US tells France and Germany to release diesel stocks or face US export ban | Hacker News Reader

US tells France and Germany to release diesel stocks or face US export ban

reuters.com

99 pointsgeox154 comments

In France, we see a move to buy second hand EV, which up to now were a very hard sell on the car market. When a liter of petrol costs up to €2.3, it is pretty obvious that people will think twice in keeping their thermic car any longer.

Diesel can even cost 3 €.

Also, 50 000 "leasing social" cars will soon appear on the 2nd hand market.

Probably harder to set on fire outside schools as well.

No need, they burst into flames on their own.

https://motorweek.org/this-just-in/how-common-are-electric-v...

Entirely off-topic, but in British english the usual term would be combustion vehicle, or more commonly just Petrol/Diesel.

A thermic vehicle sounds delightfully whimsical to my ear, like some sort of victorian steam car.

For some reason the form thermic is almost never used in English, instead preferring Thermal with only one exception I'm aware of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lance

I've also seen them described as ICE cars (internal combustion engine)

Also "oil-timer".

I love this one. I usually say “dinosaur-burner” (though really oil and natgas were overwhelmingly made from algae).

And every time you want to get angry at the petroleum companies remember that they saved the whales.

> A thermic vehicle sounds delightfully whimsical to my ear, like some sort of victorian steam car.

For me it's something involving aluminum and iron oxide powder. Probably where the term hot-rod came from.

I'm always a little surprised that France never took the next step of the Messmer plan by electrifying road transport earlier. But I suppose it's so contingent on the 21st century battery tech.

Even 20 years ago batteries were advancing at a plodding pace. Things were just changing enough that you could build a smart phone, but battery life was by today’s standards low and charger anxiety was a real issue.

Nowadays I rarely carry a charger. On the either hand I am carrying several devices that are right on the knife edge of catching fire at any time

I’m honestly amazed airlines have not outright banned power banks given the risks. Like the Samsung Note that had a propensity for fires, and power banks seem universally less rigorously engineered.

I think people would just pack them into their checked luggage, where a fire could be much more dangerous.

Which is why, as you imply, that such things be in carry-ons. But, man, just ban power banks outright? Outright bans won't fly, but the power banks will.

They carry containment bags https://youtu.be/idvBhhIt--c

I guess they'd lose customers if they banned Li batteries as almost everyone seems to carry them.

They do seem to have limits on their capacity.

In a recent study done in Sweden on the request of the government, fuel cost does indeed have a major impact of purchasing choice of new cars. Even short term variation has a fairly large impact, in contrast to fuel consumption which does not change significant from variation in fuel costs.

I doubt however that it will change how long people will keep existing working cars. Depreciation cost of a new electric car is likely going to be higher than the increased cost of fuel for an older car.

I can’t recall ever seeing the word “thermic” used to refer to internal combustion engine powered vehicles. Cool. [adds it to vocabulary]

Praise the gods it's not "acoustic" cars yet :)

History will remember this administration as a traitor to Europe and its values. Right when the US needs allies.

> History will remember this administration as a traitor to Europe and its values. Right when the US needs allies.

Time fixes everything. Give it a few generations and the world will be inhibited by new humans who will carry on doing what life demands of them, unfazed by today's events.

Wait, this is not true? Tell me that Germany is no longer involved in world economics because of the events in the 1940's. Or the Usa in 45, or Mongolia terroritial claims during the Khan era, or any other world event in the past that is no longer relevant.

Please elaborate.

It's true on the relationship between states while social effects linger for much longer. For example: there's still plenty of animosity from Polish people towards Germans, not in a violent way but more as a priori background distrust of German actions, any perceived transgression has a much bigger backlash than towards other nations due to history passed down by generations of people telling each other about the horrors their ancestors suffered.

It's the kind of thing that takes centuries to fizzle out, like between Denmark and Sweden, after 200-300 years the wars waged before that are mere historical artefacts used for jesting. If Denmark had been on the Axis-side willingly and tried to invade Sweden in the 1940s this would be a completely different relationship.

So yes, people will overcome historical grievances but it might take many generations, for us living right now it might not ever happen before we are dead.

Are you arguing with your own post and asking yourself to elaborate?

Please elaborate.

If you think the USA will ever be trusted again as they were post-1945, you are very sadly mistaken.

