.
Indeed. As the US abandons it, the EU seemingly has no other choice than to find ways to align with Russia now.
> Europe cant afford to have enemies on both sides.
Well, Europe effectively has enemies on both sides right now.
Germany is used to that, and it never seemed to deter them in the past. Us has a hard time deploying lots of troops vs Europe. Shoulder and truck launched weaponry, 3 shifts, 7 days.
It will not align with the US if that means territorial losses. Russia is an economical lightweight that's causing a bit of a headache on the eastern border but for the EU looking weak would make things so much worse.
But would you trust the bat shit crazy US to protect you from Russia?
Fascist states get at least one free pass. For Germany it was Poland, for the USA I believe they're deciding between Venezuela and Greenland. Personally I think the better bet is Greenland because they can probably get Venezuela for free after since nobody cares about Venezuela. A "two in one deal" if you will, perhaps one of America's greatest inventions.
Edit: I meant to write Austria but am so used to writing "German invasion of Poland" that that's what came out of the thumbs
Poland was hardly a free pass. The Sudetenland was the free pass.
The Greenland situation is more like Germany annexing the Sudetenland (the border regions of Czechoslovakia) in 1938. And after that Hitler got his homeland Austria as another freebie. That's stretching the analogy a bit, but Venezuela might be Trump's Austria. His Poland would be something like Canada
A badge of honor. Although it's good to be cautious about retaliatory measures, it is perhaps time to think about imposing a digital services tax.
That being said, it's quite weird that these tariffs are imposed only on some EU countries (plus UK). How could that possibly work? EU companies can just export goods via other EU countries.
Of course, the DST should be instated ASAP regardless of what the US does - not having one is completely absurd in this day and age, one needs domestic industry to survive as a country (or federation) and that doesn't happen with 0% tarriffs, which is what "no DST" is the equivalent of for tech.
Wasn't there some kind of military exercise around Greenland the other day? I assume these are the countries that participated?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Arctic_Endurance
how I believe the tripwire would legally work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46634146
Sure if they want to chase away their tax revenue.
They're too big of a market to have companies pull out over this. China has even worse conditions for foreign companies and everyone bends over backwards for a chance to sell there. Counter to popular sentiment in US tech circles, as of this year the EU is the world's second biggest economy (beating China to third place).
What tax revenue ? Aren't they all declaring their profits in Ireland (a tax haven) ?
And the question is, What the hell is in the Epstein files that this is needed.... :-)
It was bad enough that they stripped Andrew of his titles, staff and property.
A snuff film where the witness implicates Trump is something we already know about.
I'm not sure I have the stomach to know how deep it really goes.
What a time to be (still) alive.
When we look back in a few years and ask the question: who actually got to pay for the Epstein crimes and coverups, we come to the surprising answer it is the Greenlandes and other innocent societies that got ripped apart by this maniac and his supporters.
Since the only thing Trump understands is force, I am looking forward to the retaliation from and military positioning of EU member states to defend Greenland. Perhaps it is what is needed to finally impeach.
Impeaching has to come from inside the US. Doesn't really look like there is much opposition from inside, is there?
The EU is not a military/security alliance (yet).
7. If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/treaty/teu_2016/art_42/oj/eng
If I had a hammer…
Hopefully the supreme court comes to its senses and realize that if they don't stop the madness now, the American people are going back to king rule, and their legacy as well as survival of their institution has one big question mark on it.
They’re due to rule on his tariffs soon. If they find he exceeded his power then a real showdown starts.
If they do not step in when this admin is attacking America, they sure as hell are not going to step in when this admin attacks other countries.
I'm convinced that they don't care.
I am wondering why Trump seems so eager to turn America back into a 19th-century. Slavery next on his agenda?
Surely you're not wondering, it's universally known what motivates the man.
But that plan is so short sighted that even he might live long enough to see it fail
As a American, given what the US is becoming now, also given that Denmark actually has reliable public healthcare and the US canceled it for its own people, Greenland is better off staying with Denmark than with the US. If Russia were to invade, NATO still holds.
This is about more oil mining, about Trump appeasing to his oil friends, considering Greenland very likely has a substantial quantity of it.
I don't think any oil execs are interested in this, just like they weren't interested in investing in Venezuela after Maduro's ouster (at least if you believe the Financial Times).
Rather these invasions appear to be the pet projects of neo-imperialist advisors in the government who see national growth as a zero sum game, a Starcraft-esque race for a finite set of resources where powerful countries can generate wealth only by using their power to steal from others. In Steven Miller's own words: "[The world] is governed by force, [is] governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time."
There's no reason for the US to own Greenland except for the hyperfixation of one man. I hate that this is the world we continue to live in.
I think he knows the end* is drawing near and he hasn't got long to cement his legacy in painting more of the map in his colours.
* 'end' being anything from nature's course, to losing the support of his own inner core as they jostle for succession, upcoming midterms leading to impeachment...
Or, he's acting like a man that doesn't have to worry about elections.
In my personal life, I've learned the hard way that when people seem to be acting irrational with regard to an iterated game, before ascribing irrationality to them it can be very helpful to examine if they're short timers, acting rationally with regard to a game that won't be iterated.
Well he's been impeached twice (then acquitted) already, so this one will not really mean the end for him.
True - but by impeached I meant actually removed from power.
Every morning I wake up wondering if it's happened yet, and every morning (so far) I've been disappointed
I was glad when the Butler shooter missed. Now I’m not so sure.
So Trump doesn't like the fact that some European countries dare to oppose his dictat, so in response he's going to... raise the prices on US consumers?
So in order to threaten our great continent and civilisation, Trump is threatening to raise taxes on Americans. The USA is so cringe.
He was actually asked about why he is even doing this nonsense by the NYT, since they can get Denmark already to agree on any new military bases (they already have one) or mineral extraction anyway:
Just imagine the amount of lives that it will cost to carve him from his bloody throne and drag his supporters into deprogramming camps. It will only get more costly with each passing month.https://archive.ph/EhTNh
With this the EU-US tariff deal from earlier goes down in flames. It apparently wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.
Not surprising given how Trump and the fascist MAGA crowd acts.
The UK are in a precarious spot though due to not being inside the EU single market and are forced to find their own way out with a much weaker hand.
Brexit forever and ever coming back to haunt the UK.
Why didn't Russia think of that? They could have just placed tariffs on France, Germany, the UK, etc. if they don't facilitate Russia purchasing Ukraine for a price of their choice /s