2w ago

EU tells Trump’s America: We have other options

www.politico.eu EU tells Trump’s America: We have other options – POLITICO

Summary

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined the EU’s vision as a global economic leader during the World Economic Forum, contrasting Trump’s "America First" policies.

She highlighted Europe’s advantages, including its large single market, social infrastructure, and commitment to the Paris climate accord, while emphasizing new alliances with Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Avoiding direct criticism of Trump, von der Leyen underscored the EU’s stability and rules-based approach.

Her speech signaled a pivot away from U.S.-centric relations and a focus on global trade diversification.

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2w ago

EU tells Trump’s America: We have other options

www.politico.eu /article/eu-donald-trump-america-we-have-other-options-ursula-von-der-leyen/

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54 comments

I wish us Americans did.
- I wish about half of us weren’t smoothbrain fuckwits.
  
  The US is not statistically very different from the rest of the world.
  The oligarchs want us divided. And have been working on it for decades. Blame them, not your neighbor, even if your neighbor is a smooth brain fuckwit.
  
  Two thirds, you mean.
  You gotta count the authoritarian followers and the ones top stupid to vote at all.
- We have options. They aren't all pleasant options, nor am I advocating them. But we have options.

To be honest I'm N Irish and we voted against Brexit but are deemed irrelevant due to England. But yeah it absolutely pisses me off to see the English politicians sucking Trump off when we would have been way better off not just being morons and staying in the EU.
Its infuriating to see the UK falling apart when every country except England voted against Brexit but somehow their vote counts double or something.
UK is a wreck and we should just start from scratch and also I can't see America as anything but an enemy right now (they are obviously siding with both Russia and Israel) both sides I disagree with honestly.
- Englishman here. I can only apologise for the sheer stupidity of my fellow countrymen. Brexit was such an own fucking goal and the morons will never admit it. If Cameron really had to put it to a vote he could have required a super-majority on account of how economically devastating leaving would be. But no, a slim majority is good enough to fuck over us all for generations to come.
  And Trump. Good god. The country that sells itself as a beacon of democracy has happily voted in a crook. Someone who fomented an insurrection attempt, hid top secret documents in his shower while foreign agents roamed freely around and lied about it! Like, actual treason. But I'm not sure what's worse, the orange shit head or the people and system that not only have allowed him to get away with it all but have actually fucking promoted it. Fucking depressing.
- Also adding my English condolences, can't agree with you strongly enough. UK is fucked, need to emigrate
- Its infuriating to see the UK falling apart when every country except England voted against Brexit
  Wales also voted in favour of Brexit.
  but somehow their vote counts double or something.
  Englands population is significantly higher than the rest combined, so it's hardly surprising. I think Yorkshire alone has more than double the population of Northern Ireland.
  Agree with everything else you said though. Hopefully we get to see the day when we get to re-join again!
- Do you think N Ireland could split away from the UK because of this?
  
  Not the protestant side, they still vote Dup no matter what nonsense they do or scandals they have. Most of them actually voted Brexit because the Dup told them too.
  But yeah who knows it's definitely made it more possible.

Just imagine if we take her by her word and really strengthen our economical relationship with Africa. That is a huge market with huge possibilities. Africa could easily replace China as a manufacturing powerhouse. If we could somehow shake off the colonial baggage and work together, America could go packing!
- In principle, I agree. However, in detail there are the same issues and more as when everything was outsourced to China:
  While there are stable and democratic states in Africa, a lot of the resources for manufacturing ~~might~~ will come from not so stable parts. I am looking at Congo as an example in particular.
  If you think about it, it is Colonialism 2.0: Cheap labourers turning basic resources into goods that are too expensive for them to buy themselves, which in return are sold for cheap in relation to local production costs in other countries.
  Exporting the environmentally harmful jobs elsewhere makes us look good on paper, but has drastic consequences for locals.
  While China has until recently and to a significant extent been able to turn the second point around, the environment is where this whole plan might come apart before it even can be put into practice: The African continent is possibly most directly impacted by climate change. In the past, present and future. Don't get me wrong: We are all going to suffer. But the African combination of geolocation and political and social stability is a powder keg.
  Don't get me wrong, I do not want to leave Africa and its people in the dust. If we can build a relationship on a basis of mutual trust and long-term benefit, let's go for it. However, I am highly sceptical that in our current political climate the EU and its countries or, let alone companies, would be going to invest more than the absolute minimum to get any form of production going. And investing the absolute minimum to extract the most benefit equals colonialism 2.0.
  