Maybe some trust will be restored in a generations time, but there is no going back to the post-1945 hegemony which saw the USA, and the westen world, all benefit so much.

> If you think the USA will ever be trusted again as they were post-1945, you are very sadly mistaken.

> Maybe some trust will be restored in a generations time, but there is no going back to the post-1945 hegemony which saw the USA, and the westen world, all benefit so much.

That's exactly the point. No amount of emotion today will persist the tests of time. You, as an ordinary inhabitant of the planet, like everyone else alive for the next 5 generations, will not exist on this planet anymore.

There is 0 chance that the opinion of "x country will never be trusted again" will occur as there is absolutely no control over the world you won't live in, nor have any significance of the elements involving discussions between countries happening today.

Those in charge at that time, who desire to achieve something, will.

Keep living the dream though, a few more years on this planet may hopefully help clarify the workings of this fact of life.

Ah because cultures never remember this kind of stuff. It's all individualized right? Lol.

There are cultures on earth that have hated each other for centuries.

To quote something I just read. Keep living the dream and maybe one day you'll learn the workings of life.

>To quote something I just read.

Thanks for the chuckle.

If you want to hold a grudge for something that happened when no one is left alive when it occurred is on the individual. People who lead populations who desire something will achieve it regardless of the past.

Wasn't there a recent news cycle topic about the current US administration's cozying up to North Korea recently? Apparently so.. [0][1][2]

Who would have thunk.

0 https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/17/asia/us-north-korea-military-...

1 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/19/tit-for-tat-why-is-...

2 https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-explains-...

Maybe you will learn to look at things from other people's point of view someday. To an American, you are in the..."with friends like these, who needs enemies" category. You are literally impossible to please, an endless source of complains and slights and seem intent on destroying your own economies. If the US decides someday to not defend you, the only people to blame are yourselves. You have done everything in your power at every step to alienate Americans, over and over again for many decades. Seriously...not satire and I am not kidding at all.

Tribes are still killing each other over their 2000 year old shared stories. Someone must have remembered to keep the hate alive.

I think its surprising how short the memory can be for this stuff. Look how long passed between the British invading America and burning down our capital (1812) and us fighting on the same side in the Great War (1917): not even 4 generations. There are obviously counterexamples, but it's not a slam dunk that 10-ish years of Trumpism will sour the European memory on America forever. Maybe it will, maybe it wont. I would think material facts we don't know yet will be the biggest determining factor here, rather than the other way around.

Even into the 1980's, near 300 years (!) after the Massacre of Glencoe, it was not unusual to see pubs in Argyll with signs saying 'No Camerons'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Glencoe

(Not a down voter)

I think the issue with this hypothesis is that it omits variables.

Basically... is the United States, scratch that, WILL the United States be on a trajectory, post-Trump, where there is reason to believe future leadership will consistently be trustworthy to foreign nations? And how would anyone know that, or at least have reasonable confidence in that belief?

What brought us here to elect someone like this, and is that "what" going away or being fixed? Is there some hope for undoing polarized politics in this country, so that "this election is the most important of our generation" doesn't occur every four years, and both sides believe that "the other side" will ruin the country once and for all?

Time is not enough to fix the core issues. Time can move us past this particular era, these particular instances of unpredictable leadership, but time alone will not move this country past whatever levers of control convinced this electorate that this kind of leadership was the right choice for this country -- and the rest of the planet.

Trump will go away. Eventually he will die. But he laid out a blueprint for ruling by executive decree. (Yeah, previous presidents did too, but he took it far further than anyone before him.) Sooner or later someone smarter than him will come along and do it better and even more successfully.

American democracy is eventually doomed, unless there are structural changes that make this kind of thing impossible to ever happen again. I predict a Democratic president and Congress in 2028. If they don't fix this, in the first two years, then limited government will not endure in the US. (Why two years? Because they probably won't have enough of a majority in Congress after the 2030 midterms. That's just how these things usually go.)

> But he laid out a blueprint for ruling by executive decree.

Other presidents also extended the power of the executive branch and over-used executive orders. Of course, not to the extreme degree Trump did.

