251–260 of 878 posts
This would be Canada getting down leveled to the minor leagues. Yes there are a few issues with the US, but Canada is vastly better off playing on the world stage under the wings of the US than it would be as the EU’s “associate member.” The next phase of history is going the be China and the US and then everyone else scrambling for scraps.
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You jest, but if you've ever seen a wounded animal fighting like mad for survival, I wouldn't be so confident that won't be the exact same things that's going to happen.
You don't have to look into the animal kingdom, history works too. No ruling empire has fallen silently and without conflict. Changing the world order always included an aggressive transfer of power
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> I thought Turkey or North Africa would be the next steps. Maybe Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Not white enough for the EU. There is a lot of opposition to even Turkey, which is already in customs union, joining and talks are dead specifically because EU countries do not want immigration from Turkey.
Sure, but Turkey is also an authoritarian autocracy, which I think might be a bit of a problem for the EU.
I'm proud to live in the EU because for all its faults we have one thing going for us, we seem to be the only large institution that countries still want to voluntarily join, and can voluntarily leave. In a world in which the other great powers revive the Monroe Doctrine or threaten their magnitude smaller neighbors with annexation we're not doing so badly. There is an inherent pettiness, weakness and fake strength i…
The UK left, Iceland just voted not to join. The EU does not have a military to annex any neighbours with. Individual states do, but non are really great powers any more.
It isn't an unreasonable fear, especially given their dependance on that food source. Their "No" was perfectly reasonnable from what I can see.
Britain's "Leave" campain was drowning in lies, exageration, and british-empire nostalgia.
Those two situations are very different.
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One thing that is common about middle democracies is that prioritize a bureaucratic elite structure over an entrepreneurship culture, while both the US and China embrace entreprenuership wholeheartedly. If they changed that they'd perhaps become world powers themselves.
It's interesting to me that people generally see Europe's regulations as interfering with entrepreneurship, while they see American decisions that give more power to multinational corporations at the expense of smaller companies as a normal part of a free market.
It is odious to start a company in the EU. There are many accounts of this on HN itself.
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Hopefully Canada can just get the economic benefits and not end up having to be subject to the insane stuff like Chat Control
There are way more benefits to being in EU than disadvantages.
You could make a good case that the EU is still trying to deal with issues from the 2004 expansion for example. Doesn't mean it was a bad idea, but it's not cost free
Would that means Canadians would be protected by the GDPR and DMA?
This would be Canada getting down leveled to the minor leagues. Yes there are a few issues with the US, but Canada is vastly better off playing on the world stage under the wings of the US than it would be as the EU’s “associate member.” The next phase of history is going the be China and the US and then everyone else scrambling for scraps.
And won't the dems just undo all this tariff nonsense anyway? Or is Canada acting like a bitter ex after a breakup who vows to take their seething to the grave no matter what
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What about the importance of that trade. The US exports a lot of critical things that cannot be supplied from elsewhere. Everyone is heavily reliant on American technology.
Like what specifically? Only services come to mind. Any hardware is produced in Asia, in fabs that use equipment from Netherlands.
"Only services" covers a lot of critically important things. Clouds services and payment systems, for example. Even just one American company like AWS could turn off a huge chunk of European economies.
That is just tech. What about fuel? machinery. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-us-trade/