- cross-posted to:
- buyeuropean@feddit.uk
- cross-posted to:
- buyeuropean@feddit.uk
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Because neoliberals get weak in the knees when fascists look at them.
In this new era, Russia, China and the US all want a return to spheres of influence and the rule of power in place of the rule of law, just with varying appetites for chaos (Russia) versus stability (China)
It’s been really annoying seeing Europeans lament the death of so-called international rule of law when, like, seriously? Tell me again how America doesn’t consider Latin America and the Middle East its sphere of influence that it gets to do whatever it wants with? Can y’all stop using “rule of law” to mean “good things for white people”?
Europe-based economic activity is among the least carbon-intensive in the world;
Isn’t part/most of this that Europe simply exported the carbon-intensive stuff abroad? Not exactly a success story IMO.
Isn’t part/most of this that Europe simply exported the carbon-intensive stuff abroad?
Partially true however it is also worth pointing out that industry in the EU produces significantly fewer emissions than the same industries outside the EU. The costs that come with that are largely why industry is outsourcing elsewhere, there is no coordinated effort by some shadow council to export the carbon-intensive industries abroad, just not fully thought out economic policy (producing in the EU causes costs for emissions, importing doesn’t/is easier to fudge, the incentive created by this imbalance is easy to see).
Even when you account for offshore emissions the EU’s carbon footprint has been going down since around 2010.
That doesn’t negate the existence of neocolonialism and it’s nowhere near enough to fix climate change, but the EU’s population is roughly constant, both it and China are reducing their manufacturing emissions, and economic growth in the EU has been slow and services-based. Like where would a supposed increase in emissions even come from? There’s nowhere to go but down.
I know good news feel unbelievable these days but this is one of them. Unfortunately this factually incorrect belief that emitting any less carbon is impossible without serious impact to QoL is why the european ecologist movements have lost a lot of steam in the past few years which is absolutely maddening because it’s empirically incorrect.
almost every sphere in which the EU feels inferior to the US boils down to a willingness to spend – or not. The EU is jealous of the US’s big tech firms, but there is no secret sauce here beyond investment. Take space for example, where, again, the US is dominant. How could it be anything other when Nasa’s 2023 budget was $25bn and the European Space Agency’s was €7bn?
This is true.
That said I think the counterintuitive action by the EU governing bodies (contradicting what voters want) might be driven by established European capitalist interests who have sizeable business relationships with the US and whose profits would be hurt if the EU is to retaliate.
I think the greatest concession made was that von der Leyen allowed Trump to frame this as a great victory for him. He has a fragile ego and always needs to look good. She is a much more diplomatic politician and allowed him to appear victorious. But the actual, realistic concessions are pretty limited.
I thought this was a pretty convincing argument why it’s not as bad for Europe as it looks https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sundown-on-the-potemkin-empire-trumps
As far as I know, it was more like Trump “stole” the framing as victory by releasing a statement before the EU and thus being in control of the narrative.
She is corrupt - nothing more!
You may be right, but it’s an assertion and not an argument or convincing in this case.
EU have no hardware that can handle consumer mobile / computing. Whole world is fucked by those monopolies to be honest.
Current consumer/mobile computing is what got the world into this sorry state in the first place.
The world is RIPE for takeover by whoever can develop a better way.
Because they are playing 4D chess against a checkers player.
… and you have to keep reminding him not to eat the checker pieces
If only he could stop shitting across the game board while we’re at it…
What if having Trump as president is 5D chess?
Hopefully he gets stuck in the 2Ds I can’t even see.
He’s more of a tic-tac-toe player.
Who always leaves center empty
Because they hope to keep Trump in a boat against Russia, I find that very obvious.
I think this is a large component. I think the other is that the calculus on this from a trade perspective is that 15% is better than 50%, and there is a good chance Trump imposes 50% tariffs if no deal is achieved. This would be bad for everyone. In four years, Trump will be gone, and the tariffs will go away again. Of course this sets the precedent that future leaders of the U.S., China, and any other large trading blocks, could unilaterally impose tariffs, and the EU will just roll over. This is why temporary pain is often a better response than acquiescence. I think this is one of the failings of the EU as a governance model. It moves slowly and requires near total agreement. This limits negotiation options because at least one nation would oppose the short term pain scenario.
In four years, Trump will be gone, and the tariffs will go away again.
USA has possibly had its last free and fair election already (if it ever truly had them). And the electorate are increasingly having more balanced news sources replaced with sources bought and paid for by billionaires.