Trump's legacy will be his effective use of social media saturation and his "mask off" approach to rallying his base. Previous (R) administrations felt they had to maintain at least a little civility and be coy about the kind of people they were rallying, and cryptic about the kind of emotions that activated these people. You had to use innuendo and dogwhistles. Trump proved that you can directly preach to people's anger, belligerence, and cruelty, win elections based on those messages, and even maintain your popularity by delivering on your promises with oppressive, cruel policies. This lesson is going to be burned into politics long after he's gone: You don't have to even try to be a statesman to lead government.

None of this is historically true at all. We learn history so we can have informed opinions about trends like this. Nixon was called the "imperial president" because he had more power than any US president since. After that, executive power was reduced significantly until Obama (who expanded it more than any president in US history). Yes, we can talk about why that was and there are reasons Obama did that, but he still did it. Trump just increased at bit over that.

PS They are called "Executive Orders". Decrees are things monarchs give so I expect you aren't an American which explains your lack of understanding of US politics.

> After that, executive power was reduced significantly until Obama (who expanded it more than any president in US history). Yes, we can talk about why that was and there are reasons Obama did that, but he still did it. Trump just increased at bit over that.

Interesting. We're talking current administration and Obama has bled into the conversation.. Lets see:

President Total Executive Orders (Combined);

Franklin D. Roosevelt 3,728 Woodrow Wilson 1,803 Calvin Coolidge 1,233 Theodore Roosevelt 1,081 Donald Trump 508 Ronald Reagan 381 Bill Clinton 364 George W. Bush 291 Barack Obama 276 Joe Biden 162

Official daily logs and historical texts for these directives are indexed in the Federal Register.[0]

No further questions.

0 https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/executive-or...

I dunno .. they're doing a marvelous job encouraging EV adoption.

That. I had a nightmare about Trump, very old, writing a memoir about how all of his shit was actually to save the planet, stop using ICE vehicles and force Europe to stand up for itself. And people were celebrating him.

I woke up, sweat-drenched.

> this administration as a traitor to Europe and its values

More than Angela Merkel? I doubt it

And the US, and democracy, and the rule of law. Grifting lowlifes. And a GOP happy to enact the Powell Memorandum plan to tear down the state, to gut state power, to allow the biggest corporations rule over the citizens.

Start a stupid war, then try to exploit allies.

Masterful gambit.

When your allies are divided, weak and incapable to stand for themselves, this is what you get. The collapse of Europe and its old elites is going on, small happy islands will survive from it.

Considering how everything is now connected, every economy, etc. I seriously doubt any remaining island will be “happy”. Anyone on this island will know friends, family outside the island.

I got three down votes on my previous comment and did not get why, I guess hard facts are difficult to accept but I also appreciate my comment was quite doomer style. What I mean is that European countries and elite are responsible for their lack of coordinated strategy in any kind of communal threat, at least on major topics like how to deal with USA, China, Russia or mass Africa and Middle East immigration. Each country act as a sole actor and is very easy to exploit that for Trump or external agents. Some places, that are still able to advocate for themselves and their interest in a strong way will keep to thrive: Switzerland, Norway, some regions in Germany (Baviera) or the north of Italy and I see good politics and growth in Poland and other East countries.

Recommendation: use a client where you cannot see the downvotes. That’s what I do.

I do hope they drag their feet just long enough to delay any price declines until after the U.S. elections, for their own sake.

Only provides an additional ~33 days of runway.

Mango Mussolini is afraid he will suffer at the US midterm elections, hence bullying Europe to use thier stratigic reserves (during a war he started!) to help lower diesel prices in the USA.

The USA has lost the plot.

Europe hasn’t grown some balls yet and I am afraid they will roll over again.

I'd predict the same but france had partial fuel shortages recently (maybe still?) and there's a limit to what they can do without torches getting lit.

LePen is probably salivating at the thought of EU caving to USA again. She would win by landslide next year if that will happen at any noticeable scale.

PS: in Poland fuel prices went up by exactly +50% from January. I wonder how far they'll go if the Demented Don would win over this threat.

On the other hand, the thought of further diesel price increases are probably making Le Pen salivate to the point drowning starts to be a concern.

Well, the point is that by not gifting diesel fuel to Trump, EU can stabilize fuel prices internally to a lower level using same emergency reserves. At least if I got the post right.

He wants the EU to "release", ie. to sell to Europeans, the diesel fuel.

