[DiogenesKynikos]

The EU could absolutely find ways to hurt the US economy just as much as vice versa. It doesn't have to use the same tools as the US. Just ban major US companies from doing business in the EU. Impose massive fines. Get creative.

The EU economy is on par with the US economy. The EU has plenty of ability to hurt the US economy.

The reason this doesn't happen is because the EU isn't a country. It doesn't have a unified central government. It's 27 different sovereign states, each with their own completely different foreign policy. The type of policy I'm describing requires a unified political leadership willing to play for high stakes.

This is why China has been so much more effective than the EU in the trade war with the US. It's not that China theoretically has better cards to play. It just has a central government.

[mike_hearn]

EU economy is not on par with the US economy. This is a dangerously old belief. That was maybe true in 2000 but not in 2026. EU GDP per capita is ~$48k and US GDP per capita is ~$94k. US economy is nearly twice as big. Quarter of a century of higher growth will do that.

EU does run a trade surplus with the USA. In a big fight the USA would, strictly speaking, have to replace more stuff than the EU would. However that ignores the makeup of the things being traded. EU exports to the US is dominated by pharma products that the US could make generics of, misc machinery that can often be replaced by Chinese competitors now, and luxury goods the US doesn't strictly need. US exports to EU are critical for the functioning of the economy (assuming you count tech services as exports).

It would be catastrophic for the world if there was a serious trade war between US and EU but if it involved major disruptions to tech services the EU would fold within days. There are no home grown replacements for most US software and no ability to make them anytime soon (especially as any broad spectrum sanctions would include frontier AI models).

[ben_w]

> EU economy is not on par with the US economy. This is a dangerously old belief. That was maybe true in 2000 but not in 2026. EU GDP per capita is ~$48k and US GDP per capita is ~$94k. US economy is nearly twice as big. Quarter of a century of higher growth will do that.

I think per capita is not a useful measure here? The populations are unequal.

By nominal exchange rates, the US economy is estimated to be $31.856T this year; the EU's $23T; by purchasing power parity exchange rates, the EU is $30.678T.

Exchange rates matter for what actually gets traded, but they're also easily shifted by interest rate policies. But even with this, any simplification of economics sufficient to fit in a comment is going to be very misleading about questions of who is more or less dependent on global free trade, the US or the EU. Even the complexity you list: I suspect there's an office or five in various EU nations filled with economists trying to work out exactly what would go down if there was an EU-US trade war and how to remove the critical points of failure.

> US exports to EU are critical for the functioning of the economy (assuming you count tech services as exports).

> It would be catastrophic for the world if there was a serious trade war between US and EU but if it involved major disruptions to tech services the EU would fold within days.

Yes, but this is kinda the point of all the digital sovereignty stuff.

It was already weird to me, as an iPhone app developer in Germany making apps for Germans living in Germany where sometimes the only language option was German, that I had to tick a box while uploading apps confirming that any encryption in the app would be in compliance with US export laws*; now, it's unacceptable.

* https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/manage-ap...

(Irony, that page links to https://bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/encryption which for me has an SSL error)

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> It would be catastrophic for the world if there was a serious trade war between US and EU but if it involved major disruptions to tech services the EU would fold within days. There are no home grown replacements for most US software and no ability to make them anytime soon (especially as any broad spectrum sanctions would include frontier AI models).

It's true that much of our infrastructure depend on US parties, but there are regions, governments, municipalities and more that is already 100% independent, although they're few right now, growing every day though.

But it's a misconception that it's 100% dependent on US SaaS and services, when already there are islands of people running their own infrastructure already today. People won't just give up if the US somehow cuts all connection, they'll just collaborate with the people who's infrastructure continue running like nothing happened, and it'll happen fast as a lot of services depend on that to work.

[graemep]

> It's true that much of our infrastructure depend on US parties, but there are regions, governments, municipalities and more that is already 100% independent, although they're few right now, growing every day though.

What about the devices people use to use this infrastructure? Most individuals use American controlled smartphones and American OSes on computers. What about private businesses?

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> Most individuals use American controlled smartphones and American OSes on computers.

Do most individuals really? I think in America, it might seem like that, but if you visit countries like Peru, Spain or Asian countries, you'll realize there are huge mobile companies completely outside of the American hegemony that are popular in the world too, although maybe they're unheard of in the US. Last time in Peru I probably saw more Xiaomi phones than anything else, and also Huawei is popular.

[DiogenesKynikos]

US GDP is only about 30% larger than EU GDP in nominal terms, which is not enough to matter in this discussion. It's "on par" for all intents and purposes. The EU has plenty of ways to hurt the US economy very severely.

[graemep]

The EU is not necessarily the right comparator. If it came to that level of conflict its possible that not all EU countries would side against the US, its also possible some non EU countries would. However, i agree with your broad point that some European alliance is roughly comparable to the US.

However:

1. European countries are low growth and therefore of diminishing economic importance. Every year that goes by North America and Asia and other economies become comparatively larger.

2. What the US supplies Europe is going to do greater immediate damage to Europe than what Europe supplies the US. The US can turn off things that start hurting economically broadly and immediately and are hard to replace: cloud services, payment systems, etc. Things that only hurt when stocks run out, or that could be bought from elsewhere have less impact.