Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note the word "assuring" not "guaranteeing" (or "this assurance" in Sec 2 d).
Those are literally synonyms.
They are not in this context. They have pretty specific meanings.
EU Parliament freezes US trade deal ratification
81–90 of 136 posts
Re: EU Parliament freezes US trade deal ratification
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Laws are negotiable between sovereign states representing the business interests of their nations. The EU, not being a nation itself, may not get that part and may have been feeling a little too invincible as a bloc of nations, but they have still basically pissed off most of their larger trading partners and it doesn’t stop there. Qatar is threatening to stop selling LNG over some corporate sustainability directives…
Or we could generate electricity with nuclear, solar, wind, and hydropower. Well, that's exactly what we're doing. The sooner EU gets away from fossil fuels we do not have (except NO I suppose), the better for everyone.
Sure, at some as yet to be determined time in the future, gas may be supplanted by electricity, and even replace it entirely. Right now gas is still king in Europe, and most residential energy use is just heating homes.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
Re: EU Parliament freezes US trade deal ratification
#83This means that US keeps paying the old WTO MFN tariffs (low) while EU keeps paying the high ~15% tariffs like it has since the July “deal”.
The importer pay the tariff, unless it changed in the last two hundred years?
I believe kindness hasn’t changed in the last 200 years - try it.
You are correct that importers pay tariffs on paper but that doesn’t always mean the tariffs are paid by the importers in real terms. Exporters may not want to change prices for competitiveness to local goods so in the end regardless of the actual invoice, the exporter is paying for those tariffs. You can find multiple exporters talking about absorbing those costs. I
Re: EU Parliament freezes US trade deal ratification
#84[flagged]
How exactly has the EU fucked over the US? By enforcing basic consumer protections like making sure airlines can't just unilaterally cancel your flight with no compensation? By making sure your image cannot be used by megacorporations for sex ads without permission? By making sure companies who intentionally or unintentionally leak personal information suffer consequences? By making sure European industry is powered…
My guess would be that the OP subscribes to the MAGA worldview, because in their alternative reality, the US-Europe security arrangement was not a mutually beneficial relationship between allies, but a parasitic relationship where the US pays, and Europe reaps the benefits.
Obviously, this worldview is strategically myopic, based on ignoring many things the US was getting out of this arrangement, like US military bases in Europe (also used for power projection to the Middle East), Europeans buying US weapons (big part of why those weapons are so advanced), doing America's bidding in the UN, supporting US military adventures (however misguided) in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc.
It could be argued that the US role of being the security provider to Europe and others was the main source of their wealth and power. The US had the proverbial goose laying golden eggs, but Trump got angry that they had to shelter that goose, so he kicked her out... no goose would abuse the US like that!
Here is one example: Trump saying that the EU was formed to screw the United States: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kq28VSlvUw
Re: EU Parliament freezes US trade deal ratification
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The need to feed one's self and family is pretty historically important " So is, say, the need to defend yourself, but would you be happy about the military holding the same amount of de-facto power in the EU as the farmers do? Or would you consider it excessive? "the use of slave labor and chemicals that damage human health and the environment." So, there is no unnecessary regulation in your view? All of them are v…
>So, there is no unnecessary regulation in your view? Why are you making it sound like the issue is binary? >Some are just a byproduct of the office needing to show some activity and keeping their budget. Agree. >She was fined by authorities overseeing agricultural regulations Were those authorities doing the inspection from the EU or the local nation?
"Why are you making it sound like the issue is binary?"
Because your declaration about the regulations seeking to protect us from big evil sounded quite absolutist in itself.
A bit of a motte-and-bailey. Some of them are undoubtedly good, some less so, and we shouldn't lobotomize ourselves by immediately dragging slavery out when starting discussions about the current regulatory level.
"Were those authorities doing the inspection from the EU or the local nation?"
EU law gets transposed into national laws of the constituent nations and local authorities then enforce it, but it is still EU law.
It is very different from the US where state authorities aren't tasked by enforcing federal regulations, because the Feds have their own enforcement infrastructure.
Compared to the US, EU-own enforcement infrastructure is tiny and mostly outsourced to local governments.
Re: EU Parliament freezes US trade deal ratification
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly, just see the gal of garbage spewed by for example Scott Bessent at the WEF yesterday. The arrogance is outright insulting.
“The size of Denmark’s investment in US Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant.” So an ally is irrelevant. People wonder why the EU is built the way it is, and behaves the way it does. It's precisely to avoid this. To bind Germany and France together and avoid the big powers treating smaller neighbors like this. I guess that's bad to some people. This is not a trade dispute over something signed last summ…
Switzerland is the worlds 3rd. largest holder of foreign exchange reserves. Thinking that small countries are irrelevant is futile.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign_e...
Re: EU Parliament freezes US trade deal ratification
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trump or no Trump, the US's ability to be Europe's security shield had to come to an end one day or another. Trump is more a symptom than a cause: the US has weakened and others have strengthened. As many are eager to point out, the game is already up. Pretending like there is a future here is pointless. America had best leave internal European civil wars like Russia-Ukraine to the locals and retreat to whatever bord…
Europe never decided to outsource its defense to the US. It was the US that wholeheartedly sold quadrillions worth of armaments to the EU, in order to support the cold war remnants of its military industrial complex. The "funding the retiree class" comment is simply silly, I will not even get baited.
Europe relies on the US less for money, and more for capabilities.
Within North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the US provides most of:
- Strategic airlift (moving large forces quickly)
- Aerial refueling
- Missile defense
- Intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR)
- Command, control, and battle management
- Nuclear deterrence (via the US nuclear umbrella)
Europe can field armies, navies, and air forces, but large-scale, high-intensity war is much harder without the US.
Re: EU Parliament freezes US trade deal ratification
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trump is the symptom, not the cause. The cause the US people.
Yes and no. Because you can always go one level higher and ask: Why are the US people the cause? And then we will talk about structural issues, to do with social mobility, education, a dysfunctional journalistic landscape, a tribalization of the political landscape and so on. But of course it doesn't stop there. You can go one up: Why did these underlying causes came to be? The simple answer is that a certain loose c…
> will always boil down to lobbying and money in politics.
And here you take the easy way out. Just blame third parties. You should keep asking why to find the real cause.
My personal take, as someone who is European but has lived in the US, Texas metro areas specifically, is that first past the post elections sow division.
Choices are limited, political activity is neutered, and extremism builds until it finds an outlet through either of the two possible political choices. Taking over that side entirely.
Political systems needs vents for frustration, and the US system does not have that.
Which finally leads to the people.
The only ones that could cause change needed to reform their representation in the political system is the people.
Re: EU Parliament freezes US trade deal ratification
#89Today at Davos will be a very important inflection point. If Trump decides to maintain or escalate pressure on Europe over Greenland, more economic retaliation will follow. While that could be suicidal for Europe, there are other factors at play, such as the fact that Trump cannot afford a self-inflicted economic collapse during an election year.
Re: EU Parliament freezes US trade deal ratification
#90This means that US keeps paying the old WTO MFN tariffs (low) while EU keeps paying the high ~15% tariffs like it has since the July “deal”.
The importer pay the tariff, unless it changed in the last two hundred years?
Tariffs are paid by importers, but the cost is usually shared between:
- Foreign producers
- Domestic consumers
- Domestic companies (via lower profits)
Who pays more depends on bargaining power and market structure.