Clearly the French are currently in need of extra fuel: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cmx2z20vz124t

European economies are suffering (and have been since COVID), and russia is a much bigger threat to deal with, so the EU is always trying to take the big boy role and be friendly to get as much as possible. Confrontation would be disastrous for us, and it would be cutting our noses to spite the orange guy who wouldn't get it anyways. When red lines were about to be crossed (Greenland), there was a strong response, but for the rest it's easier to handwave

Meanwhile more strategic autonomy is being built up, but it will take years; when one of Trump's sons is president, we'll be in a better position to properly stand up.

Careful with the suffering trope. GDP growth in 2025 was 1.4 % [1]. Even under the external oil price shock, projection for 2026 is >0.

Of course, in the periphery that is not good enough. For developed economies like Germany, France that is a totally normal growth rate. The allocation is the problem, very few people can’t get enough while the middle class is under pressure and the rest has real problems to pay their rents and food. Real growth can only be had by increasing local consumption and/or expansion of governmental spending.

That being said, I agree with your analysis.

[1] https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2026/06/oecd-economic-o...

Fun fact...if your GDP growth is less than your rate of inflation (currently 3.8%), then your economy is shrinking and you are getting poorer. This also means your standard of living is decreasing.

Goodhart's law suggests that's not entirely true. GDP is an imperfect measure, and doesn't capture how anxious people are, how happy and content they are. It doesn't measure how much hope they have for the future. It doesn't say how much more or less you make than your brother-in-law.

That would hold up comparing nominal GDPs of subsequent years. GDP growth rates are adjusted for inflation.

I guess everybody is waiting for the midterms and Trump becoming a lame duck.

Drumpt is just a pawn anyway, lets not pretend this would have not happened with all the eptstein class politicians.

It’s crazy how the EU just keeps doing the same things but hoping for different results.

Meanwhile, China, responded firmly and has come out even better against Trump.

> Europe hasn’t grown some balls yet and I am afraid they will roll over again.

Too late.. US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada have already agreed to a coordinated release of 100 million barrels of crude oil and diesel through the IEA.

This is such a ridiculous example of the live to fight another day mentality of the Trump administration. They try to survive for the next 24 hour news cycle, totally neglecting what might happen in 3 months.

I suppose after that, it's not going to be a problem for Trump after 32 days..

Every day I think it would be so much simpler just to let Iran have nukes and stop the sanctions. Letting everyone have nukes would solve so many issues.

> I think it would be so much simpler just to let Iran have nukes and stop the sanctions

You are falling into the trap of believing Iran was anywere near buliding a nuclear weapon..... Even the security services in the USA said they were nowhere near, and that Iran was complient with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal

On the other hand, Netanyahu has been spouting off for 30 years that Iran is X days away from building a nuclear weapon; and Trump chose to believe him!

> Trump chose to believe him

Not necessary. Trump wanted a war (any war) and Israel was eager to give him one. Plus he could still pretend that "he didn't start it", or so he thought.

Hate to break it to you, but the science says that's not true. The rate of time enrichment takes is a negative logarithm. That's a fancy way of saying that it takes far more time to enrich 2% to 5% than it does from 40% to 90%. They were at 40% (I think). The rest of the work is actually not so hard to do and doesn't take that long. Also, the JCPA would have allowed Iran to have a nuclear weapon in about 5 years from now (sometime in the 2030s, I don't remember exactly when) if it was followed all the way through.

So Iran probably was a relatively short amount of time away from having a bomb. They probably just feared what would happen if they tested it.

Another important detail, there are basically 2 different ways to make a bomb...the U-235 way and the Pu-239 way. The first takes lots and lots of time but a bit less technical skill. The second takes far less time but a bit more skill. Its likely the Iranians had the skill to do either.

There are probably 2 dozen countries that were 30 years ago, today and will be in the future about 6 months from having a bomb. They have all the pieces but won't do the final assembly unless they fear a nuclear exchange involving them. They don't do those final steps because of the negative consequences to doing them.

PS Remember, we built two different types of bombs with less computing power than a pocket calculator.

PPS Your understanding of these issues is completely wrong. The JCPA was more of a stop gap than anything. Saying Trump is handling everything correctly is wrong but so is saying that leaving the JCPA in place was a good idea. It was just the best Obama could negotiate because nobody thought he had the guts to invade Iran.

> Hate to break it to you, but the science says that's not true.

I'll type this slowly for you as you clearly didn't read it properly, or perhaps you are practising revisionist history:

The security forces IN THE USA (!) stated Iran was nowhere near building a nuclear weapon.

If you think you have better sources of information than their scientific expertise, intelligence sources and inspectors on the ground, then please tell us.

Until some crackpot wants to wipe out a country. Bin Laden only had a few planes. Imagine he could have stocked each of them with a nuke.

I think that's the point of MAD. Bin Laden and his whole country would have been deleted off the face of the earth by everyone else's nukes if they tried shit like that.

I think MAD only works for the super-powers that have too much to lose.

The US has become a very short-term individual interest focused country. There is no long term vision for the country, there is no care for their own citizens, only today's president's interest matter. Tomorrow doesnt exists. screw-the-future is their warmongering motto.

This goes beyond the price of diesel. It is an attack on basic survivability of the nations that may depend on that reserves in the future.

Never vote for a death cult.

Also never vote for anyone who

- is incapable of apologizing

- has a history of abusive behavior

- doesn't have a sense of humor, especially at their own expense

"How to spot an idiot": https://youtube.com/watch?v=i2Lo8ChhOKU

What about people with alzheimers?

much better candidates

It's amazing what level of mental degradation seems to have spread among Americans that they keep forgetting that Biden wasn't on the actual ballot.

The problem of elected representatives being nearly or somewhat dead seems to be bipartisan; such as Feinstein(D) or McConnell(R).

> The problem of elected representatives being nearly or somewhat dead seems to be bipartisan

Nah....

The problem is that to enter politics in the USA, you need to be _very_ wealthy. This tends to rule out younger people being abale to stand for election.

By contrast, in the UK our last few prime ministers have included, as well as a few wealthy ones, the offspring of a telephone engineer (Burnham), a grocer (Thatcher), a toolmaker (Starmer) and a chap who ran a business flogging garden ornaments (Major).

He was on the ballot in 2020, when he was already impaired and he was also kept in office when clearly not mentally fit.

And at his most impaired, Biden was still, unquestionably, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, an infinitely better president for every American and the world.

What about what?

Huehuehue

Yeah, he is just going to ban it anyway a month from now. So EU will be at the mercy of USA/Russia.

I think it's mostly Germany and Hungary? It's a shame that so many countries are/was dependent on Russian oil and gas. I'm happy to live in a country (Sweden) where we are independent and produce clean energy from NUCLEAR and hydro.

Sweden is part of the same global market in petroleum products as every other country. In particular, Sweden imports a bunch of crude from Norway (SEK46.2B), United States (SEK13.6B), United Kingdom (SEK10.9B), Guyana (SEK9.04B), and Denmark (SEK3.82B). https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/crude-petrole...

If Germany loses access to one source of oil and pays a premium to substitute Norwegian oil instead, guess what? Sweden has to pay the same higher price for Norwegian oil as well.

This interconnection of global markets is why Trump is trying to increase diesel supply in Europe in order to lower prices in the US in the first place.

When Strait of Hormuz was blocked prices increased for everyone, even if these countries did not import any oil from Gulf States. This is because oil is a global market. If a large exporter becomes unavailable - prices increase for everyone.

Diesel is a middle distillate and the United States themselves depend on Canadian heavy crude for their refineries.

Non-Paywalled article: https://politicstoday.org/us-presses-france-and-germany-to-r...

Why doesn't he ban exports right away, forcing Europe to use their stockpiles anyways?

Is it that he can't? So the entire threat is moot?

Is he thinking of using the Graham bill to threaten +100% tarrifs for buying Russian gas?

If he bans exports the EU is screwed over. It will destroy what little good will the EU has towards the US. It will cause the EU to double down on Chinese partnerships and you will see the EV transition happen faster ESPECIALLY in the Semi Truck space.

No, the US is screwed over. From what I've read, many areas in the US are completely reliant on imports because of how the current logistics and production/processing chain/infrastructure is setup. And the market disruption caused by an export ban would wreak complete havoc in those regions and cause significant price spikes starting from diesel and then rippling out to anything reliant on it.

This is why he hasn't done it yet. Everybody in the US with money at stake called him and told him it was a stupid idea.

> From what I've read, many areas in the US are completely reliant on imports because of how the current logistics and production/processing chain/infrastructure is setup.