  while all that is fairly true, competition usually leads to better outcomes across the board. i think that alternatives rather than replacements is the idea, and spreading those opportunities across the globe will probably be beneficial in the long-run
- That is a huge market with huge possibilities. Africa could easily replace China as a manufacturing powerhouse.
  And China knows it, which is why "belt and road" is a thing.
- Africa could easily replace China as a manufacturing powerhouse.
  If we could somehow shake off the colonial baggage
  They're the same thing.
- Africa has a number of factors in its favor that make it a potential economic powerhouse. It has some of the largest natural resource reserves in the world, it has a huge population, it's conveniently located on or near several important trade routes.
  It's also cursed with some pretty bad natural infrastructure. The rivers in Africa don't provide good access between the center of the continent and the coasts.
  China had about the same GDP a Sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1990's https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?end=1996&locations=CN-ZG&most_recent_value_desc=true&start=1960 It's taken China 35 years to get from there to it's current spot as 2nd largest economy in the world. And that was for an economy that was growing at nearly 2x the rate of the rest of the world for most of that period. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=CN-1W
  That's not to say that Africa can't become an economic powerhouse but it will take a lot of work and time. It would take sustained investment and reinvestment in Africa over several decades.

Man, if only you had decided on this before the US elected a giant orange wannabe-fascist... for the second time.
- Yeah, but you have to consider that the alternative was a woman of colour. They had no other choice, really, they had to vote for a fascist.

von der Leyen is a hypocrite. Where was the rule-based approach during the genocide in Gaza? She and many EU leaders purposefully ignored the Hague and the Geneva conventions.
- Well this has economic and soft power benefits. Standing up against genocide apparently was t beneficial enough.

the EU’s stability and rules-based approach.
Great, but countries violating their own ICC laws to host netenyahu, promising him they wont apprehend him for war crimes is not a "rules-based approach" at all.
- You will notice that only countries which have to suck up to the USA (for reasons) did the Bibi thing.
- Also violating their own anti genocide agreements by supporting Israeli proven genocide by several third parties at this point. I guess it's rules based approach when it's convenient and when it's not, we'll just ignore those rules.

What's my best bet for emigrating to the EU as a mechanical engineer? I only speak English fluently, used to speak Spanish but never maintained it. Was looking into Sweden but didn't get very far.
Are there any Ukrainian organizations that could arrange transport/visa in exchange for service? I've definitely got the skills to fly/build/design drones and know how to shoot what I aim at, but I'm capable of more than that as well. I would rather contribute to a cause I believe in than have any hand in building a fascist America.
- For your profession, there should be plenty of companies where English is spoken, irregardless of the country. In my previous company, we had engineers from all over and while English was everyones second language, it was the only common one we had so that was spoken. I'd first try to choose a country you like or where immigration is easy and focus on finding employment there.
- Germany always needs engineers, and a lot of companies use English as a main language. So far it's very easy for an American to get a visa, as long as have a job, and the jov market is very active
  
  Germany would be pretty excellent actually, the part of Wisconsin I grew up in has a long German heritage. I did look into it, but my German ancestors came over in the 1850s which appeared to disqualify me from automatic citizenship. Are there websites or recruiting companies that specialize in finding jobs in the EU for foreigners? Thank you!
- You're not the first person asking that question.
- I would say try finding a job that sponsors a visa.
  It's quite hard to move between EU countries nowadays even if you are a citizen, there is a lot of nationalistic sentiment going on and if you only speak English, companies in a bunch of countries will straight out say no, even if they would sponsor you.
  
  Yeah, this is what I've heard. I'm absolutely willing to learn a new language, but understand that 'willing to learn' and 'already knows' are two different things. Do you know of any websites that aggregate job postings with visa sponsorships?
- Things are bad here too. As a US citizen you will be paying tax twice if you work here, you'll never quite fully feel at home for about 8 years, and (most importantly) you'll miss the cultural banter you grew up with.
  US isn't a country, it's practically a continent. There are plenty of places to knuckle through the next few years, but I'm telling you now - Europe isn't the safe haven you think it is.
  
  If you work in a country the US considers friendly then you can deduct some large amount from your foreign salary before you pay taxes to be the US (like $90k or so?). If you make more than that you can deduct the foreign taxes paid from the remainder. Since taxes are higher in most European countries, you don't end up paying tax twice (Switzerland has lower taxes I think, and maybe others).
  
