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Why "the entire western world"? As an European, why should we align with the US in this? The EU doesn't have any tech giant because, contrary to China, we have

Why "the entire western world"? As an European, why should we align with the US in this? The EU doesn't have any tech giant because, contrary to China, we have received US tech giants with open arms. So our economies bleed money and lose jobs to the likes of Amazon, because hey, "the free market". What do we stand to gain by siding with US companies in this US companies vs. China companies wars? Perhaps it would be better for us to just imitate China, start being protectionistic and banning foreign tech companies so we can grow our own and prosper. It works. In the US you're pretty much telling us that it works - so well that you are doing the same. Now that the US has shown it can ban foreign tech companies if it's in their own interest, and all the moralizing talk about the free market has been exposed as the self-serving propaganda it has always been, what reason do be exactly have to keep playing this game where we are the biggest losers?

youeseh 6y ago
- Does the US prevent European tech companies from doing business in America? - Does the US prevent European people from finding work, moving to, and purchasing property in America?
- bluelu 6y ago
  China does not prevent american businesses to do business in China as long as they follow the law. European and foreign businesses get much higher fines compares to local businesses (e.g. Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank, Bayer (e.g. just after buying Massato), Toyota, etc...) On the other hand Europe allows american businesses to access the european market without following the local laws. No user data can be transfered to the USA where protection clearly is not adequate, still they do. EDIT: You can downvote me, but it's all true: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/business/dealbook/volkswagen-faces-harsher-penalties-than-a-us-company-might.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/business/dealbook/volkswa... "Criminal fines in the United States from 2001-12 were on average more than seven times the size for overseas entities than for American companies"
  - learc83 6y ago
    > China does not prevent american businesses to do business in China as long as they follow the law. You fail to mention that the law requires 51% ownership by a Chinese company and forced IP transfer. You also fail to mention that there are many industries in which foreign company are completely prohibited. And the Chinese version of “following the law” includes whatever the party arbitrarily decides you should do. Including things like forcing companies to remove any mention of Taiwan from material completely outside of China.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  Right now, it doesn't. But I don't think it is because they are OK with European companies dominating US market. It is rather because there are no European companies at the moment capable of dominating US market. The moment a company in Europe starts to gain significant market share from American companies in the US, the government would (most probably) step in and stop them. I'm not European, but here in Canada, I have seen how the US treats its trade partners. Trump forced Canada to renegotiate NAFTA and got many concessions from us. Less than 2 months after his new trade deal came into force, he is imposing a 10% tariff on aluminum imports [1]. Before aluminum, it was softwood lumber. In the middle, there was Bombardier passenger airplanes. The funny thing is, in order to force Canada to renegotiate NAFTA, the US imposed tariff's on Canadian steel and aluminum under the guise of "national security" [2]. That is why I don't buy any claims on national security excuses for putting tariffs or expelling companies. It's mercantilism, plain and simple. But because it is frowned upon to talk about mercantilism in this day and age, the US administration always covers its mercantilism with a thin veneer of market fairness and national security. Either that, or Canada is actually a national security threat to the US. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-aluminum-tariff-1.5677036 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-aluminum-tariff-1.567... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/politics/trump-national-security-tariffs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/politics/trump-nationa...
  - briffle 6y ago
    In Telecom, Ericsson and T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom) are both VERY heavy players. Ericsson doesn't sell many phones, but tons of tower equipment. In IT, SAP is probably the largest competitor to Oracle for many companies Middleware.
  - jorblumesea 6y ago
    While it's true that the US is backsliding in some agreements, this is mostly due to the current administration and unclear if this will continue. Historically, the US has mostly been a free market to both Europe and Canada, and hasn't enacted protectionist measures overall. The US allows European car companies to sell here despite having domestic production. Nestle, HSBC, Astra-Zeneca, Siemens, SAP, Ericsson...these are all companies that are titans in their respective industries and also have a large mostly dominant US presence. The level of US protectionism pales in comparison to what China engages in and it's hardly fair to compare the two. Obviously there are well sourced grievances but to compare China's protectionism to US protectionism isn't correct.
- pinkfoot 6y ago
  Up until a few months/weeks/days ago it didn't stop Chinese companies and people either. Which way do you think the trend points?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- fvdessen 6y ago
  The USA protects its market by letting monpolies grow and abuse their dominant positions unchecked. And when that is not sufficient we now know what happens; competitors are banned.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  > - Does the US prevent European people from finding work, moving to, and purchasing property in America? Yes, regularly, via extensive caps and quotas on visas. That has to be a trick question. As of last year if a European wanted to work in America they had to pony up $6K+ for a 1 in 3 chance in April of landing an H1B for a job that couldn’t start until September.
Enginerrrd 6y ago
