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'There Is No Going Back': The Inside Story of Europe's Rupture with America

70 points by Alien1Being 3mo ago

shmeeed 3mo ago
http://archive.today/Ujf4C http://archive.today/Ujf4C
lateralux 3mo ago
Europe is finally breaking with America ? At least this time, nobody has to try invading France first ^^
- speedgoose 3mo ago
  I am not sure I understand the logic. What historical events are you referring to?
HarHarVeryFunny 3mo ago
Trust is slow to build, quick to destroy. It wouldn't make any strategic sense for Europe to wait it out and see what happens next, and no doubt it has been a wake-up call to see how quickly the US can pivot from friend to adversary. Once Europe has severed reliance on US, then it is hard to see them reverting.
josefritzishere 3mo ago
This was directly caused by a US regime which can only operate transactionally and cannot itself be trusted. Trust is highly perishable.
- Supermancho 3mo ago
  I think this is overly simplistic. Trump 2.0 was certainly the catalyzing event, but the issue is one of US political failure. Europe could have forgiven a corrupt regime that had an opportunity to be changed out, and was, when it became destructive to European interests. However, there is no recourse today. The US political system has demonstrated that it's corruptible and toothless in the face of authoritarian overreach, regardless of the systemic support that had to be in place for the administration to be so effectively destructive. This is the issue that is irreversible, in the long term. An authoritarian will rise again in the US, sooner rather than later.
everdrive 3mo ago
We're paying a very high cost, but it's not something that regular Americans will notice in their day-to-day lives, which will likely mean that perception of the problem will continue to fall across ideological lines. Either way, we're in an age of decline and fracture.
twirlip 3mo ago
So Putin's failure in Ukraine is balanced by his wild success in the US. The eye-watering corruption of Trump and the Republican Party has irreversibly damaged relations with the democratic allies of the US.
- kidfiji 3mo ago
  Well it's surely not only his doing
  - mindslight 3mo ago
    The way I see it is that reactionary media ecosystem made an industry out of hating the United States (for all the ways it failed to live up to conservative values), motivated by corporate entrenched interests wanting to hamstring the government so they themselves could occupy the power vacuum. But then as more and more USD-savings accrued outside of the US, that ecosystem was bought into and augmented by foreign hostile powers whose goals mostly align with the corporations. Meanwhile the executives and managers in that media ecosystem have suffered the same bureaucratic-spreadsheet clock-punching decline as other industries, leading to a tail-wags-the-dog situation where they don't know what actually putting America first might even look like.
david422 3mo ago
I think the silver lining here is that decentralizing power from America is a good thing, for the world, long term.
- baron3dl 3mo ago
  It will be interesting to see if Pax Europa can hold, or if the continent will return to its historically consistent belligerence.
  - GuB-42 3mo ago
    Hopefully, Europe has learned its lesson. The way it was handled post-WW2 is pointing in the right direction. WW2 was the direct result of that "historically consistent belligerence". Simplified history: lots of tension in Europe -> WW1 -> screw you Germany, we won -> Hitler: we are not having it! -> Germans: that's the guy we need! -> Oops -> WW2. That why they did it differently post-WW2, focusing more on international collaboration (and a little indoctrination, you don't want to miss an opportunity do you?). Also, Europe is not the center of the world anymore, they have better things to do than infighting.
    - paleotrope 3mo ago
      History doesn't stop. Majority Muslim states in Europe might have different priorities.
- bryanlarsen 3mo ago
  If I had to pick a global hegemon, America is probably a better choice than most. But "no global hegemon" seems even better. The last 80 years have been exceptionally peaceful compared to the rest of history, so I hope it continues despite America's loss of hegemon status.
  - chwtutha 3mo ago
    I think looking back at history we’d generally find that the most peaceful periods coincided with there being the strongest, fewest hegemons
petcat 3mo ago
I think the biggest issue is that Europe and the EU has gotten themselves into a position where they don't actually offer much anymore except a pretty good middle class consumer market. They've put themselves into a place where they are just very easy to squeeze, which is what is happening from all sides by Russia, China, and the US. Trump's antics have accelerated that position, and maybe they weren't expecting it from USA, but it was probably inevitable given their long term trajectory.
paulsutter 3mo ago
From the article: > The new year was only three weeks old and President Trump, after removing Venezuela’s autocratic strongman, had briefly threatened to seize Greenland from Denmark. Did Trump threaten to seize Greenland? The WSJ links to an article with the quotes below. The quotes reflect sheer buffoonery (as expected), but so far I haven't seen the threat to seize Greenland. This seems to be the consensus, but its not clear to me that it happened. From the linked article: > During an hourlong speech at the World Economic Forum, the U.S. president said he wouldn’t deploy the military to take control of Greenland. > It was a stark shift in tone for Trump, who just days earlier had declined to rule out using the military to secure ownership of Greenland and posted an image online of the territory with an American flag plastered across it. > “I don’t have to use force,” he said. “I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.” > “We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it,” Trump said of his desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no, and we will remember.”
- mindslight 3mo ago
  From the very quote you pasted: >> It was a stark shift in tone for Trump, who just days earlier had declined to rule out using the military to secure ownership of Greenland So the problem seems to be your reading comprehension. It seems like you're focusing on the things you want to hear from this double-talking conman, while forgetting all of the things he's said that you don't want to have heard. (and preemptively, I don't want to hear some rationalization how declining to repudiate something is technically different than endorsing it. A statesman should project stability by reaffirming shared values, this addled buffoon does the exact opposite)
  - paulsutter 3mo ago
    I agree that Trump is a terrible statesman! Also a buffoon, cad, lout, charlatan, and swindler. But apparently he never threatened to invade Greenland (assuming thats the best evidence you have) I'm a member of the grey tribe, and very disappointed with "both" factions right now.
WarmWash 3mo ago
