Summary
Donald Trump has announced plans to impose 25% tariffs on the European Union, claiming the bloc was “formed to screw the United States.”
While details are pending, he suggested the levies would target cars and other imports. The EU, a major U.S. trading partner, has vowed immediate retaliation, with potential tariffs impacting $29.3 billion in exports.
French President Emmanuel Macron had attempted to dissuade Trump, urging focus on China instead.
Critics, including economists and conservative media, warn the tariffs could harm the U.S. economy.
Trump is kinda right. Charles De Gaulle wanted a united Europe to prevent Anglo-American influence. Aside from his Anglophobia, he vetoed UK joining then EEC because he thought UK is a Trojan horse for American influence into Europe. He also thought that the British are reluctant Europeans anyhow, so why let them in?
Fast forward 60 years later, and De Gaulle was found right. US companies tried to lobby the EU through UK. The Brits voted for Brexit, and the US finally became an unreliable ally.
For so much of the French being chauvinistic in a cringey way, they are right not to commit to Anglo influence or Atlanticism, presciently. The French still likes to assert their own global influence but in multilateral way with other countries. Macron and De Gaulle are correct for looking for strategic autonomy.
Edit: I also want to add, that the Brussels effect forces other countries to adopt higher standards and regulations if they want to trade with the EU. Obviously, many right wing Americans such as Trump don’t like this.
Brussels effects haters be like: “I really fucking hate USB type-C cables being on every device where it makes sense! I want to bo back to expensive and crappy proprietary cables only the original manufacturer is allowed to make!”
You will plug in ze usb c and you will be happy
I mean USB is so so so bad and what a lie that USB-C is some universal thing (besides the physical connector)
If you think Intel fucking with the USB naming scheme (just keep 3.0 and 3.1 for the lower speed devices instead of renaming everything 3.2 gen 892034856 for fuck’s sake!) was bad, or you had trouble with keeping track of charger standards, then you forgot the time when most manufacturers had their own crappy proprietary connection standard, that didn’t really done much more than could have been with pre-existing standards, except to force you to buy an expensive and crappy cable, and some (especially those by Apple) often broke by just looking at them in the wrong way and had those crappy and impossible to solder enamel-coated wires inside them.
Oh come on, the full USB spec may be a cluster fuck, but even the basic functionality that is shared is enough of a step forward to how it was before with multiple physical sockets with slightly different plugs and slightly different voltage and amperage. Once I forgot my phone charger at home and lo and behold I just plugged on my work laptop USB charger and now I could charge my phone. It is great. And any cable and combination like usb-a to usb-c will give you basic charging and basic data transfer. That in itself is already a saving grace and helps diminish the clutter of cables. Sure it could be better and less confusing for things like rapid charging and other stuff now USB supports but that does not detract from the advancement. Other thing, with usb-c there is also less port clutter that we had with the previously misguided plentora of USB plugs, A, B, mini, micro, etc.
Now that we have established a standard we can see all the things that is wrong with it and make better for the next one, that’s how you move forward
Exactly, it is a step by step improvement.
That, nukes, NATO… It may have been rank anglophobia, but man, did history prove him right…
I know it’s a whine, but roughly a quarter of the country voted for Brexit.