If you're getting tariffs anyway, why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders? Let French engineers sell jailbreaking hardware for iphones, or Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors.
Because they are terrified that there will be unpredictable and turbulent times for the major industries?
Just look at the public opinion polls, EU citizens are ready to take on Americans and even the most pro-US countries are barely on the green in public opinion towards US. The problems is that the old guard, the establishment is fanatically pro-US and pro stability. Which means that the current politicians are in odds with what the public wants and eventually either the public will have to become pro-US again or the anti-US politicians will take stage. US Doing stuff like tariffs that can destabilize the stability folks can push things to much earlier.
Nations (even left wing) need the ability of sovereignty to apply their ideas/iterate on them.
Make the existence of their sovereignty a threat and all factions will stand united setting their differences aside (usually).
Like its one of the most effective ways to unite a complete nation against a cause, in this case its against America and its calling the wrath of not just the danish people but the whole EU as it feels not just a threat on Greeland but EU itself.
reverse engineering -everything-technological- was a national/state-funded (amateur and also professional) sport not so long ago, in quite a few countries around..
It is sold by Israeli engineers for at least a decade and mostly bought by law enforcement.
> Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors
That infrastructure exists since year 2000. Called chiptuning tools, but it is usually done by Italians or Swiss. And specifically for John Deere we had some Ukrainian company, I don't remember exact name.
Yes. That's the point Cory wisely makes: that America has forced other countries to agree to our draconian & anti-human brutal felony-offense-of-business-nidel IP laws, as a condition for other trade agreements.
Most regions do have these laws. Enforcement sometimes is lax, yes, but America and it's businesses do go after people internationally sort of at their pleasure.
Having a world where it's not illegal to understand & look at how the devices around us work is a bare minimum, imo, spiritually, for government to stop being in opposition to honor erectus, man, the tool maker. Letting us do things too lets us live up to our namesake of homo sapien, man the brain-ed one.
> why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders...
Because that means we in the US may as well quasi-nationalize major European investments in the US like VW, Siemens, Saint-Gobains, OnSemi, NXP, Arm, and Nexperia and target European luxury cultural exports like Cognac (LVHM), Wine (LVMH), designer clothes (LVMH), designer purses (LVMH), and others like China did.
As a result, oligarchs like (eg.) Arnault (LVMH) would metaphorically slap Macron like they did on multiple occasions [0][1], and threaten to switch to supporting the RN. If they made Macron in 2017 [2], they can unmake him in 2026 [3].
It's the same story across Europe [4][5]. And any domestic capacity that could have remained within the EU is going to start leaving on January 27th [6].
Edit: can't reply
> how you get from IP law abrogation to 'quasi- nationalization'
IP Law protection is sacrosanct in any US trade deal, as we are a services exporter. If faced by actions like those mentioned above, we wouldn't be above retaliating.
This is why American tech companies successfully lobbied both the Biden and Trump administration to tamp down on any attempt on a Digital Services Tax by any country, such as with Canada [7] and the EU [8].
I'm saying it won't get to that, because any European leader who even threatens such an action would face the threat of a no-confidence motion by a now well funded opposition.
> As a result, oligarchs like (eg.) Arnault (LVMH) would metaphorically slap Macron like they did on multiple occasions [0][1], and threaten to switch to supporting the RN. If they made Macron in 2017 [2], they can unmake him in 2026 [3].
I don't think americans quite understand how much the population has shifted from being pro-USA to anti-USA
in the space of a year, as the orange cretin has been throwing his wrecking ball around
we don't have the cancer that is fox news
some billionaire who makes fancy handbags saying he's going to support a different political party will have zero impact on election results
> some billionaire who makes fancy handbags saying he's going to support a different political party will have zero impact on election results
Arnault already has. He's the reason Élisabeth Borne is no longer the PM [0] and why the billionaire tax failed [1]. And his rival Bolloré is the reason why the RN is at the cusp of power [2]
> we don't have the cancer that is fox news
Instead you have Vivendi and Canal+ who are now owned by Bolloré [3], who has been using the Murdoch/Fox News strategy as well [4].
Oligarchs like Bolloré continued to support, collaborate, and disseminate pro-Putin and pro-Russia media [0][1][2] despite Macron's avowed support for Ukraine and Putin going "full retard".
In other cases, oligarchs like Arnault have been personal friends with Trump since the 1980s [3] and have co-invested in his personal businesses for decades.
They'll continue to collaborate with Trump as well due to personal, ideological [4] and financial [5] ties.
> even the AfD are now distancing themselves from the US regime
Yet their backer Dröpfer, who has had a history of support Thiel projects like Vance [6] and continues to maintain capital relations with Thiel [7].
Even in Poland, Tusk came out against sending troops to Greenland [8] due to political pressure from the American funded Polish right [9].
The reality is, the US, China, Russia, and increasingly even India view European states as easily pliable [10]
I'm also aware that money is thicker than blood which is thicker than water. If forced to choose between collaboration and confrontation, a large portion will end up choosing collaboration.
As a Frenchman, I'm sure you are well aware of how in Vichy France, industry collaborated with the authoritarian regime via Comités d'organisation.
Humans are selfish and normal people cannot win against oligarchs. What else can we do.
I was curious how you bang out these replies, with sources. Do you have some script or something to format your sources at the bottom of each comment? Personally I liked seeing a well sourced comment, I'm always too lazy to do it for mine.
I used to be a staffer in this space and almost became an academic, but decided I like tech too much and fighting to spend half a decade doing a PhD in order to become an adjunct Econ or Policy professor at a state college would be a waste of my CS education. It's easy to cite sources on stuff when I've either studied with or under the people who are mentioned in these article, or been friends with their staffers.
> Do you have some script or something to format your sources
Ce n'est pas parce que vous choisissez d'ignorer l'américanisation de la politique française qu'elle n'est pas en train de se produire progressivement.
Both the US and France share similar undercurrents.
This article is just wrong about the facts. Doctorow says "Anticircumvention law originates in the USA", but anticircumvention law originates in the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which all EU members and all their major trade partners are signatory to. The DMCA was passed to 2 years after this treaty was signed to implement the American obligations under it.
The “and” is doing a lot of work there! You have to respond to US aggression by targeting US interests - it completely defeats the point to do things that also hurt your other trade partners and domestic big businesses. Do European big businesses (or Japanese big businesses) not want anticircumvention laws?
Some large businesses probably do WANT anti-circumvention laws , but that doesn't mean it's good for them. Kids always want more sugar than is good for them too.
Those kinds of laws are great for incumbent moats, much less for innovation. Compare eg. China. (or early USA or Japanese industrialization)
If you're getting tariffs anyway, why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders? Let French engineers sell jailbreaking hardware for iphones, or Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors.