If you're getting tariffs anyway, why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders? Let French engineers sell jailbreaking hardware for iphones, or Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors.
Just look at the public opinion polls, EU citizens are ready to take on Americans and even the most pro-US countries are barely on the green in public opinion towards US. The problems is that the old guard, the establishment is fanatically pro-US and pro stability. Which means that the current politicians are in odds with what the public wants and eventually either the public will have to become pro-US again or the anti-US politicians will take stage. US Doing stuff like tariffs that can destabilize the stability folks can push things to much earlier.
It is sold by Israeli engineers for at least a decade and mostly bought by law enforcement.
> Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors
That infrastructure exists since year 2000. Called chiptuning tools, but it is usually done by Italians or Swiss. And specifically for John Deere we had some Ukrainian company, I don't remember exact name.
Sure, but it's a crime to provide these tools to people or instruct them how to bypass controls, is it not?
Furthermore one of HN users has this repo up https://github.com/bri3d/VW_Flash
It is doing what chip tunning companies are doing but in less polished package. If it is a crime, why is it still up?
Because that means we in the US may as well quasi-nationalize major European investments in the US like VW, Siemens, Saint-Gobains, OnSemi, NXP, Arm, and Nexperia and target European luxury cultural exports like Cognac (LVHM), Wine (LVMH), designer clothes (LVMH), designer purses (LVMH), and others like China did.
As a result, oligarchs like (eg.) Arnault (LVMH) would metaphorically slap Macron like they did on multiple occasions [0][1], and threaten to switch to supporting the RN. If they made Macron in 2017 [2], they can unmake him in 2026 [3].
It's the same story across Europe [4][5]. And any domestic capacity that could have remained within the EU is going to start leaving on January 27th [6].
Edit: can't reply
> how you get from IP law abrogation to 'quasi- nationalization'
IP Law protection is sacrosanct in any US trade deal, as we are a services exporter. If faced by actions like those mentioned above, we wouldn't be above retaliating.
This is why American tech companies successfully lobbied both the Biden and Trump administration to tamp down on any attempt on a Digital Services Tax by any country, such as with Canada [7] and the EU [8].
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arna...
[1] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2023/08/07/how-be...
[2] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-05/lvmh-s-ar...
[3] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la...
[4] - https://www.ft.com/content/9b3d057c-16cc-4ab9-93bb-ed82c9ca5...
[5] - https://www.ft.com/content/cc06031c-f4a9-45db-ba3a-a3a23404b...
[6] - https://www.euractiv.com/news/exclusive-eu-india-trade-deal-...
[7] - https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/06/can...
[8] - https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/-wyden-and-cra...
I'm not quite sure how you get from IP law abrogation to 'quasi-nationalization', care to explain your reasoning here ?
I don't think americans quite understand how much the population has shifted from being pro-USA to anti-USA
in the space of a year, as the orange cretin has been throwing his wrecking ball around
we don't have the cancer that is fox news
some billionaire who makes fancy handbags saying he's going to support a different political party will have zero impact on election results
Arnault already has. He's the reason Élisabeth Borne is no longer the PM [0] and why the billionaire tax failed [1]. And his rival Bolloré is the reason why the RN is at the cusp of power [2]
> we don't have the cancer that is fox news
Instead you have Vivendi and Canal+ who are now owned by Bolloré [3], who has been using the Murdoch/Fox News strategy as well [4].
[0] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/12/18/emmanu...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arna...
[2] - https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240627-how-the-french-m...
[3] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la...
[4] - https://rsf.org/fr/derri%C3%A8re-la-campagne-de-d%C3%A9sinfo...
all before the US went completely off the rails
even the AfD are now distancing themselves from the US regime
Oligarchs like Bolloré continued to support, collaborate, and disseminate pro-Putin and pro-Russia media [0][1][2] despite Macron's avowed support for Ukraine and Putin going "full retard".
In other cases, oligarchs like Arnault have been personal friends with Trump since the 1980s [3] and have co-invested in his personal businesses for decades.
They'll continue to collaborate with Trump as well due to personal, ideological [4] and financial [5] ties.
> even the AfD are now distancing themselves from the US regime
Yet their backer Dröpfer, who has had a history of support Thiel projects like Vance [6] and continues to maintain capital relations with Thiel [7].
