131–140 of 395 posts
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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.
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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.
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".
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 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.
"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?
EDIT: I think the treaty is this one from 1951 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/den001.asp
Takes century to bake biggest cake ever. Clown enters stage, applause. Clown throws cake to the ground. Audience waits for joke. Curtain falls. 38 trillion dollar bill for cake. Audience is the joke.
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> 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, oli…
> 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 wrecki…
Arnault already has. He's the reason Élisabeth Borne is no longer the PM [0] and why the billionaire tax failed [1]. And his rival Bolloré is the reason why the RN is at the cusp of power [2]
> we don't have the cancer that is fox news
Instead you have Vivendi and Canal+ who are now owned by Bolloré [3], who has been using the Murdoch/Fox News strategy as well [4].
[0] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/12/18/emmanu...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arna...
[2] - https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240627-how-the-french-m...
[3] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la...
[4] - https://rsf.org/fr/derri%C3%A8re-la-campagne-de-d%C3%A9sinfo...
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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.
I'm sure there are many Americans who would oppose this adventurism. I'm not sure whether that's because they believe its just a bad strategy to continue the status quo or because its just plainly a wrong way to treat other nations by force.
> That certainly doesn't mean that expanding the behavior is progress.
I don't mean it as progress. Its a regression but I hope there's a silver-lining at the end of all this for everyone.
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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".
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I don't follow, how exactly does the investment into a French AI startup reduce ASML's "dependence on American technology"? Is it a supply-chain dependence, or a revenue-making dependence?
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Fox News happened.
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…