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.
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.
Because they are terrified that there will be unpredictable and turbulent times for the major industries?
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.
This article is just wrong about the facts. Doctorow says "Anticircumvention law originates in the USA", but anticircumvention law originates in the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which all EU members and all their major trade partners are signatory to. The DMCA was passed to 2 years after this treaty was signed to implement the American obligations under it.
> why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders...
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].
> 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].
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
I'm saying it won't get to that, because any European leader who even threatens such an action would face the threat of a no-confidence motion by a now well funded opposition.
True. Those who think they are being unfair just now, this is actually the fairest they've been since forever. Fairest in terms of arm twisting and other tactics being applied to everyone equally instead of being selective. Previously it was on the lines of the west and the rest, but now its just America and the rest.
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.
So, since there's a lot of talk like this, how are we leeches?
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.
Not to take away from the larger point, but the US remains a manufacturing juggernaut compared to anyone that isn't China. It's still the #2 manufacturing nation in the world and produces more than the EU as a whole. It's just become a small aspect of a much larger economy.
Yes, but I think the US industrial output is overvalued.
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.
I find this narrative in some corners of American politics fascinating because of how completely it misunderstands US power.
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.
As an American, that's not how any of this works. You've bought into foreign propaganda aimed at destroying the US's leadership position in the western world.
Takes century to bake biggest cake ever. Clown enters stage, applause. Clown throws cake to the ground. Audience waits for joke. Curtain falls. 38 trillion dollar bill for cake. Audience is the joke.
Maybe. I feel like I watched live on 4chan as Trump was presented as a joke and then true believers started posting as well. Maybe 4chan was documenting the phenomenon but it always felt like it willed it into existence like it did q-anon.
Fox News has never cared about Greenland, and was energetically anti-Trump during the 2016 primary, most of his 1st term, during the Biden presidency, and during the 2024 primary. They're almost fully in the bag for him right now, but hate tariffs.
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.
It's not about Fox News pushing the Greenland annexation bullshit, it's for everything else they did to be a mouthpiece to spread the "libs are bad!". These acts have a direct link to the power Trump amassed.
Refusing the Pentagon prrss requirements is a nothingburger when for the past 10-15 years it brainrotted a large cohort of the American population.
Even being the slimeballs they are, they all each knew how bad Trump was for their party and for our country. Yet one by one they kissed the ring and now we're expected to lick the boot.
See the recent news about Canada strengthening economic ties with China and welcoming them into their auto market. This wouldn’t have happened in a million years had it not been for US tariffs and hostilities towards Canada. America is truly uniting the world (against them).
The EU/Mercosur deal looks like it’s going to pass too. This move will only make it more likely. America first will become America alone pretty quickly.
I think this is the biggest indicator of permanent damage. The EU politicians aren't as impulsive and loud as the US, they won't do anything drastic when necessary changes take time to implement. They will buffer this hurt as much as they can, to cut their losses. However, the fact the trade deal now suddenly passed, after 20 years(?) of talk, points to a fundamental shift behind the scenes. Things are clearly in progress.
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.
> Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland would face the tariff and that it would climb to 25% on June 1 if a deal is not in place for “the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland” by the United States
Great point... Whichever country Donnie forgot to put on the list will become the country of import... This would not even require physical move of goods. What a joke this is....
I wish Europe would just push back. More than what they are currently. There is so much potential there, but somehow the EU all look at the US as some form of idealogical father figure. Excuse the hyperbolic-talk.
I don't think it is true. It's like saying "I wish those kids didn't let the bigger one bully them". The reason the bully is bullying is because he is in a position to do it.
The EU is being careful because the US are more powerful.
Trump has repeatedly backed off when he's challenged. It's happened time and time again. It's the reason TACO is a thing. The best strategy against him is to be relentless about pushing back, even if on paper the US is more powerful.
It seems you can also just lie to help him save face, like Canada did when it agreed it would adopt very strict border control policies to stop "drugs coming into the USA," and listed out steps that all were just existent Canadian laws and policies.
