US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief

This whole economy by corruption and coercion is not going to work out.

I don't see how it can't work at least short term, when the US is by a long margin the world leading military and economic power.

Why else has the US been overspending on military for decades and planting military bases and nuclear submarines all over the world, to become the world hegemony, if not to bully everyone in doing its bidding when push comes to shove?

I'm not defending the actions of the US, I'm just asking what are the other countries gonna do about it? Ally with Cuba, China, Iran and Russia to fight the US? Unlikely.

UK, Canada, Australia, New Zeeland are 5 eyes members and therefore lapdogs of the US, and the EU as much as they dislike the US due to Trump, has a laundry list of urgent domestic issues like Russia, no cheap energy, no high growth industry like tech, ageing population, economic stagnation or even decline, collapsing welfare and pension system, illegal immigration leading to a rise right wing extremism leading to crackdowns on freedom of speech and censorship leading to further social and political turmoil. So how is the EU gonna retaliate when they can't even keep themselves together?

What can they do now, when the US holds all the cards? Their only hope can be that the US collapses from internal issues, just like the Roman empire, but until then, they literally have no screws to turn on the US and just like the EU, Switzerland, etc, are forced to accept the terms of the US or have their already fragile economies suffer even more.

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> they could easily pass on these costs because we have no alternatives

Now imagine the same scenario, but one side is willing to destroy themselves as collateral if they don’t get the result they want.

It won't work out because the people in charge are the dumbest motherfuckers imaginable. They are utterly convinced that every one of their stupid ideas is brilliant, that they know everything, and that the way forward is to liquidate anyone who has the audacity to say 'no' or 'you're wrong' to them.

That's not the roadmap to good management of anything, as literally anyone who has ever worked a job will tell you. How people can see an amalgamation of all the traits they despise in a peer or leader that they actually have to interact with, and go 'oh yeah this guy should be running the entire country, this will end well' is mindblowing.

The empire can run on fumes and momentum... for a while. No company or country is so exceptional that it can survive enough mismanagement, eventually you burn through the furniture, and piss away whatever lead or competency you had.