The (ten) trillion dollar question is if Euro nations are going to foster fertile grounds for domestic American/Chinese competitor companies to grow, and at this point, grow rapidly. The second question is if this will be done jointly, or if old lines will come back over not wanting to be encumbered with "dead weight" in the need to move fast.
- iib 3mo ago
  If by dead-weight you mean the two speed Europe, I don't think that's possible. That weight is what makes the EU such a large market.
- alephnerd 3mo ago
  This is the issue. Both the US and China [0][1][2] are playing hardball against the EU because we both view the EU as a junior partner and tend to negotiate with individual states bilaterally. I think a lot of Europeans also don't realize that a large swathe of Chinese decisionmakers and policymakers studied in the US since the 1980s, and they tend to think and operate in the American manner as well. [0] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1361926.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1361926.shtml [1] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1362161.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1362161.shtml [2] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202606/1364526.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202606/1364526.shtml
- jcfrei 3mo ago
  No to both in my opinion. The EU market is in reality still heavily fractured - especially in the services sector. A Hungarian construction company for example can't just easily build a bridge for a town in Italy. With Europe steadily getting older effective reforms become near impossible - especially those that would lead to large changes for workers. So Europe will forever stay in this semi broken / semi integrated state - and much higher trade barriers towards China and the US seem much more likely to me than a more competitive Europe.
- holowoodman 3mo ago
  Old lines were never gone. All the talk about Europeans finally doing a common thing always carry some footnotes like "the Republic of France reserves the right to deviate in matters of military, security and production of sparkling wines and demands a 45% part in all tenders". Trump just needs to threaten champagne tax and France will surrender, or car tax and Germany will. Absent outside pressure, it is even worse. European treaties consist of more national exceptions than commonalities.
cmiles8 3mo ago
The challenge for Europe is if it can actually deliver. It’s been highly dependent on the US economically, technically, militarily and otherwise for decades. Posturing on sovereignty has ramped up again but it’s not fundamentally new. A lot of folks would take Europe more seriously if there was more substance behind the talk. If it wants to replace US tech it needs to be competitive with US tech. Today it’s light years off. The US has its own challenges, but it’s ability to unite as a country of independent states is something that Europe is unlikely to match anytime soon and that has a direct impact on the ability to execute everything Europe is posturing about.
- everybodyknows 3mo ago
  For any Europeans who've been tracking the issue: How much take-up have Mario Draghi's ideas for business reform gotten? From 2024: https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/draghi-report_en https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/draghi-r...
  - CalRobert 3mo ago
    As far as I’m aware a lot of noise was made about a 28th Regime “eu-inc” and not much happened. It’s still a pain in the ass to start a company in too many places (albeit not all).
  - alephnerd 3mo ago
    Draghi himself has said the EU hasn't taken the steps mentioned in the report, and that every challenge in the report has only gotten worse [0]. [0] - https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/business/20250916-mario-draghi-warns-europe-is-falling-further-behind-us-china-due-to-government-complacency https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/business/20250916-mario...
- glimmung 3mo ago
  It's hard for an addict to stop being dependant upon a dealer - not least because the dealer wants to maintain that dependency. We've been suckered, and fallen for it hard, but now that Trump has made it clear that the US will never again be a reliable partner, the scales are falling from even our leaders eyes. The headline has it right - there is no going back.
Herring 3mo ago
So many people have to get burned before they realize working with a rich sociopath is a bad idea.
patwork 3mo ago
Europe seems to have forgotten that influence is a function of power. The leaders in the article lament their ability to influence the US on policy, but what do they bring to the table to effect that influence? Military power? Economic power? Technical innovation? The only thing they have is a small amount of cultural power that they have used to shame and criticize while entirely relying on US protection.
- cmiles8 3mo ago
  The UK found this out the hard way after Brexit. When you go from sitting at the global table as Europe to being a relatively small island nation in the North Atlantic folks tend to negotiate with you differently.
- inamorty 3mo ago
  How did the recent excursion into the Middle East go for the US. How much power did project in the end?
  - patwork 3mo ago
    I'm not defending the US here. The Iran War is a good example of my point as well. Iran reminded the world of their bargaining chip - the strait of hormuz - that the world had either forgotten about or undervalued. I would like to see Europe have influence. I think it is good for the world. But no global power is going to give them that influence for free. They need to identify and exploit their competitive advantages. Cultural power is definitely one of those advantages, but wielding that power has actually lost them some of their influence in the US. Just like the US's use of military power also has consequences.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- tim333 3mo ago
  Europe isn't as bad as you might think. Though they may not be no.1 in military economic or innovation they are still quite strong. Ukraine is an example - when that oval office thing happened Trump thought he could cut aid to Ukraine and force it to surrender with a cut of the spoils to the US/him but Europe took over and since then have probably been doing better - I note Russia's largest refinery 2500 km from Ukraine blew up last night.
hsuduebc2 3mo ago
Why is everything today flagged? This is now considered to by the too much political?
tim333 3mo ago
>‘There Is No Going Back’ I figure there will be some going back when Trump goes. He's an unusual president.
tsoukase 3mo ago
Not much will be done: Europe will not manage to become sovereign and independent from the US. Things change slowly and a next Dep POTUS will come again closer to Europe. My opinion, not advice for investment.
M95D 3mo ago
US wants Greenland, Russia wants Ukraine, China wants Africa, etc. This reminds me of the intro to Fallout games, the one with "war, war never changes". The fight for the last of Earth's resources enters endgame phase.