Which areas are you referring to?

No op but — we don’t make anything here. It’s imports all the way down.

That isn’t true at all.

Only 7% of the US economy is involved in international trade and most of that is with Canada and Mexico. The US is by far the country who is least reliant on the system of international trade. There are only 2 elements that the US doesn't have internal access to and that's it. Everything else is available internal to the US market. Basically, you need the US. The US doesn't need you and never has.

As far as I understand, the US produces more Diesel than it consumes. A blanket export ban would mean that refineries would have to shut down because they can't get rid of all the Diesel they produce. But since refineries produce more than one product, this would affect other oil products as well. That doesn't sound like a situation you want.

But this is based on my simplistic understanding of how this works, I'm really not sure about the details.

> Why doesn't he ban exports right away, forcing Europe to use their stockpiles anyways?

Because big oil doesn't like that.

And as others said, diesel is just one product. If you want to keep producing the other products you'll have to sell or store that diesel. The capacity is too much for the US alone and storing all excess capacity isn't feasible. So if he does it, there will be a surplus which means big oil will lose a large amount of money.

Wait, what? We have excess diesel? We're producing more than we can use? Then why is the price so high?

I can't speak to whether or not we have excess diesel, but the price would be high because U.S. diesel is sold outside of the united states, so if EU members are willing to pay higher $$$ for it, then that's what U.S. oil producers will sell it for, raising domestic prices in turn.

If you cannot export it because of a ban, you would have excess diesel yes. Assuming you keep refining at the same rate as demand for the other products hasn't gone down

Its only high on the west coast. That's because of multiple complicated reasons. Basically the west coast is an independent energy zone from the rest of the US. And California (where most of the refineries are for historical reasons) hasn't made very informed choices with its energy policy. Also, the oil they use comes from abroad while the oil in the rest of the US comes from domestic sources and the rest is exported. Also, there isn't a lot of heavy sour crude in the world and that's the type of oil that yields the most diesel.

There is a lot more to it, but its too complicated to explain in a post.

> Its only high on the west coast. That's because of multiple complicated reasons.

This takes any weight out of your argument, because it’s demonstrably false. I live in Michigan, and diesel was between 6.50 and 6.99 a gallon a couple days ago, which is a bit lower than it had been the week before.

A zillion gas price sites would also show that this statement is false. It is not just “the west coast”.

I hope this time around European leaders grow cojones, however small they can be, and start treating the US as the enemy hostile country it is.

It will inflict short-term pain in Europe, but in the long-term it will be better. It's like ripping out a bandaid.

Since when is bullying other countries alright? Those are strategic reserves for real emergencies. To keep the show going _at all_.

What a fucking narcistic war monger clique.

But you don't understand, the midterms are an emergency!

But he, his clan and all sycophants made a ton of money already. What more? Make everyone's life even more miserable? Gold plate even more useless stuff?

Can they just sodd off to a remote island with a golden palace? /Mars/ would be a good place. "One way ticket" playing as part of the OST. Shoot the whole clique with a lot of gold bars to the red planet.

> Gold plate even more useless stuff

Bingo! Dragon fever knows no bounds. I truly think there is no bottom in the pit of depravity.

Since there has never been a time in history when this hasn’t happened

This is the real heart of the problem.

Trump literally CANNOT admit he made a mistake.

Nixon may have been a corrupt sleaze ball but he knew he had to get out of Vietnam because it was destroying America and so he did.

I thought the press lost the war.

Nixon prolonged the war and expanded into Laos and Cambodia. They eventually got out because they were losing.

They lost because they left, they didn't leave because they lost. There is not that much discrepancy between US and Vietnamese scholars about that.

You should learn about the history of that era. Your narrative didn't in any way happen. For instance, the US signed the Paris accords which ended US involvement in January 1973. The fall of Saigon was in 1975. As for the claim, "it was destroying America"...this has no real basis in fact. It was politically convenient to leave Vietnam (much like Trump in Iraq or Biden in Afghanistan), not something forced by foreign policy or battlefield events. Its a myth perpetuated for ideological reasons. Its a bit like the myth that most young people were hippies in 1969 (they weren't) or that Woodstock was an important cultural event (it was made well known by a documentary after the fact).

