[Barrin92]

tech is only 10% of the US economy, and European nations are much more reliant on free-trade. Germany in particular, whose exports constitute almost 47% of their GDP, globally only comparable to South Korea for a developed nation.

I get that Hackernews is dominated by people working in software and software news, but as a part of the real economy (and not the stock market) it's actually not that large and Europe doesn't frame trade policy around it, for good reasons.

The US also doesn't support free-trade for economic reasons, but for political and historical reasons, which is to maintain a rule based alliance across the globe, traditionally to fend off the Soviets. Because they aren't around any more, the US is starting to ditch it. The US has never economically benefited from free-trade, it's one of the most insular nations on the planet. EU-Asia trade with a volume of 1.5 trillion almost doubles EU-American trade, tendency increasing, and that's why Europe is free-trade dependent.

[fishermanbill]

Tech sadly is everything hence why it dominates the stock market. Information is the new oil and all that. Its much more than purely economic, whoever controls the tech controls those who use the tech. Hence why China has created its own tech companies - they arent stupid.

I think you're also getting mixed up between 'free-trade' and 'free-markets'. Free trade is about trade deals: NAFTA, WTO, EU, CPTPP, Mercour or whatever trade grouping you want - generally to do with the removal of taxes and standardisation of goods between countries.

Free markets on the other hand is do with the liberalisation of markets i.e removing government intervention (as much as possible) i.e regulations and restrictions of buying and selling of stuff - in this case companies (which can be covered in a trade deal admittedly)

What I'm advocating is that British gov (and most European gov's) restricts the selling of their tech companies based purely on the importance of the tech company.

Why?

Because as I say its do to with control. We're not able to make democratic, sovereign decisions when the fabric of how most things are done is controlled completely by someone else.

[KptMarchewa]

Only because of EU. Intra-EU trade is more comparable to trade between US states then true international trade.

[mantap]

I'd say the opposite, intra-EU trade is more like international trade, at least for B2C. Each country has its own national market situation, companies cannot easily expand to the entire EU because in every EU country they will find different local competitors who know the local market much better than they do. Every product has to be localised for the local language and culture. All marketing has to be localised.

Despite efforts to the contrary the EU functions as a glorified free trade zone, half a century of integration cannot beat 1000 years of fragmentation.

[fishermanbill]

Just to be clear my statement has nothing to do the 'EU' which is largely a trade body. I specifically used the term 'Europe' and 'free markets' not 'free trade'. This has nothing to do with Brexit to avoid confusion.

[reader_mode]

Not true at all - EU does make things simpler but it's still very different legal systems, currencies and even languages.

[emptyfile]

Why? What's the difference between USA-Mexico trade in car parts and intra-EU trade in car parts?