I'd predict the same but france had partial fuel shortages recently (maybe still?) and there's a limit to what they can do without torches getting lit.

It’s crazy how the EU just keeps doing the same things but hoping for different results.

Meanwhile, China, responded firmly and has come out even better against Trump.

I guess everybody is waiting for the midterms and Trump becoming a lame duck.

European economies are suffering (and have been since COVID), and russia is a much bigger threat to deal with, so the EU is always trying to take the big boy role and be friendly to get as much as possible. Confrontation would be disastrous for us, and it would be cutting our noses to spite the orange guy who wouldn't get it anyways. When red lines were about to be crossed (Greenland), there was a strong response, but for the rest it's easier to handwave

Meanwhile more strategic autonomy is being built up, but it will take years; when one of Trump's sons is president, we'll be in a better position to properly stand up.

Apart from unnecessarily joining WW2 and getting the country flattened, when he could have sat it out like Franco?

I mean... He joined ww2 on a rush schedule because he thought he was going to miss the fall of france, when most of the italian merchant fleet was not at home and ended up being seized or sank by the royal navy. Later on, the lack of shipping was critical.

I guess you could make the case that he wasn't trying to serve his masters, and it was just greed?

> Mussolini, who loved his country

Um,

Wait, this is not true? Tell me that Germany is no longer involved in world economics because of the events in the 1940's. Or the Usa in 45, or Mongolia terroritial claims during the Khan era, or any other world event in the past that is no longer relevant.

Please elaborate.

If you think the USA will ever be trusted again as they were post-1945, you are very sadly mistaken.

Maybe some trust will be restored in a generations time, but there is no going back to the post-1945 hegemony which saw the USA, and the westen world, all benefit so much.

(Not a down voter)

I think the issue with this hypothesis is that it omits variables.

Basically... is the United States, scratch that, WILL the United States be on a trajectory, post-Trump, where there is reason to believe future leadership will consistently be trustworthy to foreign nations? And how would anyone know that, or at least have reasonable confidence in that belief?

What brought us here to elect someone like this, and is that "what" going away or being fixed? Is there some hope for undoing polarized politics in this country, so that "this election is the most important of our generation" doesn't occur every four years, and both sides believe that "the other side" will ruin the country once and for all?

Time is not enough to fix the core issues. Time can move us past this particular era, these particular instances of unpredictable leadership, but time alone will not move this country past whatever levers of control convinced this electorate that this kind of leadership was the right choice for this country -- and the rest of the planet.

I've also seen them described as ICE cars (internal combustion engine)

Even 20 years ago batteries were advancing at a plodding pace. Things were just changing enough that you could build a smart phone, but battery life was by today’s standards low and charger anxiety was a real issue.

Nowadays I rarely carry a charger. On the either hand I am carrying several devices that are right on the knife edge of catching fire at any time

No need, they burst into flames on their own.

What about people with alzheimers?

But he, his clan and all sycophants made a ton of money already. What more? Make everyone's life even more miserable? Gold plate even more useless stuff?

Can they just sodd off to a remote island with a golden palace? /Mars/ would be a good place. "One way ticket" playing as part of the OST. Shoot the whole clique with a lot of gold bars to the red planet.

Nixon prolonged the war and expanded into Laos and Cambodia. They eventually got out because they were losing.

I thought the press lost the war.

Isn't that basically the whole point of an economic union?

So when Trump attacks individual countries like this, there can be a union level response?

No, the US is screwed over. From what I've read, many areas in the US are completely reliant on imports because of how the current logistics and production/processing chain/infrastructure is setup. And the market disruption caused by an export ban would wreak complete havoc in those regions and cause significant price spikes starting from diesel and then rippling out to anything reliant on it.

This is why he hasn't done it yet. Everybody in the US with money at stake called him and told him it was a stupid idea.

When Strait of Hormuz was blocked prices increased for everyone, even if these countries did not import any oil from Gulf States. This is because oil is a global market. If a large exporter becomes unavailable - prices increase for everyone.

Sweden is part of the same global market in petroleum products as every other country. In particular, Sweden imports a bunch of crude from Norway (SEK46.2B), United States (SEK13.6B), United Kingdom (SEK10.9B), Guyana (SEK9.04B), and Denmark (SEK3.82B). https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/crude-petrole...

If Germany loses access to one source of oil and pays a premium to substitute Norwegian oil instead, guess what? Sweden has to pay the same higher price for Norwegian oil as well.

This interconnection of global markets is why Trump is trying to increase diesel supply in Europe in order to lower prices in the US in the first place.

> move fast and break everything

That's what the Climate Catastrophe is going to do if nothing changes!

The Iran war is a particularly stupid shitshow, but there was no way to "properly" wage this war. There's a reason previous US administrations didn't do this, and it wasn't because they were Iran-friendly.

Committing ground troops would be necessary to actually achieve objectives here. But that would lead the US into a very different, probably even larger shitshow.

> but now I'm just seeing people say/ write it out loud: fuck the US

European here. It's not surprising. We knew we were in for a ride when y'all reelected the buffoon in 2024. But the sheer ignorance and outright malice the US has shown in the last two years alone... tariff wars against what are nominal allies? Threats to forcibly annex an ally's territory? Dragging us into an economic crisis with the completely botched Iran war? Setting up an economic crisis that will put the disaster of 2007ff to shame by allowing the wash trading and Habsburgian investment web in the AI economy?

Trump has permanently burnt bridges here. Even if people were protesting, it wouldn't matter, this damage will take decades to repair.