The draft was very unpopular which is the one issue that the drove the support of the New Left. But after Nixon cancelled the draft, their support collapsed quickly. The war itself was never that unpopular and most of the reporting about it at the time wasn't very insightful (either way). That era is so propagandized because some people really need it to be. Otherwise, far left political movements would all be DOA because people would understand they only lead to losing elections.

And if you need more evidence, look at the results of the 1972 election. It was the 2nd most lopsided election in US history (just behind Reagan in 1984). If the myth were true, that election would have been somewhat close.

PS That era is by far the most propagandized part of US history. What is told to most people who weren't alive then about it has little to nothing to do with what actually happened. I'm not surprised someone would have your take, but its entirely false.

Is this a temporary pause on issuing new tariff threats?

"It is in Europe’s best interest to work with the United States as we pursue multiple pathways to boost the supply of refined products and lower costs for consumers," one of the sources, a US official, told Reuters.

It is currently in Europe's best interest to force this clown to back down in Iran.

I will happily take €5 per liter (not gallon) for a month just to annoy Trump in the slightest.

Your strategic insight is truly amazing. How are you not leading groups of people?

We're a colony.

Oh my, by all means please do!

Why? Why is that good? What if supply stays low and prices stay high? What if the stockpile is still depleted in two or three years, and Russia takes the chance to invade while Europe has nothing to power their industry and tanks?

Why must the energy transition be "move fast and break everything" while the industry and households suffer under the strain of high prices?

It could have been so smooth, it could have gone so well, but the world went mad...

> move fast and break everything

That's what the Climate Catastrophe is going to do if nothing changes!

> Why? Why is that good?

It solidifies further that the US is an enemy to Europe, a hostile country that has a desire to undermine and destroy us.

> What if supply stays low and prices stay high?

This will have the long term benefit of making EU countries rely less and less on a commodity that it has no control over.

> and Russia takes the chance to invade while Europe has nothing to power their industry and tanks?

Russia can't even fight a respectable war against Ukraine. Now that Ukraine gets to actually blow refineries in Russia and explode shit in Moscow, even less so.

> Why must the energy transition be "move fast and break everything" while the industry and households suffer under the strain of high prices?

That's how changes happen. Without challenges everyone stays complacent.

All this shows is the Trump Admin has no concept of economic theory.

Even if the whole EU release twice that amount now, prices, if they decrease at all before the mid-terms, it will probably be a couple of pennies. But I expect all it will do is temporarily stop the price of diesel from raising.

All it will do is allow Spectators to cash in on profits between now and the midterms.

> Trump seeks to bring down record US diesel prices

If only he could have avoided causing the high prices in the first place so he wouldn't have to try to strongarm his "allies" now. I hate this timeline.

Every day I wake up, open the news, and let out a slightly louder breath out of my nostrils at the latest boutade from Trump. Then I go out with my day because nothing he says is relevant in any way.

> Every day I wake up, open the news, and let out a slightly louder breath out of my nostrils at the latest boutade from Trump.

Agreed with you there, and it leaves me ever more exhausted.

> Then I go out with my day because nothing he says is relevant in any way.

Unfortunately, when the US sneezes, Europe gets hit by a tornado. Ever since this godforsaken war against Iran, gas prices were unpredictable and unsustainably high.

It would have been one thing, had the US properly conducted the war - aka, had they prepared their allies in the region, had they asked us to join the fun, and committed ground troops. But they didn't, they caught all of us off guard, completely botched the execution, and we had to deal with the fallout.

The Iran war is a particularly stupid shitshow, but there was no way to "properly" wage this war. There's a reason previous US administrations didn't do this, and it wasn't because they were Iran-friendly.

Committing ground troops would be necessary to actually achieve objectives here. But that would lead the US into a very different, probably even larger shitshow.

> The Iran war is a particularly stupid shitshow, but there was no way to "properly" wage this war.

I think it would have been possible... had it been prepared many months earlier.

The biggest and, to make it worse, completely avoidable issue IMHO was that there was no advance deployment of anti-drone defense across the region. Iran-made Shahed drones have been a thing in Ukraine ever since 2023, it boggles my mind that no single MENA country other than Israel had built up any AA defense and thus they all (including the US) were forced to waste millions of dollars worth of missilies against a glorified lawnmower on wings.

The second issue was that no allies were involved in this at all. Everyone got caught completely off guard, so there was no way to, say, silently build up stockpiles of oil and oil products - and as a result, oil prices skyrocketed.