I don’t share your pessimism. If he wanted to enact a coup, he had four years and the world’s largest military to do so.
I think the underlying, but mostly unspoken, fear is that you have a mad man with nukes.
France also has nukes and submarines able to deliver second strikes.
While I agree that we should act more forcefully, I still prefer to go without any kind of strike.
Of course we shouldn’t strike anything. I am just trying to point out that the EU has a credible nuclear deterrent thanks to France.
I understand the domino effect. I was just giving what I thought might be a reason for EU being cautious around mister trump.
I don’t think that’s much of a factor in geopolitics outside of the implementation of hard power. The problem with nuclear weapons is that there’s only so much brinkmanship you can participate in before your threats start to lose leverage.
It’s basically the equivalent of someone trying to achieve a goal by threatening to kill themselves. The ends just don’t logically justify the means.
European leaders are appeasing the US because it’s the most advantageous thing to do for capital holders. The instability that the US is creating is more manageable than the consequences of standing up to the US in a meaningful way would entail.
Capitalism has a great aversion to risk, and will almost always back the option closest to “business as usual”. The current US administration is a risk to profitability, an upending of business relations with the US is an existential threat.
Nukes are off the table for the US. It’s not like Trump has a big red button. Launch orders go through a chain and if nothing else, the sub/base commander would put a stop to it.
I think the Soviet Union ordered launches on two (?) occasions and the trigger man stood down.
Or maybe, the hole “deal” is just for show and meaningless anyways: https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5435369-the-numbers-in-trumps-eu-trade-deal-are-a-joke/
Because the Germans will stop at nothing to sell their fucking cars, and that’s the main driving force behind European diplomacy.
Whatever
More like the owners of German car manufacturers. And they don’t even care if it’s EU-made vehicles that are sold. They care about growing profit by any means. For example they lobby against Chinese EV tariffs because they don’t want their own Chinese-made cars or Chinese-made components to get more expensive, reducing their profits; or China restricting their profitability in China. A move obviously hurting EU auto workers. It doesn’t matter where and how the profit is made, they will lobby for it, regardless of the German or EU people’s interests.
This is overlooking an important point: German national politics and the direct connection the EU commission has to it.
Ursula von der Leyen, while not a strong party ally of Friedrich Merz, is still trying to prop up the incredibly weak current coalition, as the alternative would be significantly worse.
The US tarriffs hit the German export industry especially hard, while the rest of Europe is relatively unaffected by them. With the German car industry already struggling (slept on electric and China isn’t buying anymore), a 30% tarriff would effectively force them to downsize significantly and likely merge or kill off one of the big three entirely. This would be a huge political deal in Germany and likely kill the current coalition.
In typical fashion they’re trying to put a bandaid on a rotten limb. By trying to delay the inevitable crisis they are ensuring it will hit us worse.
Due to the trade deficit and the service sector that America has over Europe.
They simply have more leverage
You also have the USA still guaranteeing European security while Russia has been more militarily active.
People like to focus on Germany alone, but the EU is still a federal entity that needs buy-in from several nations.
It’s very clear though that a major driving force behind this absolute farce of a deal was the German CDU, our chancellor even congratulated on the deal before he noticed the extremely negative public sentiment against this deal. I worry that our current coalition has their heads stuck up too far in the clouds to fix or address any of the issues we currently have and act in the best long term interest of Germany and Europe, bowing down to Trump might be the “better” solution short term but it makes absolutely no sense for the long term. Especially with the tacked on military package, that’s just an incredibly obvious trap they fell for.
As a Hungarian, and don’t take this the wrong way, how is German politics so fucked up? We watched money flow to Orbán uncounted that he used to very transparently destroy democracy in Hungary as well as provide cheap labour to Germany over the past 10 years, and it basically prevented the EU from being efficient in a response to the Ukraine crisis among other things.
How is it that in Germany, the only people to elect are either Russophilic idiots or people whose relationship to the EU is “how can we ratfuck this thing to the max to get more money out of it”? Who is a halfway decent politician in Germany? Everyone seems mostly both incompetent and malicious to differing degrees.
German politicians and politics are deeply provincial, and most simply don’t care about the effects of their politics on other european countries as long as it is good in the short term for some local business from their constituency.
Same as Hungary, which media company should provide the necessary information for a meaningful vote?
