A round-up of reactions from European leaders in response to Trump's tariff threats.
Has Europe finally grown a spine?
https://davekeating.substack.com/p/has-europe-finally-grown-a-spine
https://davekeating.substack.com/p/has-europe-finally-grown-a-spine
A round-up of reactions from European leaders in response to Trump's tariff threats.
36 Comments
Dionysus@leminal.space · 61 pts · 207d
No. Not yet. It needs to.
thesdev@feddit.org · 20 pts · 207d
Yeah I just read there's no majority for using the trade bazooka (article in Swedish)
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 207d
It's a literal threat to all of Europe. I think we must band together and take both economic and military measures!
Dionysus@leminal.space · 4 pts · 207d
Threat to the world, which Europe alone is suited to face.
khannie@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 207d
Ugh. Fuck sake. It's time. Get the Bazooka out!
echodot@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 206d
Translation for anyone that needs it
echodot@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 206d
It's a pretty ironically named option because it requires a 1-year consultation process. It's hardly speedy and dynamic.
jimmy90@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 206d
but dave keating said so
who are you to defy dave keating
ha!
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 40 pts · 207d
They never did lack a spine. They firstly, and rightly so, tried civility and diplomacy. The rest of the world has more grace than what america has produced.
thesdev@feddit.org · 24 pts · 207d
The trade deal they reached last year was pure capitulation if you ask me.
eigenspace@feddit.org · 33 pts · 207d
The trade deal was an empty promise to America that gave them nothing. They "promised" investments and purchases that the EU has no ability or willingness to actually follow through on to just make him go away and get distracted by something else.
It wasn't a particularly brave response, and not my favoured way to deal with him, but if you think it was capitulation, then you're as gullible as Trump.
thesdev@feddit.org · 13 pts · 207d
The tariff increases were very real though. Sure, we negotiated them down in the deal, but they were still much higher than before "liberation day", and one-sided. China on the other hand did not budge and got the US to back down eventually.
eigenspace@feddit.org · 26 pts · 207d
IMO, the tariffs are not such a big deal. If we want to decouple from the USA, them tariffing us is a good way to start that process in a gentle and controlled manner. Us tariffing them is IMO a low priority. They barely export any physical goods to Europe that are competitive with domestic EU products. The thing that Americans sell us that we need to stop buying is software and cloud services, but those are not affected by tariffs.
Therefore it's a waste of time and money for us to tariff the USA. What we need to do is make a targetted effort to get off of their software and cloud tech stack. This is already happening rather quickly, but the EU needs to do more to make it happen faster. The Anti-Coercion Instrument will help a lot if the EU triggers it, but there's also a lot more subtle things the EU can do (some of which are already underway).
thesdev@feddit.org · 3 pts · 207d
I agree that their goods do not hold a candle to European ones in many cases and services are the real issue, but there's another side to the story, which is our products being in disadvantage in their market because of the tariffs, which directly results in job losses here, either through lost business or European companies moving production lines to the US. So the tariffs are a problem, and both the initial angry response from us and the sigh of relief after the deal was reached pretty much tell that story, and while tariffing back might not be the best counter, simply accepting the tariffs is not it either. A tax on Big Tech for example could've been a firm response, both to hurt American interests and catalyze our migration away from their services.
eigenspace@feddit.org · 1 pts · 207d
Nobody relevant is moving production lines from Europe to America, because it'd be insane to do so with how fast the tariff rates are constantly changing, and the fact that the US Supreme Court could end up ruling that Trump isn't even allowed to set tariff rates. Even if the tariffs became stable though, european manufacturers won't move their production lines to the USA because most advanced manufacturing relies on a complex, global supply chain. This means that tons of parts for e.g. cars need to cross borders multiple times, and often get double or triple tariffed, making it more attractive to move the production line out of the USA, and just sell the finished car in the USA and eat the tariff once.