I understand the US has it's issues. But the US isn't shoving millions of Uighurs into concentration camps, stealing intellectual property in state sponsored campaigns to prop up their own businesses, and preventing economic competition, etc. Even with the deep issues in the US right now, there's a clear winner in ideological morality that better aligns with the EU. The Chinese are stealing IP from EU companies just the same as American. China though also utilizes economic pressure on private companies to bypass political opposition and force their totalitarian ideologies on the rest of the world. Look at the censoring of the Taiwan flag, or blacklisting of companies endorsing the Hong Kong people's rights of independence, or their hardline stance on anything that even remotely offends their assertions of power. I honestly don't see how it's even a contest to you, even considering the US as it currently exists. (There are notable ideological problems there too, but they pale in comparison to China in their negative effects on the EU.)
- laurentoget 6y ago
  https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a27813648/concentration-camps-southern-border-migrant-detention-facilities-trump/ https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a27813648/concentratio... on concentration camps, experts happen to differ with your opinion
  - abstractbarista 6y ago
    Not even remotely the same scale as what China is doing. China has initiated Holocaust 2.0, and there's nothing that can be said to deny this.
    - greatpatton 6y ago
      "China has initiated Holocaust 2.0" Come one please, the US are responsible for the death of 400-800k people in Iraq, by that metric no US product should be available anywhere...
      - torstenvl 6y ago
bigpumpkin 6y ago
Yep. Why should Canada align with the US when the US just imposed a tariff on ~$8 billion of aluminum on National Security grounds: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/06/trump-says-he-signed-order-reimposing-10percent-aluminum-tariffs-on-canada.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/06/trump-says-he-signed-order-r...
- pupdogg 6y ago
  Tariffs aside, considering Canada is our neighbor and has roughly 68k active military personnel vs 1.28 million in US, it should most definitely align itself with US on national security grounds. I believe that if Canada was ever under threat from another state, that US would definitely step in to help. Also, this is apples-to-apples comparison because the total land area (to be protected) covered by each state is approx. equal (6 million square miles or 9.8 million square kilometers).
gruez 6y ago
>Now that the US has shown it can ban foreign tech companies if it's in their own interest, and all the moralizing talk about the free market has been exposed as the self-serving propaganda it has always been regardless of the administration's actual motivations[1], banning tiktok/wechat can be plausibly justified as retaliation for what china did. There's nothing contradictory or hypocritical about preaching the free market but also engaging in anti-free market in retaliation against non-reciprocating countries, just as there's nothing contradictory or hypocritical about preaching peace, but engaging in violence in retaliation against non-peaceful countries. [1] eg. some people speculate that trump wanted tiktok banned because people shared videos on there that embarrassed him
illustriousbear 6y ago
Genuinely surprised that Chinese shills / psyops are targetting HackerNews. Seeing a lot of comments like this one which follow the standard handbook response.
- dang 6y ago
  You can't post like this to HN. It's explicitly against the rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Such perceptions are overwhelmingly imaginary and made-up, if the data and evidence are to be trusted, and meanwhile comments like this poison discussion badly. If you have evidence of abuse, let us know at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. If you don't have evidence, please don't post insinuations of sinister spying and all the rest of it. Someone posting a comment you disagree with does not count as evidence. If you want more explanation, there's years' worth at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=astroturf%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... and https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=chin%20by%3Adang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a...
joey_bob 6y ago
> Now that the US has shown it can ban foreign tech companies if it's in their own interest, and all the moralizing talk about the free market has been exposed as the self-serving propaganda it has always been, what reason do be exactly have to keep playing this game where we are the biggest losers? One of the ideas behind the structure of our republic is that there can be peaceful changes in power between different governments. What I mean to say is that the US is not one person, not even the US government. So, the moralizing talk about the free market has not always been duplicitous as you seem to imply. The protectionist actions you see now are just taken by the current government, who even on its own, doesn’t seem to have harp on the need for a free market very much. This is especially true when you compare it to the last government that was backing the TPP, something that was promptly killed after the regime change. Otherwise I agree with your conclusion, European countries should chart their own way. Gotta watch those negative interest rates though, might be a little trickier in a closed economy.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- smolder 6y ago
  I, for one, am glad the TPP is dead. We can have fair international trade without giving multinational corporations "the right to a business model" and letting them seek compensation from governments through tribunal over lost profits caused by changed laws. The TPP seemed absurd in that respect.
ebg13 6y ago
> Why "the entire western world"? As an European, why should we align with the US in this? That's some real cut-your-own-nose-off-to-spite-your-face territory. This is not aligning with the US. This is defending against China's policies that directly harm you and happen to also harm the US. The statement was "treat China exactly the same way China treats [you]". If you want to defend against the US too while you're at it, go ahead, but recognize what you just argued against here.
fermienrico 6y ago
Honestly, as an American, I would be totally fine with EU dominating US marketshare. Americans trust EU far more than any other conglomeration of countries. I hope that sentiment is the same amongst other Americans. There is far more overlap between US + EU + Switzerland + UK + Australia + NZ than there are differences. What I find dangerous is EU closing its doors and dismantling NATO, US collaboration and then fragmenting itself into dust. EU is already having a tough time keeping things together. During a time of extreme nationalism, we need to be more collaborative.