Blatant corruption, party politics and a decoupling of the politicians from reality to an absurd degree
Edit: no offense taken btw, our politics are a shit show
Outside of France, it feels like the EU isn’t ready to cut itself off from the US when it comes to defense policy. Western European powers seemed to love the peace dividend and Eaten European powers are concerned that a non-US NATO will defend their countries.
Germany may be leading this, but France has been trying to offer an alternative and the rest of the Union seems to be siding with American defense.
the rest of the Union seems to be siding with American defense.
It’s more complicated than that. Spain has just canceled a big buy for F-35s. The current leadership has no other option than buy US arms for Ukraine, as it is still cheaper to not let Ukraine fall than to try and defend against Russia without that distraction.
Because the entire point of the eu is to be a dog of the American empire. We’re supposed to be the battleground when war breaks out with China
Because most of the western EU nations became puppets of the US after WW2 during the Cold War and then eastern EU nations following the end of the Cold War.
This is not an explanation, it’s a (faulty) observation at best.
It does explain why the countries still cower in front of the US. The EU at large still is a lapdog for the Americans. There is nothing faulty about it.
moving your goalposts? “puppet” implies remote control and a lack of agency. a lapdog however has agency.
anywho. European countries have repeatedly done things that went against US interests. Heck, France even left NATO for a time.
France is very much the exception that proves the rule. They always argue for European independence and are almost always outvoted by everyone else.
France is the only western country that has not completely succumbed to a vassal state. But the economy of all western countries has been subverted to American interests with the begining of the Marshal plan. There are no contracts stipulating the conditions of our countries vassalage to the US as if it were medieval times. So yes we can be all from puppets to vassals to lapdogs. They’re not mutually exclusive nor do they have to stay the same.
European countries have repeatedly done things that went against US interests.
Can you name examples? As far as I know European countries have not condemned America’s wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the broken up Yugoslavia, etc. I cannot recall a single war or coup that European states sanctioned the US for. In the larger picture the European states also were not independent and neutral during the cold war but stood on the side of the American Empire. Hell to this day they’re part of NATO, the military arm of the American hegemony. The sole exception was De Gaulle who wanted France as it’s own great power. Furthermore America holds a cultural hegemony over the western world with its media and manufactured consent production that is spread across the world through globalization.
Sweden condemned the us so harshly for Vietnam, comparing them to nazi, Soviet and apartheid war crimes, that they cancelled all diplomatic relations.
Yeah and where did they end up? Still in the EU and today NATO.
You are the one who asked for examples. This happened 50 years ago, and Palme was murdered 40 years ago. Of course a single mans actions won’t echo forever just like orange mans actions will not inspire bigotry forever.
Of course, European states were not neutral during the Cold War. For some weird reason they wanted not to become Russian vassals (and Eastern European countries followed suit as soon as they could).
But: being aligned with the US does not mean you have to be subservient or bound in any way. As you mentioned, France even left NATO for a time. Vassal states usually cannot do that (see again the Cold War for examples: Poles, Czech and Hungarians were very much not allowed to break free from Moscow).
We may be fighting over semantics here, but I think this is important. Are you member of a club you can leave anytime? NATO and EU are such clubs. Or are you bound to a pact where you get violently suppressed the moment you want to quit? Warsaw Pact was such a thing.
This is a hypocritical take. You’re specifically using the cold war as an example and claim that US vassalage is better and not actually vassalage compared to the Soviet Union. That just isn’t true.
Also you cannot just leave NATO. Leaving the EU is hard, but at least still possible. For explanation please look at the elections results of the past decades of any western country. You’d get a whopping 80-95% across the board for pro-NATO parties.
If a country were to somehow still leave NATO they’d likely face a quick invasion unless they lower themselves to ally with Russia and get guarantees.
As for the Cold War politics worked differently on both sides. The American hegemony is less implicit but still exist through it’s prevalent cultural hegemony. Consent is manufactured to stay aligned with the US up to this day. You can see this influence in official government policies, in the mass media and in the education system.
Also you cannot just leave NATO. Leaving the EU is hard, but at least still possible. For explanation please look at the elections results of the past decades of any western country.You’d get a whopping 80-95% across the board for pro-NATO parties.
“You CANNOT just leave NATO ! Because you do not WANT to leave NATO !” is … quite a galaxy-brain take.
Yes, manufactured consent is unfortunately rather indistinguishable from people having their own opinions, and if any opinion can be “manufactured”, you get to circular reasoning like “your not leaving NATO proves that you are actually forbidden from leaving”.