Our products being less competitive there due to tariffs will result in lower sales, and will mean that our companies will focus on other markets, which is a good thing. If our companies rely on exports to the USA in order to be solvent, then that makes us more vulnerable to the USA. A 15% tariff is not enough to drive our exporters out, because they still easily outcompete in lots of categories, but it makes it less attractive for them to sell to the USA when they could sell elsewhere, which is on the whole, a good thing IMO.
No disagreement here. The EU representatives likely chose to not do that one so they could buy more time to be more prepared for a louder phase or the trade war (or for Trump to get bogged down in another topic and forget about Europe). It's looking unavoidable now, so I hope they go for a firmer approach that targets American big tech.
It's silly to say the EU is capitulating though.
thesdev@feddit.org · 3 pts · 207d
It literally happened in my own city: Volvo announced firing of 2000 people in Sweden (article in Swedish) followed by announcement of moving a production line to South Carolina (article in Swedish). It hardly gets more real than that. But sure, call tariffs not important and my argument silly.
frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 207d
Cén rogha eile atá acu?
What other choice do they have?
Gonzako@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 207d
esperemos
Tehbaz@lemmy.wtf · 7 pts · 206d
Wouldn't say that just yet. Depends on whether they retaliate with tarrifs of their own and start dumping US bonds.
join@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 207d
Het is vrij matig, dat de enige manier als Europeanen, met elkaar te praten, hamburger taal is. Juist nu.
thesdev@feddit.org · 5 pts · 207d
Naja, ich sehe es lieber als "Euro English".
join@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 207d
Ça a l'air d'être copium ! Nous avons besoin une véritable langue continental, ou on tous doit parle anglais avec une accent irlandais.
DonAntonioMagino@feddit.nl · 3 pts · 207d
L’anglais d'Irlande est tres beaux ! Mais, ma français n’est pas beaux...
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 207d
Cur non lingua latina?
thesdev@feddit.org · 2 pts · 207d
Instämmer.
Clear_Skies@feddit.nl · 3 pts · 207d
Ik nomineer Nederlands oder Deutsch
join@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 207d
Brząśluk śwędrzy czopliwą gręńskotą wźniuka!
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 4 pts · 207d
Friesisch. Kann fast keiner, deswegen fühlt sich kaum jemand auf den Schlips getreten, und es ist fast wie Englisch.
DonAntonioMagino@feddit.nl · 2 pts · 207d
Bûter, brea en griene tsiis!
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 3 pts · 207d
WTF is green cheese
Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 206d
Sure, let everyone fire up the translator engine instead of immediately understanding each other. Takes more effort, thus makes it harder to understand each other.
And we should really like more understanding, not less.
It really doesn't matter what the common language is, but it makes sense to have one, and we already have English now. We can also think to change that (there is Esperanto), but there's really no super major reason to do it, it's not like by using English we support the US or by using Dutch we now support the Netherlands. It's just a way of communicating, as long as we're able to do it easily, let's just do that.
Also, even though the UK exited the EU, it still lies in Europe. The language still originated in Europe. Ireland also uses English.
baguette@piefed.social · 2 pts · 207d
Of je gebruikt fish-en-chips engels en eindigt woorden met -our, -ise, etc.
plyth@feddit.org · 4 pts · 207d
Let's not pretend that it's Trump who is doing the coordination. It was not bad luck that von der Leyen was
The Americans expect a reaction of the EU and must have already prepared for that.
Treating this as a fight between the EU and Trump is a mistake. The EU is up against the most advanced hybrid war machine in the world.
ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 207d
Like genuine question, do you guys think we can genuinely win this? I mean, we're being attacked on two fronts, by the USA and by Russia working together. Don't mean to be a doomer, but these countries have had quite the experiences with infiltration, manipulation and wars.
echodot@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 206d
I don't know what history books you've read but the United States has a very long and documented history of not winning wars. Especially when their own population are so against it.
Meanwhile Russia is in no state to threaten anyone. What little they have in terms of military assets are tied up in Ukraine. If they try to attack Europe they'd get flattened in about 2 minutes.
Anyway it looks like trump's probably going to get impeached and presumably he doesn't want that to happen so he's unlikely to actually start World War III for reasons of self-preservation.