I mostly agree. Europe’s biggest weakness is that many nations still carry grudges against each other, rooted in hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of years of conflict. These old prejudices usually only get pushed aside when there is a serious external threat, such as the ever present possibility of a devastating war on the continent.
The US has a much more unified culture, enormous scale, and a geographically protected position, with access to vast resources. Europe has the technical talent, but much of its technology has often been bought by US firms, partly because VC funding is far weaker here. I think that is largely cultural.
At the same time, Europeans were sold the idea that the US is their friend. It is an ally, but not a friend, and that distinction matters. Now that illusion has started to break, there is finally an incentive to change.
If the EU becomes strategically protectionist in the same way the US already is, for example by preventing key IT companies from being sold overseas, it could gradually move critical infrastructure back under European control. It can do this partly by copying already proven solutions, such as AWS. Of course, this would not be easy, but Europe does not need to spend billions discovering a completely new product category from scratch. The models already exist.
Surely the first problem I mentioned will be the biggest obstacle for all of this as it is for everything. We will see what happens, but at least something has started to move.
European's should unironically thanks the hollow head currently leading US, because he simply didn't understand that European dependence on US is a weapon, not a burder.