And the third issue was timing itself. By the time the Iranian regime slaughtered tens of thousands of protestors, it was too late. The US could have used the momentum - Iranian exilants and the people in Iran all but screamed for external intervention. But since there was no planning done at all, it took the US far, far too long, and so there was barely any inner support in Iran to take out IRGC.

The fact that the US and Israel botched target selection and coordination - the US bombed a girl's school and people that Israel would have been fine with as an ersatz regime for the Mullahs - just puts the icing on the cake. A good idea in theory, no love for the Mullahs from my side, may they rot in hell - but an execution botched so horribly it puts the incompetent warmonger Bush to shame.

> There's a reason previous US administrations didn't do this, and it wasn't because they were Iran-friendly.

Partially it also was because the US general public was sick and tired of constant wars that (seemed to) only serve the interests of the MIC, with barely any incentive for actually bettering the lives of the people in Afghanistan and Iraq. The early war phase was won fast, but it was completely obvious no one ever drafted plans on how to lead both countries on a path to actual prosperity.

Sorry but the US already lost all the very thin credibility it had.

Well, until you have to fill up your car.

I do maybe once a month? IDK last time I refueled was so long ago I can't place it precisely.

Fuck the US. Trash country run by trash people.

Many of my 'anti'-usa .gov posts have been measured and pointy, but now I'm just seeing people say/ write it out loud: fuck the US. Atm, it's a country that is being compared to he French students protesting. Nobody cares why the students (and the agitators, from both sides) are protesting, they do care that the US is not. Things can't be all that bad.

> but now I'm just seeing people say/ write it out loud: fuck the US

European here. It's not surprising. We knew we were in for a ride when y'all reelected the buffoon in 2024. But the sheer ignorance and outright malice the US has shown in the last two years alone... tariff wars against what are nominal allies? Threats to forcibly annex an ally's territory? Dragging us into an economic crisis with the completely botched Iran war? Setting up an economic crisis that will put the disaster of 2007ff to shame by allowing the wash trading and Habsburgian investment web in the AI economy?

Trump has permanently burnt bridges here. Even if people were protesting, it wouldn't matter, this damage will take decades to repair.

In Dutch there's a saying which translates to

Trust comes on foot but leaves on horseback....

You can only spend goodwill once... And boy, the US is burning goodwill at an insane rate right now.

Not in the least because to non US people this seems like exactly what one could/should expect when re-electing this guy.

> Not in the least because to non US people this seems like exactly what one could/should expect when re-electing this guy.

It's not like we are better in that regards... you Dutch elected Wilders, and us Germans are falling for the AfD.

Wilders became the biggest in parliament, he didn't become prime minister.

Also, a US president is VASTLY more powerful than either a prime minister in NL or a kanseller in Germany. The US is also a bigger world power than any European country by itself. So the implications are different.

True. But it is also true that your electorate is susceptible to the same bad judgment that ours is.

Wilders has never been prime minister, nor did we make him prime minister twice.

The US elected him twice. With the second time being after pretty much an attempted coup. This is bad judgment on another level IMHO

And again a prime minister in the Netherlands: 1. does not have the same amount of power as NL is smaller and doesn't put as much power in one person 2. Is always the head of a coalition government in which the extreme ideas have been tabled

Let's not forget that Trump is propping up the AfD and co. They are openly working together to split the EU apart. It's all financed by the same billionaires.

Why aren't Small Government and Free Market Republicans more outraged at the current administration's betrayals of these core components of American conservativism?

The budget deficit is the largest in history, the federal government size has increased, taxes on imports (tariffs) have increased in politically manipulative ways and now the government is meddling with the market price of commodities.

Even if you don't care about Europe or democracy or pollution or foreign policy... this is still just bad capitalism and bad big-government manipulation preventing the free market from correctly solving problems and establishing an optimal price for goods.

> Why aren't Small Government and Free Market Republicans more outraged at the current administration's betrayals of these core components of American conservativism?

They were pushed out long ago, and mostly don't exist in any meaningful number. Even then, what could they do?

The honest republicans gave up after their core economic philosophy was proven wrong in 2008.

Then the lunatics took over.

it all comes down to if they have Epstein files on the powerful people running Germany and France

And the question is: Who cares ?

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