Appeasement won’t work: Why Europe must stand up to the US President

25 comments

1. IMO Europe would be in a better position to negotiate if it first focuses on reigniting economic growth, innovation and its defensive capabilities. It is the erosion of these factors that puts it in a weak negotiating position, and only by addressing these fundamentals will it become strong.

2. Yes, everyone feels this way, but until Europe can defend itself, all of these pieces are a simple coping mechanism.

3. Dude, have they even looked what is happening in America? The mayor of Chicago and many local groups already said they are going to fight Donal Trump should he deploy the Army to Chicago! They are embroiled in legal battles across every corner. Society is heating up at an insane pace.

   I mean. How is media so fucking far from reality on the ground in America. Sit back and prepare for Fallout!

4. You can tell EU leaders are still in a mindset where they just have to outlast Trump and then everything will go back to normal so in the meantime they just wither the storm and appease Trump hoping he will go away if they just buy time.

   This is shortsighted in the extreme and makes sure Europe remains a vassal to the US.

5. No problem with a bit of appeasement to buy time to put the economies of Europe on a more resilient footing … but in the hope it’ll make a bully back down? It won’t. The choice will always be “stand up now or stand up later”.

6. europe has no power to do anything except complain

7. He only has 3 years left. I would say Russia would love it if the EU lost its cool and destroyed decades of commerical relationships.with the USA because of their agent, trump. When your enemy wants you to smash things, it may be worth staying calm.

   Now assuming the next US president is less in Russia’s pocket, that would be a good time to get tough with the USA. But for now, lets just get through trump and not make permanent changes for the sake of 1 us administration.

8. I’ve heard enough reasons on “why”; I want to know some means about “how”.

9. Just Boycott everything American, it’s the way

10. >So it’s time for the EU to accept the reality that Trump is a bully and that he must be confronted as such. This may come with a short term cost and it will require clear leadership and communication from European leaders, especially from President von der Leyen – the only global leader in the EU institutions. She must engage in real debate with the European Parliament, starting next month in Strasbourg and must engage with Europeans via real media interviews in Brussels and across the national capitals, instead of hiding in the Berlaymont.

    What really matters to Ursula is keeping her place as president, a debate in Strasbourg about that trade agreement could only weaken her position, much more if the media show all the contradictions and failures (for the EU) of the agreement. Of course, the agreement allows a few countries to keep a good chunk of their economy and jobs relatively safe, but at what cost?

11. Not only will it not work it will only encourage the use of the Sam tactics every time the tangerine tyrant decides he wants something. It’s a very slippery slope and the old idea of weathering the storm of a shitty administration in Washington no longer works.

12. Is it really the case that what was obvious to everyone – to fight back and conduct multi-round tough negotiations – is the right strategy, rather than agreeing to all the conditions and receiving even harsher ones?
    Perhaps the EU Commission should take a course on “how to properly negotiate for beginners “.

13. The US has us at the balls on defense (Ukraine) and energy (LNG imports). We are not self-sufficient in these 2 topics and both EU and US knows it. We dont have a lot of cards unfortunately.

14. It would be nice if we, as a whole, came together and formed an Europe wide coalition that stood strong against Trump’s increasingly corrupt America.

    Ideally EU would be exactly that but the will to resist seems to be missing and capitulation seems like the go to solution as of now.

15. Considering the dismal record and likability of the DNC. It could be a decade of Trump policies that continue for quite some time.

16. We have a very messy dynamic. On the one hand we have a bully ( Putin ) who is needlessly killing people and threatening all of Europe. On the other hand we have a child-bully ( Trump ) playing in a sandbox throwing sand at everyone who passes by, whether they appease him or not. So what to do ? Be nice to stand up to both, without losing Ukraine.

17. realpolitik usually means strong countries sacrificing their own allies and treating them as pieces of shit for immidiate short-term geopolitical or economic rewards while sacrificing long-term trust and diplomatic relations with their most trustable and longest-held allies.

18. I’m cheering for Europe’s success, but I doubt Europeans are willing to eat the quality of life hit that would be involved in standing up to the US. 

19. Well first step should be not calling him DADDY and telling him to stop being a cunt to his allies while sucking off Russia

20. But wont

21. Did they not all fly over here after the Putin meeting to stand with Zelensky? I thought they did. Were they supposed to stand up harder? I don’t get it. They look like they’re doing everything they can, to me. What more could they do?

    I mean, if we can all hang on a few more years, we can outlast the guy. Could happen. Further disaster is not inevitable. And it’s not like Trump is doing anything the people don’t have the power to stop, anyway. It’s not on Europe to stop Trump, it’s on the American people.

22. European countries are looking at the same collapse of failed, weak and corrupt liberalism that the US fell too. Fascism and totalitarian surveillance state setup by UAs oligarchs is spreading in Europe. No one wants to admit that middling moderates will always lead to fascism.

    Im not saying the world should become communist. I’m saying the world needs a stronger, more left leaning sentiment reflected in its representatives.

23. EU has been appeasing Xi, Putin, Netanyahu, and Trump. What are they doing? The global far-right is consuming the world and Europe wants to pretend nothing bad is going to happen. Keep it up and the far-right will slurp up the EU nations and turn them into shitholes, too

24. At the very least we need to let go of thinking they are allies we can build our policies around.

    Absolute worst case scenario America becomes our adversary or even enemy. That will in that case be the scariest world we have ever seen. A ‘rogue’ America will be magnitudes worse than a puny little Germany going crazy as in 39. (Threatening Greenland and Canada is no joke to be taken lightly. Nor are the repressive tendencies in America atm).

    We best forge our own strategies and defense asap!

    Apart from Hungary and Slovakia we still have strong common values, and land, to defend.

    Stand up to yes!

    Reject completely. No. Not quite yet.

25. Let’s stop gaslighting ourselves, and stop beating ourselves up that it’s somehow our fault that Trump is dishing out tariffs. No, it isn’t. That’s entirely his own initiative. Everyone gets tariffs because he thinks it’s the best idea since sliced bread, we won’t be an exception. All we can realistically achieve is haggle about the conditions and timing, which we successfully did.

    Sometimes it just rains, and all you can do is open an umbrella. You can’t make the sun shine if it’s raining by working harder. That result is not achievable. In fact, by running around in the rain trying to make it stop, you likely just get soaked, which is unnecessary.

    Let’s move on, and fix up the holes in our own defense and IT sectors, and keep going full force on our policy to reduce our energy import dependence, and our dependence on gross consumer markets like the US.

Comments are closed.