I find this interesting: the US administration is currently bullying and threatening its ex-allies (many citizens of those countries don't see the US as allies anymore). Those ex-allies are reacting to that bullying, as a way to defend themselves.
And it feels like many US citizens completely ignore that they are on the side of the bullies, and just go full patriotism: "Oh, they want to boycott us? We will boycott them, too, they'll see!". Sure, you can do that, but don't forget that your country is the bully.
We remember the stupid "freedom fries" era. Besides, the whole reason this started was the US president trying to "encourage" Americans not to buy EU products with tariffs.
As with Chinese manufacturing, the US may find it harder than it expects. Especially as the trade surplus includes a lot of pharmaceuticals and B2B products.
Is the EU threatening to take Alaska or support the Venezuelan government against the US or something? Because the feigned ignorance around why the EU is tired of the US isn't really interesting.
> So far nobody in the United States is looking for alternatives to European services and products
Apart from the president, intent on starting a trade war?
US imports are going to be made more expensive because of tit-for-tat tariffs, so of course people are starting to look around elsewhere for alternatives.
What did you expect would happen when your government starts down the road of isolationist policies?
European services and products are not the dominant and default solution for most people, nor are they becoming increasingly entangled with controversial political views and activities. So your curiosity may have to wait a while.
i really really don't understand how americans don't realize that their president is sabotaging their economy. They were number 1 everywhere, and yet he destroyed all relationships with their main economical and military allies.
It's totally impossible to understand, except with some hollywoodest scenario. But the fact that some american support this is borderline crazy.
They are, YouTube and Instagram are full of folks trying to pass the actual information, at least from the time being MSNBC and CNN are also putting the good fight, while FoxNews is hardly indistinguishable from state TV of any authoritarian country, hence why the adminstration already pointed out they should be put into their place.
Many folks are rising up, question is how long, and how hard it is going to get, will they push the army into the population, for example.
It's a modern problem in a lot of places, but especially in America that what people see on TV and social media is reality to them - which is heavily distorted. It will have to start reaching their own paychecks in order to have an impact. There are rumors that the administration will stop making Social Security payments, let's see how that goes.
I think what we are seeing in Europe since the invasion of Ukraine, and even more since the end of last year, is similar. People are fed relentless propaganda by the media and are buying it with no question asked.
We've always had a media problem, especially from the Murdoch media and Berlusconi's TV station, but the support for Ukraine is about as organic as it gets when dealing with international events.
On the contrary, everything we have seen and are seeing is neither organic nor caused by "right-wing" media ("left-wing" are no less problematic). It is organised and deeply so. The power ond effectiveness of the shaping of public opinion shows when people think they have not been influenced.
I'm consuming a lot of "quality journalism" in three languages from many countries, including the USA, much of it on paper. They have in common that they report things that move the world. But there is no shared narrative, no planned coordination and no organisation. Many of them are on different sides of the aisle, and yet they all talk about the same stuff, albeit from different perspectives.
when all of the sudden europe is flood by ukrainian women leaving their husbands in the country to fight a country under bombs, you don’t really need media to provide you with a particular point of view. Reality and personal testimonies are far more than enough.
Europe was not "flooded" by anything and I see as many Ukrainian men as women here (it's illegal for men to leave Ukraine)... Although most of Ukraine has not seen combat, so effectively they are migrants who prefer to be in Europe than in Ukraine. The UK government even actually paid people to lodge Ukrainians for some reason...
This is what I am saying: superficial emotional reactions played by well-crafted propaganda and people confuse that with "reality".
Just like the average person doesn't understand income tax (i.e. they think "tax breaks" means they will pay less in taxes even when the tax breaks don't significantly affect their income brackets because they think X% on income exceeding $Y means if you make more than $Y all your income will be taxed at that rate), the average person doesn't understand tariffs (i.e. that it's a kind of tax paid to your own government by the domestic corporation or individual importing the tariffed goods, not something the foreign exporter pays, and that it can compound for goods that need to move multiple times across borders during the manufacturing process) and the average person doesn't understand that "trade deficit" is completely meaningless when it comes to determining who's taking advantage of whom (i.e. it's not about the difference in relative value of the goods exchanged, it's about which side of the exchange uses more currency than goods and services for the exchange; e.g. Hong Kong has a trade deficit to the US because it imports American goods and services but the US imports very little from Hong Kong - but the US has a major trade deficit to Mexico because it imports a lot of goods from Mexico, presumably especially from manufacturing outsourced to Mexico?).
This isn't a uniquely American phenomenon but Republicans have spent decades fermenting "post-factual" propaganda and a culture of deliberate ignorance to an extent that is difficult to compare. In Germany we've only really seen anything of this level during COVID (this was when Germany became the country with the largest QAnon movement outside the US) although of course media like the Springer news publishing outlets have also been pushing deliberate misinformation for half a century - it just didn't really connect to a political movement until relatively recently. Prior to the Ukraine invention and the sanctions on Russia, a lot of this in Europe also seems to have had close ties to Russia - either through direct financial support or through Russian "alternative news" channels like Sputnik and RT.