70 points by Alien1Being 3mo ago

shmeeed 3mo ago

http://archive.today/Ujf4C http://archive.today/Ujf4C

lateralux 3mo ago

Europe is finally breaking with America ? At least this time, nobody has to try invading France first ^^

speedgoose 3mo ago
I am not sure I understand the logic. What historical events are you referring to?

HarHarVeryFunny 3mo ago

Trust is slow to build, quick to destroy. It wouldn't make any strategic sense for Europe to wait it out and see what happens next, and no doubt it has been a wake-up call to see how quickly the US can pivot from friend to adversary. Once Europe has severed reliance on US, then it is hard to see them reverting.

josefritzishere 3mo ago

This was directly caused by a US regime which can only operate transactionally and cannot itself be trusted. Trust is highly perishable.

Supermancho 3mo ago
I think this is overly simplistic. Trump 2.0 was certainly the catalyzing event, but the issue is one of US political failure. Europe could have forgiven a corrupt regime that had an opportunity to be changed out, and was, when it became destructive to European interests. However, there is no recourse today. The US political system has demonstrated that it's corruptible and toothless in the face of authoritarian overreach, regardless of the systemic support that had to be in place for the administration to be so effectively destructive. This is the issue that is irreversible, in the long term. An authoritarian will rise again in the US, sooner rather than later.

everdrive 3mo ago

We're paying a very high cost, but it's not something that regular Americans will notice in their day-to-day lives, which will likely mean that perception of the problem will continue to fall across ideological lines. Either way, we're in an age of decline and fracture.

twirlip 3mo ago

So Putin's failure in Ukraine is balanced by his wild success in the US. The eye-watering corruption of Trump and the Republican Party has irreversibly damaged relations with the democratic allies of the US.

kidfiji 3mo ago
Well it's surely not only his doing
- mindslight 3mo ago
  The way I see it is that reactionary media ecosystem made an industry out of hating the United States (for all the ways it failed to live up to conservative values), motivated by corporate entrenched interests wanting to hamstring the government so they themselves could occupy the power vacuum. But then as more and more USD-savings accrued outside of the US, that ecosystem was bought into and augmented by foreign hostile powers whose goals mostly align with the corporations. Meanwhile the executives and managers in that media ecosystem have suffered the same bureaucratic-spreadsheet clock-punching decline as other industries, leading to a tail-wags-the-dog situation where they don't know what actually putting America first might even look like.