The problem that US generals have right now is that Trump has gotten the idea that the US (viz., he himself, in his mind) ought to literally own Greenland and he does know how real estate works. Treaties, mineral deals, guarantees for additional military bases that would mean de facto control over Greenland would work with a rational person. However, they won't work with someone who insists on buying or annexing a country to own its territory.
Yeah, another strategy is to just give him something he can claim as a W even if it's bullshit, or to glaze him enough. He's so hyperfixated on owning Greenland though, that I'm not sure those will work this time.
The problem is NATO, a lot of the EU is reluctant to push back because at the end of the day the US guarantees that Russia cannot pursue the type of landgrab it is currently trying to do in Ukraine against other states. The risk that the US runs into when trying to take Greenland is that this argument loses weight instantly, so the expectation is that the EU will be much more willing to use its anti coercion tools if Trump tries to make it a reality.
Russia already fails in Ukraine where they are fighting with our old junk, and the other EU States are kicking their defense industry in full gear. What makes you think they could win a full scale war against the EU
Russia don't have to be able to win a full-scale war against the EU for such a war to break out, it suffices that deterrence breaks down sufficiently that Russia get the idea they can get away with some land grab, e.g. in one of the Baltic countries.
The war in Ukraine illustrates very well the difference between perception and reality. Perception counts for deterrence.
The EU has a huge strategic problem because they let their own defenses and industry rot for decades and can't functionally stand alone against Russia, US pressure, and Chinese economic infiltration / industrial replacement at the same time. At least, not without great sacrifices the population isn't willing to make, like pension reform.
So they are playing gentle with the US because it's the least bad choice right now.
The EU is 450 million people! It's the size of the entire continent of south america! It was the richest part of the world for centuries! They absolutely should be able to function as an independent block with international trade for convenience and not survival.
That may actually be an advantage: position Europe as a neutral block that trades with everybody, and it may actually be valuable enough as a neutral that anytime one of those three has designs on it, the other two would naturally have to combine to thwart them.
It's like when every liberal scoffs at leftists opposing US imperialism, nothing about the power balance has changed. Europe was always a vassal of the empire. This is the liberal international order, this is what that means, not what they tell you it means, but what it actually means.
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.
The fact is that there is no potential there. Europe has no leverage over the US. It is not holding back anything, it has nothing.
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.
My impression as a European is that trust in the United States has now been burned, and that companies are slowly, but inexorably, completely rethinking their dependence on the U.S. I believe this is a process that is not reversible in the medium term.
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?
What's next? Will he stamp on the ground like a five year old? I mean, there's this treaty between the US and Denmark that they can build military bases etc.
“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.
It is wildly fascinating to experience, in real time, how fragile the US system is. Trump really did show that the US is built on the assumption that people in power will behave, basically a honor system. Trump is stress testing every single aspect of the US.
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.
Yeah those checks and balances that Yanks are always waxing poetic about have turned out to be basically horse shit. There are no checks and balances, they elect a king for 4 years and then hope for the best. That's the American system.
Also from the EU and I think the EU cannot back down here. The only way the US gets Greenland is if they seize it or the population votes for it. A tariff is just not going to make a difference and underlines to the EU how craven the US has become.
Europe cant afford to have enemies on both sides. It will align with the US reluctantly because even a bat shit crazy US is better than Russia. China plays it too close to the chest to be a friend.
I think Europe can handle Russia by itself quite well. The Baltics are vulnerable, but Poland will definitely kick Russia's butt in a military engagement. Poles will defend EU's eastern flank.
I expect Europe to distance itself from US. Let's see.
I don’t buy this at all. Russia is a relatively small economy with a tiny fraction of the EU population. The US is not going to launch a shooting war with Europe. Europe is not going to back down here. This Greenland thing is deeply unpopular in the US. It’s only a conflict because of one senile old man who will be dead soon.
Germany is used to that, and it never seemed to deter them in the past. Us has a hard time deploying lots of troops vs Europe. Shoulder and truck launched weaponry, 3 shifts, 7 days.