It's also worth remembering that not all Americans support Trump's policies and most don't support all of them. Most that do express unconditional support don't want to talk about the policies they don't like or outright deny them. I've seen Trump supporters in the same thread argue that there won't be a recession, and that a recession is good and necessary actually - but never with each other, always only attacking their shared outside enemy. It's not really about the politics for them, it's about allegiance and loyalty. But these are not the majority of people who voted for him - they're just the most dedicated ones.
No, across history and geography people are caught doing "unexplainable" things--and I use this word because I don't want to sound offensive--time and again.
Here are a few examples:
- The expulsion of the English from Havana in the 18th century
- The European inquisitions, and while we are at it, some elements of faith in general.
- Hitler's fascism (Hitler was elected)
- Fidel Castro's Cuba
- North Korea
- Italy's demographic problem
- Japan's demographic problem
... and so on. In all cases, you need the cold clarity of hindsight and a lot of detachment to see that people were acting foolishly. But during the time when the events are ensuing, stoked passions and outright manipulation prevent people from acting rationally. It's not like people act irrationally because they want to. It's simply too difficult to accept the right information, since each argument opposed to one's own beliefs is interpreted as a move from the enemy group.
He wasn't elected. By the time he became chancellor his party was losing ground and couldn't form the government. Under pressure of the rich Hitler was appointed chancellor (not elected) because communists/socialists/unionists were bad for business and they were gaining ground.
It's true that the NSDA lost 4% between the July and November 1932 elections, but they were still the strongest party by a clear margin. Hitler was appointed chancellor under a minority government because he could not find a coalition with a majority in the Reichstag. In this sense, he was indeed "elected". You are right in the sense that other parties provided the necessary 2/3 majority to pass the Enabling Act of March 14, 1933 which eventually gave him absolute power.
Side note: in a way Trump has it much easier because he can already govern with executive orders without requiring a 2/3 majority from the Congress...
edit: aha, misread the comment, i read it as, roughly: "europeans would not like it if americans start looking at the european alternatives", not "looking at alternatives to european products" - yes, i agree, Europeans would not like that.
"In 2022, 692,334 new EU-made cars were exported to the US, worth €36bn ($37bn; £30bn). While only 116,207 new US-made cars went in the opposite direction, for €5.2bn."
Keep in mind this does not reflect US companies producing cars in the EU. I see as many Teslas in my part of rural Germany as I see any other brand. But Tesla also produces these cars in Europe and so I doubt most of them are imports.
That said, automotive companies have way too much influence on European (and especially German) politics. While the consequences of these companies failing or shrinking would undoubtedly be bad, the upside is that this might reduce their influence too. Not saying one would outweigh the other.
Unfortunately yes. Our biggest company is Novo Nordisk, a company that sells weightloss drugs to Americans. It narrowly beats out LVMH, a company that sells luxury goods to Americans.
There's a risk that the US starts deciding that it won't respect pharma patents of non-US companies, even if they hold US patents, but that really does blow up the industry world wide and will cause the obvious retaliation of not respecting US patents overseas.
Novo Nordisk, probably. But surely LVMH's revenue is very diversified globally? The Middle-East and Asia are big markets for them.
On top of that they're luxury goods, their bought for their prestige. Barely anyone uses AWS for such reasons. Good luck convincing the wealthy in the US that some new US brand is a good replacement for their Louis Vuitton bags, Moët champagne and Bulgari watches.
The US has lots of ultra-luxury services, but very little such manufacturing.
You are correct, and I am being facetious. I would still rather we produce things like AWS, however. While it's more substitutable, it is so because the value is more rational and inherent.
> Good luck convincing the wealthy in the US that some new US brand is a good replacement for their Louis Vuitton bags, Moët champagne and Bulgari watches.
I said it even with that in mind :) MAGA makes up a smaller part of the wealthy than may often be assumed. That group doesn't play by such rules, and is very used to getting what they want.
A bit less globalism in terms of shipping consumer products across the world isn't such a bad thing. Continents becoming more self sustainable and consuming the products they can produce, only importing those things that it really needs. Advocados are not mandatory in our diet.
The down votes are due to the persons inappropriate snarkiness and complete lack of awareness.
The current trade war is initiated by the US, why it is interesting how EU consumers react to that.
This is akin to me hitting you in the face, then you hitting me back - and then I could ponder how you would feel about being hit in the face and how that could teach you a lesson - well, I just saw what happens when I hit you in the face.
To summarize, EU countries levied 1.49 % on average on imports in 2021, the US levied 1.48 % on average. Probably there are singular items that diverge from this average.
> While I don't approve, didn't the EU charge the US tariffs that were twice as high as what the US charged the EU?
I'm afraid i'll need the exact sections of the trade agreement document that stipulates these tariffs so that I can compare myself. Otherwise this is hearsay for me.
I am not aware of such. My intuition is that it was relatively balanced (taking services into account, where the US is big due to Google, MS, and friends).
But I stand corrected if there are some good sources.
I don't usually reply to replies but I was asking because I'm not sure. About a decade ago I was looking into the 'Chicken tax' and went down a tariff rabbit hole. A cursory search now is quite difficult due to all of the recent news and changes. And also millionshort seems to require an account now to do advanced searches. So about the best I could do is ask ChatGPT for a chart comparing average tariff rates by sector for the US and EU before 2016. But I'd rather not.