Even in Poland, Tusk came out against sending troops to Greenland [8] due to political pressure from the American funded Polish right [9].
The reality is, the US, China, Russia, and increasingly even India view European states as easily pliable [10]
[0] - https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2025/03/08/les-medi...
[1] - https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2025/03/11/attaque-...
[2] - https://www.streetpress.com/sujet/1741019147-bollore-embauch...
[3] - https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/trump-e-arnault-antico-legam...
[4] - https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2025/03/03/comment-...
[5] - https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2025/03/14/l-administ...
[6] - https://www.ft.com/content/cb1cc264-84b9-40da-a484-ff897cd38...
[7] - https://www.sueddeutsche.de/projekte/artikel/politik/drohnen...
[8] - https://www.reuters.com/world/poland-will-not-send-soldiers-...
[9] - https://china-cee.eu/2026/01/15/poland-monthly-briefing-karo...
[10] - https://www.economist.com/china/2025/11/17/europe-sees-china...
As a Frenchman, I'm sure you are well aware of how in Vichy France, industry collaborated with the authoritarian regime via Comités d'organisation.
Humans are selfish and normal people cannot win against oligarchs. What else can we do.
Try continuing this line of thought instead of stopping at one novel half-thought. Perhaps there is something to the western world order that's worth defending?
As an American I will argue against my government's unilateral global adventurism all day long. That certainly doesn't mean that expanding the behavior is progress.
I'm sure there are many Americans who would oppose this adventurism. I'm not sure whether that's because they believe its just a bad strategy to continue the status quo or because its just plainly a wrong way to treat other nations by force.
> That certainly doesn't mean that expanding the behavior is progress.
I don't mean it as progress. Its a regression but I hope there's a silver-lining at the end of all this for everyone.
A tale as old as time, for those who have even the slightest education in history.
If anything, surely it's the Americans who are leeches, what with the fact that they're living off software exports and monopolies as opposed to production of actual useful goods?
Do you think we didn't invest in our defence? Here in Sweden we put in 5% of GDP until the Soviet Union dissolved. It was pro-US politicians like Carl Bildt, a man who associated with US intelligence, who reduced defence spending. We had nuclear weapons and refrained from assembling them on a US request in return for being under your nuclear umbrella.
The US has a very small value of total exports, and this lead me to assume that the goods it makes a lot of are not always competitive on the international market even though they sell for a great deal in the US.
Hegemony isn't charity. It's expensive. What the US gains is an invitation to exert power all over the world from bases and ports within countries playing a willing role in the US position. It gains the US dollar as the reserve currency and petro-currency of the world. In particular, without the world accepting the US dollar as the reserve currency, the US's ability to maintain a large budget deficit evaporates.
To gain this sort of power without invitation and strong alliances built on shared understanding and trust will cost the US much, much more in the longer term.
What has happened to the US...
They willed into existence the propaganda that had been bathing them since birth.
But even now, Fox News refused to sign on to the new Pentagon press pass requirements, and gave up their access.
Important things are going on. It's not good to mindlessly repeat tropes; we have to actually engage with the world as it is.
Refusing the Pentagon prrss requirements is a nothingburger when for the past 10-15 years it brainrotted a large cohort of the American population.
WTF Americans. We will do anything to just be chill with this crap. I don't know about you, but in school when I was lazy and waited for the last minute and did my work purely out of pressure I did not, in fact, do better work, and got worse outcomes (a worse grade than I normally got).
I presume, it's the lack of opposition and outrage. Americans letting it happen. It's evident, there is no waiting this out. Today it's Trump, tomorrow it's Vance or whatever lunatic. 38 trillion debt, but nothing to show for it, foreign assets abandoned, power projection crumbling and spread thin. Things are expected to get unstable. The US will never be trusted or even respected again, not any time soon.
not until the US fundamentally changes its political system such that this type of capture can't happen again
which short of a civil war, I can't see happening
I expect Europe to distance itself from US. Let's see.
And now with huge hard right turn in europe all those “nationalists” will just bend over even more to get US lobby money and consulting contracts. They are already tied to national oligarchs so they welcome Trump and will likely sell off Ukraine to get “peace” and slowely dismantle EU. The aim is that every country will follow hungary and slovakia - corrupted, weak and undemocratic.
