zlacker

>>bwb+(OP)
Americans fail to appreciate a few things about our economy

1. We have a large homgoneous market where you can build a product and it’s expected it can succeed for hundreds of millions of Americans

2. EU is the easiest second market, and another step change of hundreds of millions of customers in a somewhat unified market

3. there’s not an easy 3rd economy that replaces EUs wealth, population, and comfort with English + technology

When we piss everyone off in the EU tech company growth gets kneecapped and limited to US / Canada. Theres not an easy market to expand to without much deeper focus on that specific market and its needs, for much fewer returns.

>>softwa+Fk
In a way, isn't it what the Americans and even the current administration want? We want a strong Europe who is keen on preserving and developing the glorious modern civilization that it created. We want a strong Europe who can build and innovate instead of regulating and fining. In contrast, we certainly don't want see the disastrous joke like Northvolt. We certainly don't want to see the joke that BASF shut down its domestic factories and invested north of 10B in China for state-of-the-art factories. Oh, and we certainly don't want to see a Europe that couldn't defeat Russia and couldn't even out-manufacture Russia, even though Russia's GDP is merely of Guangzhou's.

>>hintym+iy
The current US administration wants a captive Europe. One that buys its defense, energy and technology products from them. One that sells its territory, regulations and know-how to them.

Ask the Department of State if they'd like a European-sized French attitude and strategic autonomy.

>>boricj+wL
Current admin has been on record for years saying the same thing. Warning EU about russia, warning EU about China, warning them about not innovating.

I don't know if this was planned internally but it seems the way they figured out how to get EU to actually do something is to make it seem like big bad trump is going to hurt them.

Current admin has gotten more out of EU than 20years of asking nicely.

Before: US: "please increase military spending" EU: "no"

US: "please do not support our advesaries" EU: "builds nordstream"

US: "stop killing innovation" EU: " more regulation"

Now:

US: "We will invade greenland" EU: "omg we need to invest in greenland and increase its military support, we will send more troops immediately!"

US: "we will pull out of nato" EU: "omg we hate US we need to massively increase military spending and industry"

US: "our tech companies will not listen to you" EU: "omg big bad america, we should try to make out own"

I don't like it but at the same time, it works? Let EU rally against US who cares as long as they actually do something.

Simply put absolute best thing for US is a strong EU. China is an advesary that will take the entire US system to challenge if EU can handle the rest then it's a win.

>>johnsm+1P
Something tells me when the 'something' is a major trade deal with China suddenly it'll be 'oh my god how could you'. The US wants a EU vassal, what they're going to get is an EU that realigned itself to be politically and economically equidistant from the US and China.

>>alopha+JR
The whole point is the USA has been complaining that the EU was/is reducing itself to a vassal. No matter what the USA said or did before they didn't seem to care that they had no power anymore because the USA was there to take care of them.

The EU can't realign itself with China because that would destroy the last fragile bits of the EU economy that are left. They are already having issues with the excess supply lands on their shores even since the USA started tariffs with China. They can't deal with this long term.

>>tick_t+qa1
No. The US wants the EU to be a vassal, this should be obvious. Why would they want an EU that is more capable of acting against US interests?

The US wants EU to be a vassal, but got tired of paying the protection money for that. Now they are trying, and failing, to keep the EU under their control despite bringing less to the table every day.

>>schubi+ny1
Or more obviously the US views China as an existential threat that is about to pop.

US has numerous public docs stating China is prepping for war and has WW2 levels of production. US knows it will be out manufactured in this conflict.

So the US needs:

1. Fully focus on China without distractions. 2. Allies able to handle their own security or help in the fight. 3. Weaken the smaller axis forces as much as possible now before the big event occurs.

Through this lens it alls lines up pretty nicely. Every single world event including US poking europe all work towards these goals.

As of now:

1. EU is finally spending on spending 2. Nato has expanded (sweden) 3. Russia is weakened 4. Iran is weakened 5. Oil production is secure (venuzuela, US internal, middle east) 6. East asia is also spending more on military and heavily aligning with the west (more bases in phillipines)

To me this is going about as smoothly as anyone would expect the buildup to WW3 would go. And it's all going pretty well for western forces. The west is now stronger than it has ever been and getting stronger and the axis forces are all weaker and getting weaker.

Words matter much less than action.