Europe

almost every sphere in which the EU feels inferior to the US boils down to a willingness to spend – or not. The EU is jealous of the US’s big tech firms, but there is no secret sauce here beyond investment. Take space for example, where, again, the US is dominant. How could it be anything other when Nasa’s 2023 budget was $25bn and the European Space Agency’s was €7bn?

This is true.

That said I think the counterintuitive action by the EU governing bodies (contradicting what voters want) might be driven by established European capitalist interests who have sizeable business relationships with the US and whose profits would be hurt if the EU is to retaliate.

Because neoliberals get weak in the knees when fascists look at them.

In this new era, Russia, China and the US all want a return to spheres of influence and the rule of power in place of the rule of law, just with varying appetites for chaos (Russia) versus stability (China)

It's been really annoying seeing Europeans lament the death of so-called international rule of law when, like, seriously? Tell me again how America doesn't consider Latin America and the Middle East its sphere of influence that it gets to do whatever it wants with? Can y'all stop using "rule of law" to mean "good things for white people"?

Europe-based economic activity is among the least carbon-intensive in the world;

Isn't part/most of this that Europe simply exported the carbon-intensive stuff abroad? Not exactly a success story IMO.

I think the greatest concession made was that von der Leyen allowed Trump to frame this as a great victory for him. He has a fragile ego and always needs to look good. She is a much more diplomatic politician and allowed him to appear victorious. But the actual, realistic concessions are pretty limited.

I thought this was a pretty convincing argument why it's not as bad for Europe as it looks https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sundown-on-the-potemkin-empire-trumps

There is a strong body of research regarding the U.S. tariffs conundrum in the meantime (including here in this comm as I just read) revealing that Trump hurts the U.S. more than any other country or region. (And the EU is indeed the least carbon-intensive economy globally due its environmental laws that - as much as we need to improve also here- are stronger than anywhere else in the world.)

Op-eds like this one are being written these days on a daily basis, but they are exaggerated. The EU could maybe retaliate more (would this hurt the European economy as U.S. tariffs do in the U.S.?), but I wouldn't say it is 'cowering'. The Florida man says something every day, and it wouldn't make sense imo to 'bully back.' Economic forecasts for the U.S. are much worse than Trump and these op-eds make it seem.

[Edit typo.]

EU have no hardware that can handle consumer mobile / computing. Whole world is fucked by those monopolies to be honest.

Or maybe, the hole "deal" is just for show and meaningless anyways: https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5435369-the-numbers-in-trumps-eu-trade-deal-are-a-joke/

Because they are playing 4D chess against a checkers player.

Because they hope to keep Trump in a boat against Russia, I find that very obvious.

I think the underlying, but mostly unspoken, fear is that you have a mad man with nukes.

Because the Germans will stop at nothing to sell their fucking cars, and that's the main driving force behind European diplomacy.

This is overlooking an important point: German national politics and the direct connection the EU commission has to it.

Ursula von der Leyen, while not a strong party ally of Friedrich Merz, is still trying to prop up the incredibly weak current coalition, as the alternative would be significantly worse.

The US tarriffs hit the German export industry especially hard, while the rest of Europe is relatively unaffected by them. With the German car industry already struggling (slept on electric and China isn't buying anymore), a 30% tarriff would effectively force them to downsize significantly and likely merge or kill off one of the big three entirely. This would be a huge political deal in Germany and likely kill the current coalition.