Ben Matthews

Indeed it seems Trump picked up some ideas about “Juche” (national self-reliance?) from his best buddy “rocket-man”.

US has only 4% of the world’s population, there are now plenty of super-rich in China, India, etc. who like to flaunt i-stuff.

And if chinese buy iphones, do they now have to pay 84% tariff? - maybe HQ in europe solves that too?

As a global company, Apple could just re-establish itself in europe, e.g. Ireland, and continue trading with China, they can just put the US on hold for a couple of years.
Meanwhile for those who really addicted to istuff, coyotes can smuggle iphones across the border, so maybe this solves the fentanyl ‘issue’.

Well thought out article - worth reading

History will recall this as the Trump Slump …

Others, including populist right politicians in several of EU’s own member states …
The article’s intention is good, but does anybody here know how much the EU commission or parliament can do about this, without unanimity, and without it’s own police ? Also does the ECJ have any role?

Diverse views here, even within our lemmy ‘bubble’, suggest it’s not obvious what to do about this (and similar situation in France and other european countries). Banning either individuals or parties can set a risky precedent and does not necessarily diminish a movement. I’d rather go for gradually (but rapidly) changing norms about acceptable campaigning, propaganda, use of social media, ‘fake’ news (lies). That includes faster-acting legal restrictions on funding, ownership, facts/fakes, algorithms, etc… , as well as positively strengthening alternatives like our fediverse.

The sequencing of events set up by trump team, getting Ukraine to agree first, benefits putin - while he delays answering he can still initiate some new offensive, but if Ukraine now makes any big surprise move that starts regaining territory, Russia can play the ‘agree to ceasefire’ card to stop it.

Belgian here, and I think all such specific options are wrong.
Any big equipment ordered now would quickly become obsolete, look how drones (both air and sea) evolved just during the last couple of years. Next problem may be countering crawling robots controlled by AI. Meanwhile heavy expensive stuff carrying people becomes relatively inefficient. So what any country needs is multifunctional adaptable factories and teams - capacity to make new equipment quickly, as needed.

The geopolitical situation will also evolve long before any equipment ordered now is ready. And how that evolves depends especially on defence against misinformation. Addressing gaps opened in development aid also influences the geopolitical balance. A smaller ‘diplomatic’ country might play an outsized role in these domains.
If military threats can be reduced, multifunctional factories should be capable to make technically-related equipment to tackle multiple non-military threats including “natural” disasters - such as floods or forest-fires, there was already discussion of a need for european rapid-response teams for such purposes. Build capacity for manufacturing both swords and ploughshares together. This could also gain more sustained cross-society support, and keep personnel actively trained. Building multifunctional capacity rather than stockpiles also avoids driving future leaders to enter conflicts to justify the “investment” (arguably a factor behind this war of Russia, as well as earlier US-led wars).

As for paying US for F35s (which keep whizzing above my head, my dog chases them away…) - crazy waste of money, if as demonstrated last week any mad president in Washington can just switch them off (or refuse to update codes, software etc. - same effect in just a few weeks).

denied, from belgium

It must be bitter especially for the greens to support this debt-spending on infrastructure that they were not allowed to do (by FDP and CDU) while in government, so will they just vote it through quickly now?