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Comment by glimshe | Hacker News Reader

I don't feel anything yet because these efforts rarely go anywhere. The average person makes decisions on a multitude of factors but price, availability and convenience are the most important.

However, if this ever got big enough to hurt America's economy in a measurable way, the press would be all over it and Americans would retaliate. Considering how our trade is structured, Europe would experience a lot more pain.

In other words, I think it's cool that you raise visibility to your products. I think you should do it. But you'll lose more than we will if this gets too serious at America's expense.

Optimally we should all develop specialities and maintain a local reserve in most key industries. But all out of war isn't in our interest.

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Retailiate FOR WHAT?

More like retaliate HOW? Like I’ll care if Microsoft or Amazon services become more expensive in Europe. That’d actually be great for Europeans.

Tariff European products. Cut off access to payment networks. Stop sharing satellite imagery.

There’s a lot of things the rest of the world has no or bad backups for.

The only thing that would achieve is that the rest of the world would decouple even faster from the USA. Incidentally, there are also a lot of things that the USA does not have backups for and this whole isolationism mindset always ends up with the rude awakening that no single party is larger than the rest of the world.

Yes.

The US is choosing to leverage its position without much concern for those consequences right now. The rest of the world is busy routing around that, and the leverage is slowly reducing.

It will take time: the US was a key member of the world economy. But there’s frequent new reminders of why it’s necessary.

Yup. I cannot stress how much the conversation has changed from a decade ago: the mere prospect of a European army was feared enough to be one of the reasons why we left the EU, but now it's something being seriously considered thanks to Russia's deranged land grab and the US's worsening instability. There's even been some panic over how reliant we are on the US for our nuclear deterrent and what that could mean should relations break down. This became a particular concern when the US started openly threatening to annex Greenland.

The prospect of the US going rogue has forced us to wake up and realise that every dependence we have on the US is potential leverage. For example, the US has levied sanctions against ICC judges, meaning that they can no longer use their VISA/MASTERCARD cards. This means that the French Judge Guillou for example cannot go to a shop in France, pay for French goods in Euros with a card from his French bank, because a US company is intervening to prevent it. As such they can only pay for things in cash... and Europe is becoming increasingly cashless.

If you encourage people to replace our products for yours just because of origin, we will do the same.

It would seem to me that you are willfully or accidentally commenting in a thread without awareness of the context. You retaliate because you think you have been wronged. If you believe the US is being wronged by Europe aiming to decouple from US tech because it is seen as a threat then I really wonder what playbook you are using.

Neither. You are assuming we haven't been wronged by Europe. I assume you're European. I understand why you feel what you feel, but many people here also feel we've been abused for decades.

I'm not saying you have abused us, but maybe you should try to understand the perspectives that brought us to the current situation. Americans have complaints too.

I won't respond further messages on this thread because I think we should stop fighting. Maybe we aren't brothers but we are cousins. The real threats are elsewhere.

You speak for yourself, not for others.

> I understand why you feel what you feel, but many people here also feel we've been abused for decades.

That's on them. If people allow themselves to be misled that is not something that other countries should take into account when determining their foreign policy. If there is an abuser here then it is perfectly clear where that abuser is located.

> I'm not saying you have abused us, but maybe you should try to understand the perspectives that brought us to the current situation. Americans have complaints too.

And that's fine. But then you should do something about the root cause of those complaints and if and when you do you will find that maybe Europe and the bulk of the population of the USA have a lot in common.

> I won't respond further messages on this thread because I think we should stop fighting.

You are the one promoting that attitude with your original comment.

> but many people here also feel we've been abused for decades

These delusional beliefs have already lead to aggression and animosity towards the EU and the rest of the world, which is why this is happening in the first place.

What should the EU do? The current US administration is destroying every partnership you've built, giving up all of its soft power, it's single-handedly driving the world off a proverbial cliff with the war in Iran which will lead to yet another once-in-a-generation economic crisis and a new wave of totally preventable human suffering.

And for what? To persecute a mythical enemy of the Great American Prosperity? To divert attention away from domestic economic failures, unbelievable wealth disparity, from the fact the your country is ran by sadistic pedophiles? To intentionally weaken the rest of the world? To perpetuate a genocide?

The only sensible thing for the EU to do is to get off the damn ride. There's nothing we can do, short of becoming a vassal state of the US, that would appease the current US administration.

Framing this as an attack on the US is just typical DARVO tactics (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) and it's exactly why the EU needs to get away.

Freedom Fries redux

Retaliate for being the ones starting it.

Starting WHAT. Seriously, is there something in the water?

The US has gone out of its way to prove that it is an unreliable partner. To Europe, to Canada, to its allies all over the world. It is obvious that that would result in re-evaluation of the relationship. You can't just upend 80 years of building up a relationship and expect that it will be without consequences. Just like your spouse would have a right to re-evaluate their relationship with you if you punched them in the face to remind them that 'you hold all the cards'.

If you believe that the EU is 'starting it' you are exemplifying the mentality that lead us to where we are today: that might makes right and that if you're abused you should just take it and that even an attempt to leave is considered betrayal.

You can simply retaliate, without explaining for what. Or you can make up an excuse.

> these efforts rarely go anywhere. The average person makes decisions on a multitude of factors but price, availability and convenience are the most important.

Some people still don't grasp the gravity of the damage.

Emotional boycotts don't work like that. Once the customers will find an acceptable replacement for some US brand they will not return to the brand, because in the first years "not consuming US" has become socially a premium and added value, and then it just runs by inertia. Canadians were selling their houses in Florida out of rage. Do you think that the same people will buy other house again in Florida in five years?. Will be drinking Kentucky bourbon? Forget about it.

> if this ever got big enough to hurt America's economy in a measurable way, the press would be all over it and Americans would retaliate.

And the press would be called piggy, and Americans would retaliate voting Republicans in four years to raise the debt a couple trillions more. America does not need Europe to hurt their economy, is doing a stellar job by themselves.

Any attempt to punish your European customers can be satisfying for a while, (yeah lets remove their Youtube), but then you will just lose those customers. So now you earn zero money showing adds to this people and lose access to their free work keeping your web interesting and alive. And somebody competing against you will inherit that big chunk of the market that you so graciously gave to them.

And the Streissand effect created would be the size of the Moon. Keeping a low international profile is the best strategy right now. Any association of your brand with Trump is the kiss of death.

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