  I'm not looking for a safe haven; did the Ukraine question not make that clear? I am looking to contribute my mental labor to a country with a functioning social contract. I put a lot of time and work into this degree to escape the anti-intellectualism of rural Midwest USA, but it appears the anti-intellectualism made it out before I did so now I must look further afield.

Pan-continentality is nice

Seems like that flag breaks a commandment or two. But I don't expect anyone to have actually read the damned things

I sure fucking hope we do.

Yeah no, Europe is toast. For most of the continent the demographics are terminal. In the US we have a large Millennial and gen Z population that can replace the boomers. Europe doesn’t have that.
People between the ages of 25 to 45 power the economy through consumption because they are trying to establish households and families. They do not have enough young people to support their own industries. Much like China they need export markets like the US where consumption is strong to stay afloat. The US is the only rich market that will be consumption driven for the next 20 or 30 years before our it’s demographics begin to fail.
However, Trump is all bluster, he will back down if he can score some kind of win even if it is small. He can’t start trade wars with most of the world’s major economies without inciting rampant inflation in the US. That’s why he didn’t implement his tariffs on day one of his presidency like he promised. Ignore him or give him something small and he will go away.
Stop giving him attention and taking his words seriously. He is just trying to dominate the news cycle.

This is more circlejerk from Von der Leyen. Before Trump became president, she was talking about de-risking from China, reducimg economic reliance on other countries, including Russian energy, and now somehow, all of a sudden, she is boasting the EU's ability to trade with Mexico and China?
Seriously, the EU can't compete with the US because it cares about its people. Its superior economic, human, social, and civil rights come at the cost of strictly regulating businesses, which kills off innovation and profit making by big businsses. The American syatem rewards monopoly, the lack of labor rights, and increasing wealth inequality by not regulating enough. That breeds big tech, big pharma, big tobacco, big oil, and Wall Street, but that's what's driving the American economy. The EU is too ethical for that.
- Its superior economic, human, social, and civil rights come at the cost of strictly regulating businesses, which kills off innovation and profit making by big businsses
  I agree that it stifles profit; but it in no way stifles actual innovation. Just look at all the innovative ways they come up circumventing regulation to continue harming people.
- Meanwhile, Nestle is currently asking the Commission to please not dilute the supply chain act. Nestle, fucking Nestle, saying that regulations that require companies to enforce human rights standards abroad are good for their business, please keep them, don't listen to the lobbying of smaller companies.
  Not everyone is so caught-up in supply-side trickle-down economics as the US. Nestle sees profit in African markets, that's a giant pool of consumer demand, they don't want to be seen as slave holders, they also don't want others to have a competition advantage in markets that don't care as much about slave labour, so they're arguing that those standards they profit from should apply to everyone, everywhere.

see, that sounds great and everything, until you realize that if we fast foward six months from now, europe is going to watch as russia retakes ukraine without firing a shot itself, just like everyone else. cowardice has always been an option for europe, which has had since 1945 to get it's shit together vs Russia, but instead saw the majority of it's countries spend their GDP on 5 weeks of paid holidays a year, while deep throating Russian gas and oil, even after it illegally annexed Crimea 11 years ago. if it's US led Europe is the tough guy standing behind, without the US, Europe hides
- tbh Ukraine was almost in a different era before Euromaidan, once they did that it cemented them as pro-west not potentially pro-west, and it's unfortunate that as soon as it cemented it was moving away from Russia it was attacked by it, this timing was precise by Putin, it leaves it open to the fact that Ukraine hasn't had enough time to fully integrate into the EU meaning that Europe doesn't see it as one of its own, in the same way an attack on Italy would be seen.
  For those who haven't seen this is a bit exaggerated American style but still really good movie:
  Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom | Full Feature | Netflix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNxLzFfR5w
  
  Ukraine is no less European than Norway or the UK. Or Belarus, for that matter. Or Russia. The trouble we have with Russia is that they're the only one of the family not having sworn off imperialism, or at least switched to soft-power imperialism, and before Euromaidan it wasn't clear how much of a grasp Russia's empire still had in Ukraine. Seemed to look better than in Belarus, but not to a degree one could count on.
  Also there's some wibbles about Western Europe thinking Ostpolitik would work with Far Eastern Europe, after all, it worked so well with Central Europe. Poles and the Baltics have been shouting "you're idiots" from the top of their lungs, we ignored them, considered their shouting to be the result of PTSD. Which yes I mean it is but also they were right.

54 comments