Donald Trump could struggle to force Europe's hand on China
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He doesn't have the cards.
Did he say thank you?
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He doesn't have the cards.
He's never played with a full deck anyway.
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Trump struggles with everything.
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[...] the notion that Europe would be forced to choose between the two countries "doesn't allow much room for the idea of European Union agency or any recognition of its major significance as a commercial bloc."
Exactly this, Europe will not ditch either anytime soon.
Exclusive: EU explores tweaking methane rules for US gas to help trade talks, sources say https://lemm.ee/post/61953004
Exactly this, Europe will ditch China soon.
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They should definitely keep a safe distance from the dumpster fire the US is now, but the EU still very much needs the US: America has the command and intel structure needed to deter and maybe even fight back Russia, almost all governments work with American tech (Windows, Office, iPhones, AWS and cyber security tech like from Crowd strike), financial systems are based on us techs and the big corpos are very intertwined, also big law firms operate on both sides of the Atlantic, same goes for (social) media. European governments just can't switch to a different brand of coke like individual consumers do. Same goes for china, they basically produce everything more complex than a patato and if it's made in Vietnam or Cambodja or whatever, China might still be involved.
Long story short, EU can't pick a side and sit out the storm. If things went different I totally would have seen EU siding with their American ally, but that bridge has obviously been burned.
Can definitely recommend reading the article if you want to better understand why the US will not be able to 'win over' the EU. It's a good read.
US products don't dominate the information technology sector because they are inherently better than alternatives. They dominate because the US is the 800 pound gorilla and it's just easier to use the defaults the US churns out. Every time a government uses proprietary technology, especially for anything that citizens/residents have to interact with, they give up a bit of their sovereignty. People and businesses that interact with the government shouldn't be compelled to buy particular products from a foreign company just to interact with their government. I think Europe would be wise to move to open standards as much as possible, and start rolling a lot of their own technology. No, it's not the easiest choice for the next quarter, or next year, but it will serve them well in the long term. The US is just too volatile.
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Exclusive: EU explores tweaking methane rules for US gas to help trade talks, sources say https://lemm.ee/post/61953004
Exactly this, Europe will ditch China soon.
The European Union will not decouple from the Chinese economy as a condition for reaching a trade deal with Donald Trump's administration, the European Commission said on Tuesday amid reports that the White House has asked countries to do exactly that.
https://lemm.ee/post/62079326Exactly this, they won't.
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The European Union will not decouple from the Chinese economy as a condition for reaching a trade deal with Donald Trump's administration, the European Commission said on Tuesday amid reports that the White House has asked countries to do exactly that.
https://lemm.ee/post/62079326Exactly this, they won't.
Ukrain also objected to the mineral deal.
The US wants to contain China. They currently don't look like it but they are the country of the playbook. They haven't started the tariff madness without a plan to decouple Europe from China. Otherwise the tariffs would be suicide.
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Ukrain also objected to the mineral deal.
The US wants to contain China. They currently don't look like it but they are the country of the playbook. They haven't started the tariff madness without a plan to decouple Europe from China. Otherwise the tariffs would be suicide.
Well if there is a plan I'm still waiting to see it. It's good they're subtle about it though, because playing mind games with your allies isn't a good way of getting them to like you again.
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Well if there is a plan I'm still waiting to see it. It's good they're subtle about it though, because playing mind games with your allies isn't a good way of getting them to like you again.
This is the show for the people. The tariffs were discussed in Davos in January and were mentioned in the Washington Post in 2023. Project 2025 exists for some years. The leaders know, the journalists know, and yet, everybody was surprised when it happened.
They pretend to be surprised and likewise, they would have objected much much stronger before, if the allies wouldn't accept what is happening.
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This is the show for the people. The tariffs were discussed in Davos in January and were mentioned in the Washington Post in 2023. Project 2025 exists for some years. The leaders know, the journalists know, and yet, everybody was surprised when it happened.
They pretend to be surprised and likewise, they would have objected much much stronger before, if the allies wouldn't accept what is happening.
Maybe go outside, see some sunlight or something.
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Maybe go outside, see some sunlight or something.
You mean this is too much conspiracy?
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You mean this is too much conspiracy?
Yes, the world isn't that controllable. If it were a bunch of dictators meeting up in secret, maybe, but a group of democratic elected individuals, socialites and business people (all with their own agenda!) could never get something that elaborate done without some journalist somewhere picking up on it. There are many big media corpos, but there is also enough smaller ones who haven't said anything like 'european governments knew about the plan with the 25% tariffs that later were lowered to the planned 10%, because they secretly agreed to decouple from china without the public finding out'.
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Yes, the world isn't that controllable. If it were a bunch of dictators meeting up in secret, maybe, but a group of democratic elected individuals, socialites and business people (all with their own agenda!) could never get something that elaborate done without some journalist somewhere picking up on it. There are many big media corpos, but there is also enough smaller ones who haven't said anything like 'european governments knew about the plan with the 25% tariffs that later were lowered to the planned 10%, because they secretly agreed to decouple from china without the public finding out'.
I also don't believe that the specific ups and downs were planned, especially not the exact timing.
But the introduction of the tariffs was known.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/22/economy/jamie-dimon-tariffs-get-over-it/index.html
How do you interpret it? Did the European governments know but they just expected some trade negotiations?
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I also don't believe that the specific ups and downs were planned, especially not the exact timing.
But the introduction of the tariffs was known.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/22/economy/jamie-dimon-tariffs-get-over-it/index.html
How do you interpret it? Did the European governments know but they just expected some trade negotiations?