youeseh 6y ago

- Does the US prevent European tech companies from doing business in America? - Does the US prevent European people from finding work, moving to, and purchasing property in America?

bluelu 6y ago
China does not prevent american businesses to do business in China as long as they follow the law. European and foreign businesses get much higher fines compares to local businesses (e.g. Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank, Bayer (e.g. just after buying Massato), Toyota, etc...) On the other hand Europe allows american businesses to access the european market without following the local laws. No user data can be transfered to the USA where protection clearly is not adequate, still they do. EDIT: You can downvote me, but it's all true: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/business/dealbook/volkswagen-faces-harsher-penalties-than-a-us-company-might.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/business/dealbook/volkswa... "Criminal fines in the United States from 2001-12 were on average more than seven times the size for overseas entities than for American companies"
- learc83 6y ago
  > China does not prevent american businesses to do business in China as long as they follow the law. You fail to mention that the law requires 51% ownership by a Chinese company and forced IP transfer. You also fail to mention that there are many industries in which foreign company are completely prohibited. And the Chinese version of “following the law” includes whatever the party arbitrarily decides you should do. Including things like forcing companies to remove any mention of Taiwan from material completely outside of China.
smnrchrds 6y ago
Right now, it doesn't. But I don't think it is because they are OK with European companies dominating US market. It is rather because there are no European companies at the moment capable of dominating US market. The moment a company in Europe starts to gain significant market share from American companies in the US, the government would (most probably) step in and stop them. I'm not European, but here in Canada, I have seen how the US treats its trade partners. Trump forced Canada to renegotiate NAFTA and got many concessions from us. Less than 2 months after his new trade deal came into force, he is imposing a 10% tariff on aluminum imports [1]. Before aluminum, it was softwood lumber. In the middle, there was Bombardier passenger airplanes. The funny thing is, in order to force Canada to renegotiate NAFTA, the US imposed tariff's on Canadian steel and aluminum under the guise of "national security" [2]. That is why I don't buy any claims on national security excuses for putting tariffs or expelling companies. It's mercantilism, plain and simple. But because it is frowned upon to talk about mercantilism in this day and age, the US administration always covers its mercantilism with a thin veneer of market fairness and national security. Either that, or Canada is actually a national security threat to the US. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-aluminum-tariff-1.5677036 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-aluminum-tariff-1.567... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/politics/trump-national-security-tariffs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/politics/trump-nationa...
- briffle 6y ago
  In Telecom, Ericsson and T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom) are both VERY heavy players. Ericsson doesn't sell many phones, but tons of tower equipment. In IT, SAP is probably the largest competitor to Oracle for many companies Middleware.
- jorblumesea 6y ago
  While it's true that the US is backsliding in some agreements, this is mostly due to the current administration and unclear if this will continue. Historically, the US has mostly been a free market to both Europe and Canada, and hasn't enacted protectionist measures overall. The US allows European car companies to sell here despite having domestic production. Nestle, HSBC, Astra-Zeneca, Siemens, SAP, Ericsson...these are all companies that are titans in their respective industries and also have a large mostly dominant US presence. The level of US protectionism pales in comparison to what China engages in and it's hardly fair to compare the two. Obviously there are well sourced grievances but to compare China's protectionism to US protectionism isn't correct.
pinkfoot 6y ago
Up until a few months/weeks/days ago it didn't stop Chinese companies and people either. Which way do you think the trend points?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fvdessen 6y ago
The USA protects its market by letting monpolies grow and abuse their dominant positions unchecked. And when that is not sufficient we now know what happens; competitors are banned.
arcticbull 6y ago
> - Does the US prevent European people from finding work, moving to, and purchasing property in America? Yes, regularly, via extensive caps and quotas on visas. That has to be a trick question. As of last year if a European wanted to work in America they had to pony up $6K+ for a 1 in 3 chance in April of landing an H1B for a job that couldn’t start until September.