david422 3mo ago

I think the silver lining here is that decentralizing power from America is a good thing, for the world, long term.

baron3dl 3mo ago
It will be interesting to see if Pax Europa can hold, or if the continent will return to its historically consistent belligerence.
- GuB-42 3mo ago
  Hopefully, Europe has learned its lesson. The way it was handled post-WW2 is pointing in the right direction. WW2 was the direct result of that "historically consistent belligerence". Simplified history: lots of tension in Europe -> WW1 -> screw you Germany, we won -> Hitler: we are not having it! -> Germans: that's the guy we need! -> Oops -> WW2. That why they did it differently post-WW2, focusing more on international collaboration (and a little indoctrination, you don't want to miss an opportunity do you?). Also, Europe is not the center of the world anymore, they have better things to do than infighting.
  - paleotrope 3mo ago
    History doesn't stop. Majority Muslim states in Europe might have different priorities.
bryanlarsen 3mo ago
If I had to pick a global hegemon, America is probably a better choice than most. But "no global hegemon" seems even better. The last 80 years have been exceptionally peaceful compared to the rest of history, so I hope it continues despite America's loss of hegemon status.
- chwtutha 3mo ago
  I think looking back at history we’d generally find that the most peaceful periods coincided with there being the strongest, fewest hegemons

petcat 3mo ago

I think the biggest issue is that Europe and the EU has gotten themselves into a position where they don't actually offer much anymore except a pretty good middle class consumer market. They've put themselves into a place where they are just very easy to squeeze, which is what is happening from all sides by Russia, China, and the US. Trump's antics have accelerated that position, and maybe they weren't expecting it from USA, but it was probably inevitable given their long term trajectory.

paulsutter 3mo ago

From the article: > The new year was only three weeks old and President Trump, after removing Venezuela’s autocratic strongman, had briefly threatened to seize Greenland from Denmark. Did Trump threaten to seize Greenland? The WSJ links to an article with the quotes below. The quotes reflect sheer buffoonery (as expected), but so far I haven't seen the threat to seize Greenland. This seems to be the consensus, but its not clear to me that it happened. From the linked article: > During an hourlong speech at the World Economic Forum, the U.S. president said he wouldn’t deploy the military to take control of Greenland. > It was a stark shift in tone for Trump, who just days earlier had declined to rule out using the military to secure ownership of Greenland and posted an image online of the territory with an American flag plastered across it. > “I don’t have to use force,” he said. “I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.” > “We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it,” Trump said of his desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no, and we will remember.”

mindslight 3mo ago
From the very quote you pasted: >> It was a stark shift in tone for Trump, who just days earlier had declined to rule out using the military to secure ownership of Greenland So the problem seems to be your reading comprehension. It seems like you're focusing on the things you want to hear from this double-talking conman, while forgetting all of the things he's said that you don't want to have heard. (and preemptively, I don't want to hear some rationalization how declining to repudiate something is technically different than endorsing it. A statesman should project stability by reaffirming shared values, this addled buffoon does the exact opposite)
- paulsutter 3mo ago
  I agree that Trump is a terrible statesman! Also a buffoon, cad, lout, charlatan, and swindler. But apparently he never threatened to invade Greenland (assuming thats the best evidence you have) I'm a member of the grey tribe, and very disappointed with "both" factions right now.

WarmWash 3mo ago

The (ten) trillion dollar question is if Euro nations are going to foster fertile grounds for domestic American/Chinese competitor companies to grow, and at this point, grow rapidly. The second question is if this will be done jointly, or if old lines will come back over not wanting to be encumbered with "dead weight" in the need to move fast.

