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EU isn’t governed by the china communist party, the only way to stop being reliant to US is to stop trade with US and the cost of it will be enormous. Trump nee
by mrtksn 5mo ago
EU isn’t governed by the china communist party, the only way to stop being reliant to US is to stop trade with US and the cost of it will be enormous. Trump needs to create such a high political risk that the economic damage be justified.
He definitely did a lot to help, but the damage needs to be irreparable so that business can feel safe from US competition. He needs to do do something so outrageous that Germany would not mind losing the US car market for example.
- tjwebbnorfolk 5mo agoI think one could argue that he tried this "the easy way" in his first term. He vented against Nord Stream with NATO, he vented against the regulations and the energy dependence and closing the nuke reactors. But he didn't actually do anything about it. The difference now is that he's turning the screws and putting the pressure on. Call this "the hard way". I can understand why EU leaders do not like this one bit. But also, they had their chance...
- mrtksn 5mo agoThe Nord Stream is epic but he didn't argue for independence, he is arguing for US-dependence instead of Russia-dependence so this isn't flying as well as Americans believe it is because that was actually German issue, not EU wide thing at all. EU wide policy was renewables and as it turns out they are the right direction for independence. In general, local governments are very unpopular in EU and Europe, everyone likes EU more than they like their governments.
- tjwebbnorfolk 5mo agoHe's been yelling at the UK to tap the North Sea fields forever, and for Germany not to mothball their nuke reactors. How is that adding dependence on the US?