Enginerrrd 6y ago

I understand the US has it's issues. But the US isn't shoving millions of Uighurs into concentration camps, stealing intellectual property in state sponsored campaigns to prop up their own businesses, and preventing economic competition, etc. Even with the deep issues in the US right now, there's a clear winner in ideological morality that better aligns with the EU. The Chinese are stealing IP from EU companies just the same as American. China though also utilizes economic pressure on private companies to bypass political opposition and force their totalitarian ideologies on the rest of the world. Look at the censoring of the Taiwan flag, or blacklisting of companies endorsing the Hong Kong people's rights of independence, or their hardline stance on anything that even remotely offends their assertions of power. I honestly don't see how it's even a contest to you, even considering the US as it currently exists. (There are notable ideological problems there too, but they pale in comparison to China in their negative effects on the EU.)

laurentoget 6y ago
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a27813648/concentration-camps-southern-border-migrant-detention-facilities-trump/ https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a27813648/concentratio... on concentration camps, experts happen to differ with your opinion
- abstractbarista 6y ago
  Not even remotely the same scale as what China is doing. China has initiated Holocaust 2.0, and there's nothing that can be said to deny this.
  - greatpatton 6y ago
    "China has initiated Holocaust 2.0" Come one please, the US are responsible for the death of 400-800k people in Iraq, by that metric no US product should be available anywhere...
    - torstenvl 6y ago

bigpumpkin 6y ago

Yep. Why should Canada align with the US when the US just imposed a tariff on ~$8 billion of aluminum on National Security grounds: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/06/trump-says-he-signed-order-reimposing-10percent-aluminum-tariffs-on-canada.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/06/trump-says-he-signed-order-r...

pupdogg 6y ago
Tariffs aside, considering Canada is our neighbor and has roughly 68k active military personnel vs 1.28 million in US, it should most definitely align itself with US on national security grounds. I believe that if Canada was ever under threat from another state, that US would definitely step in to help. Also, this is apples-to-apples comparison because the total land area (to be protected) covered by each state is approx. equal (6 million square miles or 9.8 million square kilometers).

gruez 6y ago

>Now that the US has shown it can ban foreign tech companies if it's in their own interest, and all the moralizing talk about the free market has been exposed as the self-serving propaganda it has always been regardless of the administration's actual motivations[1], banning tiktok/wechat can be plausibly justified as retaliation for what china did. There's nothing contradictory or hypocritical about preaching the free market but also engaging in anti-free market in retaliation against non-reciprocating countries, just as there's nothing contradictory or hypocritical about preaching peace, but engaging in violence in retaliation against non-peaceful countries. [1] eg. some people speculate that trump wanted tiktok banned because people shared videos on there that embarrassed him

illustriousbear 6y ago

Genuinely surprised that Chinese shills / psyops are targetting HackerNews. Seeing a lot of comments like this one which follow the standard handbook response.

dang 6y ago
You can't post like this to HN. It's explicitly against the rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Such perceptions are overwhelmingly imaginary and made-up, if the data and evidence are to be trusted, and meanwhile comments like this poison discussion badly. If you have evidence of abuse, let us know at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. If you don't have evidence, please don't post insinuations of sinister spying and all the rest of it. Someone posting a comment you disagree with does not count as evidence. If you want more explanation, there's years' worth at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=astroturf%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... and https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=chin%20by%3Adang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a...

joey_bob 6y ago

> Now that the US has shown it can ban foreign tech companies if it's in their own interest, and all the moralizing talk about the free market has been exposed as the self-serving propaganda it has always been, what reason do be exactly have to keep playing this game where we are the biggest losers? One of the ideas behind the structure of our republic is that there can be peaceful changes in power between different governments. What I mean to say is that the US is not one person, not even the US government. So, the moralizing talk about the free market has not always been duplicitous as you seem to imply. The protectionist actions you see now are just taken by the current government, who even on its own, doesn’t seem to have harp on the need for a free market very much. This is especially true when you compare it to the last government that was backing the TPP, something that was promptly killed after the regime change. Otherwise I agree with your conclusion, European countries should chart their own way. Gotta watch those negative interest rates though, might be a little trickier in a closed economy.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
smolder 6y ago
I, for one, am glad the TPP is dead. We can have fair international trade without giving multinational corporations "the right to a business model" and letting them seek compensation from governments through tribunal over lost profits caused by changed laws. The TPP seemed absurd in that respect.

ebg13 6y ago

> Why "the entire western world"? As an European, why should we align with the US in this? That's some real cut-your-own-nose-off-to-spite-your-face territory. This is not aligning with the US. This is defending against China's policies that directly harm you and happen to also harm the US. The statement was "treat China exactly the same way China treats [you]". If you want to defend against the US too while you're at it, go ahead, but recognize what you just argued against here.

fermienrico 6y ago

Honestly, as an American, I would be totally fine with EU dominating US marketshare. Americans trust EU far more than any other conglomeration of countries. I hope that sentiment is the same amongst other Americans. There is far more overlap between US + EU + Switzerland + UK + Australia + NZ than there are differences. What I find dangerous is EU closing its doors and dismantling NATO, US collaboration and then fragmenting itself into dust. EU is already having a tough time keeping things together. During a time of extreme nationalism, we need to be more collaborative.