iib 3mo ago
If by dead-weight you mean the two speed Europe, I don't think that's possible. That weight is what makes the EU such a large market.
alephnerd 3mo ago
This is the issue. Both the US and China [0][1][2] are playing hardball against the EU because we both view the EU as a junior partner and tend to negotiate with individual states bilaterally. I think a lot of Europeans also don't realize that a large swathe of Chinese decisionmakers and policymakers studied in the US since the 1980s, and they tend to think and operate in the American manner as well. [0] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1361926.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1361926.shtml [1] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1362161.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1362161.shtml [2] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202606/1364526.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202606/1364526.shtml
jcfrei 3mo ago
No to both in my opinion. The EU market is in reality still heavily fractured - especially in the services sector. A Hungarian construction company for example can't just easily build a bridge for a town in Italy. With Europe steadily getting older effective reforms become near impossible - especially those that would lead to large changes for workers. So Europe will forever stay in this semi broken / semi integrated state - and much higher trade barriers towards China and the US seem much more likely to me than a more competitive Europe.
holowoodman 3mo ago
Old lines were never gone. All the talk about Europeans finally doing a common thing always carry some footnotes like "the Republic of France reserves the right to deviate in matters of military, security and production of sparkling wines and demands a 45% part in all tenders". Trump just needs to threaten champagne tax and France will surrender, or car tax and Germany will. Absent outside pressure, it is even worse. European treaties consist of more national exceptions than commonalities.

cmiles8 3mo ago

The challenge for Europe is if it can actually deliver. It’s been highly dependent on the US economically, technically, militarily and otherwise for decades. Posturing on sovereignty has ramped up again but it’s not fundamentally new. A lot of folks would take Europe more seriously if there was more substance behind the talk. If it wants to replace US tech it needs to be competitive with US tech. Today it’s light years off. The US has its own challenges, but it’s ability to unite as a country of independent states is something that Europe is unlikely to match anytime soon and that has a direct impact on the ability to execute everything Europe is posturing about.

everybodyknows 3mo ago
For any Europeans who've been tracking the issue: How much take-up have Mario Draghi's ideas for business reform gotten? From 2024: https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/draghi-report_en https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/draghi-r...
- CalRobert 3mo ago
  As far as I’m aware a lot of noise was made about a 28th Regime “eu-inc” and not much happened. It’s still a pain in the ass to start a company in too many places (albeit not all).
- alephnerd 3mo ago
  Draghi himself has said the EU hasn't taken the steps mentioned in the report, and that every challenge in the report has only gotten worse [0]. [0] - https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/business/20250916-mario-draghi-warns-europe-is-falling-further-behind-us-china-due-to-government-complacency https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/business/20250916-mario...
glimmung 3mo ago
It's hard for an addict to stop being dependant upon a dealer - not least because the dealer wants to maintain that dependency. We've been suckered, and fallen for it hard, but now that Trump has made it clear that the US will never again be a reliable partner, the scales are falling from even our leaders eyes. The headline has it right - there is no going back.

Herring 3mo ago

So many people have to get burned before they realize working with a rich sociopath is a bad idea.

patwork 3mo ago

Europe seems to have forgotten that influence is a function of power. The leaders in the article lament their ability to influence the US on policy, but what do they bring to the table to effect that influence? Military power? Economic power? Technical innovation? The only thing they have is a small amount of cultural power that they have used to shame and criticize while entirely relying on US protection.

cmiles8 3mo ago
The UK found this out the hard way after Brexit. When you go from sitting at the global table as Europe to being a relatively small island nation in the North Atlantic folks tend to negotiate with you differently.
inamorty 3mo ago
How did the recent excursion into the Middle East go for the US. How much power did project in the end?
- patwork 3mo ago
  I'm not defending the US here. The Iran War is a good example of my point as well. Iran reminded the world of their bargaining chip - the strait of hormuz - that the world had either forgotten about or undervalued. I would like to see Europe have influence. I think it is good for the world. But no global power is going to give them that influence for free. They need to identify and exploit their competitive advantages. Cultural power is definitely one of those advantages, but wielding that power has actually lost them some of their influence in the US. Just like the US's use of military power also has consequences.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
tim333 3mo ago
Europe isn't as bad as you might think. Though they may not be no.1 in military economic or innovation they are still quite strong. Ukraine is an example - when that oval office thing happened Trump thought he could cut aid to Ukraine and force it to surrender with a cut of the spoils to the US/him but Europe took over and since then have probably been doing better - I note Russia's largest refinery 2500 km from Ukraine blew up last night.

hsuduebc2 3mo ago

Why is everything today flagged? This is now considered to by the too much political?

tim333 3mo ago

>‘There Is No Going Back’ I figure there will be some going back when Trump goes. He's an unusual president.

tsoukase 3mo ago

Not much will be done: Europe will not manage to become sovereign and independent from the US. Things change slowly and a next Dep POTUS will come again closer to Europe. My opinion, not advice for investment.

M95D 3mo ago

US wants Greenland, Russia wants Ukraine, China wants Africa, etc. This reminds me of the intro to Fallout games, the one with "war, war never changes". The fight for the last of Earth's resources enters endgame phase.