[jjani]

Well written. The comparison with physical goods as you're making it is one I'm a big fan of, and should be made much more often.

It's laughable that tarriffs and import taxes only apply to physical goods. If the EU had even an ounce of self-respect, the second the US came out with the tarriffs, they would've come out and said:

"We think this is a fantastic idea by Mr. Trump. Aligned with his views, we are instituting accompanying digital tarriffs to fix the digital trade defecit. We're sure he'll agree that the trade balance should be corrected in both the physical as well as digital worlds".

And that's why the US is so mad at the likes of Brazil - finally, after decades of getting rinsed, countries are starting to take (wholly insufficient) measures here and rightly instituting the equivalent of digital tarriffs.

[immibis]

The EU presumbly knows they're currently very dependent on the US tech industry, and doesn't want to collapse the EU to the way Trump doesn't know the US is dependent on imported materials and will collapse the US.

(It's probably more about keeping up politicians' stock market investments though)

[_w1tm]

The EU has a homegrown tech industry that could pick up the slack, though it would be expensive.

The real problem is that the US would leave Ukraine and Europe alone against Russia which has a real chance of turning into WW3. Most likely this isn’t discussed in the US media but feels like every week some notable politician or high-ranking military is warning that Russia will invade NATO after Ukraine. Trump knows our weakness and is squeezing hard.

The mood here in eastern Europe is very much that we’re talking when, not if, Russia attacks us.