Easy to say afterwards, but I think they were in denial. People were talking about Trump possibly bullying Canada and Greenland (Or Denmark really) because of the resources and security argument, but those were for decades close allies. Governments could imagine Trump pushing back on German car imports, or put pressure on the Netherlands because of ASML but they expected tarrifs to be bilateral and specific to certain industries; not wide across the board and also not as inconsistent as they were. Trump seems to change his mind overnight and to do that to allies makes it even worse to them. They wouldn't be offended if these were actions against east-asian or south-america countries, they would just dislike it. But to cause so much economic problems purely for the economic benefit of the US is seen as egoistic and even though they could've predicted trump to not care about Europe they were naive because of the decade long partnership between US en EU.
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Easy to say afterwards, but I think they were in denial. People were talking about Trump possibly bullying Canada and Greenland (Or Denmark really) because of the resources and security argument, but those were for decades close allies. Governments could imagine Trump pushing back on German car imports, or put pressure on the Netherlands because of ASML but they expected tarrifs to be bilateral and specific to certain industries; not wide across the board and also not as inconsistent as they were. Trump seems to change his mind overnight and to do that to allies makes it even worse to them. They wouldn't be offended if these were actions against east-asian or south-america countries, they would just dislike it. But to cause so much economic problems purely for the economic benefit of the US is seen as egoistic and even though they could've predicted trump to not care about Europe they were naive because of the decade long partnership between US en EU.
Thanks, I hope that it is like this.
If you don't mind another conspiracy:
The interesting thing about tariffs is that the EU keeps most of the tariff income. Likewise does the president. This is the perfect opportunity to make both the presidential as well as the EU budget independent of parlamentarian oversight by financing it with tariffs.
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Thanks, I hope that it is like this.
If you don't mind another conspiracy:
The interesting thing about tariffs is that the EU keeps most of the tariff income. Likewise does the president. This is the perfect opportunity to make both the presidential as well as the EU budget independent of parlamentarian oversight by financing it with tariffs.
From the side of us there could be some truth in the fact that money earned by import duties could spent without parliamentary oversight (although parliament isn't stopping anyway, so why?), but the EU is a body of cooperating nation states, no way they would get to spend the money they get from import duties 'however they like'. Aside from that, new tariffs on American stuff have been postponed from now so there isn't any money coming in. But even if that would be the case, there is so much trade happening with other countries that I can't imagine the EU would really be benefiting a lot from getting some extra cash from the trade with US. In any case, it definitely wouldn't be enough to make the entire budget independent from the parliament especially since a large part of that budget comes from member states (and in turn from their taxpayers).
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From the side of us there could be some truth in the fact that money earned by import duties could spent without parliamentary oversight (although parliament isn't stopping anyway, so why?), but the EU is a body of cooperating nation states, no way they would get to spend the money they get from import duties 'however they like'. Aside from that, new tariffs on American stuff have been postponed from now so there isn't any money coming in. But even if that would be the case, there is so much trade happening with other countries that I can't imagine the EU would really be benefiting a lot from getting some extra cash from the trade with US. In any case, it definitely wouldn't be enough to make the entire budget independent from the parliament especially since a large part of that budget comes from member states (and in turn from their taxpayers).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union
The budget is 170 billion euros.
Goods and services are together roughly 800 billion euros.
So at 25% tariffs, it could be possible in theory but trade would collapse.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union
The budget is 170 billion euros.
Goods and services are together roughly 800 billion euros.
So at 25% tariffs, it could be possible in theory but trade would collapse.
That surprises me to be honest, i think in theory you might be right on them being able to double their budget if the trade would continue as usual with 25% tariff. But still I can't imagine there being a secret plot trying to get this done. What would they even use the money for? I think there are corrupt individuals looking to fill their own pockets, but I don't see how the ruling parties in the EU would benefit from increasing the budget with some backroom agreement.
I was curious as to who gets the money from import duties and it is indeed (mainly) the EU itself. Also surprised to learn already almost one sixth of the budget comes from tariffs. So wanting to up the tariffs would definitely be a short term gain. Do you have a (conspiracy) theorie as to what the eu would do with their extended / independent budget?
75% of the collected customs duties are destined to the EU budget, representing 13.7% of the total budget for 2024.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-tariffs-explained/ -
That surprises me to be honest, i think in theory you might be right on them being able to double their budget if the trade would continue as usual with 25% tariff. But still I can't imagine there being a secret plot trying to get this done. What would they even use the money for? I think there are corrupt individuals looking to fill their own pockets, but I don't see how the ruling parties in the EU would benefit from increasing the budget with some backroom agreement.
I was curious as to who gets the money from import duties and it is indeed (mainly) the EU itself. Also surprised to learn already almost one sixth of the budget comes from tariffs. So wanting to up the tariffs would definitely be a short term gain. Do you have a (conspiracy) theorie as to what the eu would do with their extended / independent budget?
75% of the collected customs duties are destined to the EU budget, representing 13.7% of the total budget for 2024.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-tariffs-explained/I can't imagine that the EU would actually try to finance itself with tariffs. Free trade is what allows for specialization and thus greater prosperity for everybody.
The usage would be that the EU becomes independend from its states. Now the states have some leverage to at least deny further funding if the EU reduces their power.
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I can't imagine that the EU would actually try to finance itself with tariffs. Free trade is what allows for specialization and thus greater prosperity for everybody.
The usage would be that the EU becomes independend from its states. Now the states have some leverage to at least deny further funding if the EU reduces their power.
The countries in the EU have a much bigger day in the dealings of the EU than the states of the US have in the US. The budget wouldn't be their main restriction, because on every issue also the member states have a vote. They would need a majority and in some cases a qualifying majority to back them up if they had the desire to have a looser leash.