It will not align with the US if that means territorial losses. Russia is an economical lightweight that's causing a bit of a headache on the eastern border but for the EU looking weak would make things so much worse.
Fascist states get at least one free pass. For Germany it was Poland, for the USA I believe they're deciding between Venezuela and Greenland. Personally I think the better bet is Greenland because they can probably get Venezuela for free after since nobody cares about Venezuela. A "two in one deal" if you will, perhaps one of America's greatest inventions.
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
The Greenland situation is more like Germany annexing the Sudetenland (the border regions of Czechoslovakia) in 1938. And after that Hitler got his homeland Austria as another freebie. That's stretching the analogy a bit, but Venezuela might be Trump's Austria. His Poland would be something like Canada
A badge of honor. Although it's good to be cautious about retaliatory measures, it is perhaps time to think about imposing a digital services tax.
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.
Of course, the DST should be instated ASAP regardless of what the US does - not having one is completely absurd in this day and age, one needs domestic industry to survive as a country (or federation) and that doesn't happen with 0% tarriffs, which is what "no DST" is the equivalent of for tech.
They're too big of a market to have companies pull out over this. China has even worse conditions for foreign companies and everyone bends over backwards for a chance to sell there. Counter to popular sentiment in US tech circles, as of this year the EU is the world's second biggest economy (beating China to third place).
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.
Hopefully the supreme court comes to its senses and realize that if they don't stop the madness now, the American people are going back to king rule, and their legacy as well as survival of their institution has one big question mark on it.
As a American, given what the US is becoming now, also given that Denmark actually has reliable public healthcare and the US canceled it for its own people, Greenland is better off staying with Denmark than with the US. If Russia were to invade, NATO still holds.
This is about more oil mining, about Trump appeasing to his oil friends, considering Greenland very likely has a substantial quantity of it.
I don't think any oil execs are interested in this, just like they weren't interested in investing in Venezuela after Maduro's ouster (at least if you believe the Financial Times).
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."
I think he knows the end* is drawing near and he hasn't got long to cement his legacy in painting more of the map in his colours.
* '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...
In my personal life, I've learned the hard way that when people seem to be acting irrational with regard to an iterated game, before ascribing irrationality to them it can be very helpful to examine if they're short timers, acting rationally with regard to a game that won't be iterated.
So Trump doesn't like the fact that some European countries dare to oppose his dictat, so in response he's going to... raise the prices on US consumers?
He was actually asked about why he is even doing this nonsense by the NYT, since they can get Denmark already to agree on any new military bases (they already have one) or mineral extraction anyway:
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.
Just imagine the amount of lives that it will cost to carve him from his bloody throne and drag his supporters into deprogramming camps. It will only get more costly with each passing month.
Why didn't Russia think of that? They could have just placed tariffs on France, Germany, the UK, etc. if they don't facilitate Russia purchasing Ukraine for a price of their choice /s
Since the only thing Trump understands is force, I am looking forward to the retaliation from and military positioning of EU member states to defend Greenland. Perhaps it is what is needed to finally impeach.
7. If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.
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.
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?
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.
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
He already has. He's the reason Elisabeth Borne is no longer the PM [0]. And his rival Bolloré is the reason why the RN is at the cusp of power [1]
> we don't have the cancer that is fox news
Instead you have Canal+ and Vivendi who are now owned by Bolloré [2], who has been using the Fox News strategy as well [3]
[0] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/12/18/emmanu...
[1] - https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240627-how-the-french-m...
[2] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la...
[3] - https://rsf.org/fr/derri%C3%A8re-la-campagne-de-d%C3%A9sinfo...
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.
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...
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.
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.
The EU is being careful because the US are more powerful.
if the moron continues, we will go to the brink
The war in Ukraine illustrates very well the difference between perception and reality. Perception counts for deterrence.
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".
Who's the customer base of ASML? Are they predominantly based in Europe?
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?
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.
I expect Europe to distance itself from US. Let's see.
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
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.
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."
I'm not sure I have the stomach to know how deep it really goes.
* '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...
https://archive.ph/EhTNh
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.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/treaty/teu_2016/art_42/oj/eng