Venezuela was already a target, Panama was already conquered, and I'm sure Greenland was in plans already.
Well, Europe effectively has enemies on both sides right now.
Edit: I meant to write Austria but am so used to writing "German invasion of Poland" that that's what came out of the thumbs
It was clear very early on that Germany was being led by a violent bully, so past a certain point appeasement wasn't a blank check, but was instead intended to buy time to spin up war industries.
The EU is being careful because the US are more powerful.
The war in Ukraine illustrates very well the difference between perception and reality. Perception counts for deterrence.
I am sorry to say that we (Europeans) increasingly do not believe that the US would help us.
So they are playing gentle with the US because it's the least bad choice right now.
No country in the world can do that. That's not a consequence of 'they let their own defenses and industry rot for decades'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_international_order
That's why they can kidnap Maduro, have the BBC censor the word "kidnapped" in their reporting on it. Have every European politician applaud it, point to Maduros case against him at the ICC and have Netanyahu fly over France. You can't do anything about Greenland, the same way you can't do anything when he comes for Norways state-owned extraction industry next. Liberals can scream hypocrisy tears all they want, this is the world they built. The empire is coming home.
Somehow when the US went to war with Russia, it ended up completing the conquest of Europe. Europe used to just be stagnant. Now it is stagnant and isolated from everywhere except the US, and the US treats it accordingly.
- ASML
- Nukes
- Large proportion of US bonds
- One of the wealthiest and most profitable markets in the world
- The world's largest trade network - currently aggressively expanding into LatAm with the Mercosur deal despite Trump's Monroe 2.0 ambitions.
Just a few off the the top of my head. There's plenty leverage there.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/techland/asml-gives-europe...
Although the articles also claims that "ASML has already started to reduce its dependence on American technology".
---
I don't follow, how exactly does the investment into a French AI startup reduce ASML's "dependence on American technology"? Is it a supply-chain dependence, or a revenue-making dependence?
Trump, like any politician, will sooner or later pass. How many institutional reforms will the United States have to undertake, and how long will it take before the world trusts them again?
"The U.S. has such a free hand in Greenland that it can pretty much do what it wants," said Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/world/europe/trump-greenl...
So what's the point? The guy in charge just can't ask nicely?
EDIT: I think the treaty is this one from 1951 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/den001.asp
Security is not an actual concern (or we would, you know, station people there to provide security). Trump wants to be remembered, and adding a bunch of land is traditionally the way people he admires (like Putin) try to do that. It's all ego.
He's dousing the US with gasoline, and fumbling around with matches. The people around him, knee deep in gas, are too afraid to take the matches from him.
In so many other countries, Trump would face a no confidence vote. Snap elections.
That being said, it's quite weird that these tariffs are imposed only on some EU countries (plus UK). How could that possibly work? EU companies can just export goods via other EU countries.
how I believe the tripwire would legally work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46634146
When we look back in a few years and ask the question: who actually got to pay for the Epstein crimes and coverups, we come to the surprising answer it is the Greenlandes and other innocent societies that got ripped apart by this maniac and his supporters.
* 'end' being anything from nature's course, to losing the support of his own inner core as they jostle for succession, upcoming midterms leading to impeachment...
This is about more oil mining, about Trump appeasing to his oil friends, considering Greenland very likely has a substantial quantity of it.
Rather these invasions appear to be the pet projects of neo-imperialist advisors in the government who see national growth as a zero sum game, a Starcraft-esque race for a finite set of resources where powerful countries can generate wealth only by using their power to steal from others. In Steven Miller's own words: "[The world] is governed by force, [is] governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time."
David E. Sanger:
Why is ownership important here?
President Trump:
Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document, that you can have a base.
Katie Rogers
Psychologically important to you or to the United States?
President Trump
Psychologically important for me. Now, maybe another president would feel differently, but so far I’ve been right about everything.
Not surprising given how Trump and the fascist MAGA crowd acts.
The UK are in a precarious spot though due to not being inside the EU single market and are forced to find their own way out with a much weaker hand.
Brexit forever and ever coming back to haunt the UK.