US warns EU against excluding American companies from € 150 billion defense initiative which can supply Ukraine with weapons
US warns EU against excluding American companies from € 150 billion defense initiative which can supply Ukraine with weapons
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But isn't the EU's military self-sufficient the thing that the US has been talking about for so long?
Yes but they want to make money as well. It's a conundrum they are too stupid to solve.
Maybe some tariffs then? You know, to balance the US-EU weapons trade? How much EU weaponry does the US buy? :)
Hey, the US can still bid on EU arms programs, but we'll have to put a 200% tarriff in to balance the trade, because that's totally how it works.
Wait, let me check with chatGPT to confirm.
Yep, that's how it works!
Since war weapons are bought by the government with public money, putting tariffs on them doesn't do anything. You can only make an effect with tariffs on purchases by private entities. In that sense the EU could put tariffs on weapon parts that European manufacturers buy from the US. I am not sure how big that market is though. AFAIK a lot of EU components end up in US weapons, for instance optics for military vehicles.
putting tariffs on them doesn’t do anything.
It does! I'm not a lawyer and know nothing about EU law in this regard but in my country, tariffs would effectively raise the US weaponry prices making them impossible to win a tender (not sure if that is correct English terminology) unless they offer something that EU just don't produce at all or the price is ridiculously high.
You could more easily exclude US products from tenders for security/strategic reasons. That is easier to achieve and more honest.
They want the EU members to have large armies equipped with american weapons.
That the US government can turn off at any time they want.
And then they build in a switch-off trigger so that when their allies, the Russians, and they will attack us - according to the so called Trump-Putin agreement - they can switch off all the weapons.
it's called "racketeering"
Even if a country has a very efficient military, or an ineffective one, "spend 5%!!!".
On USA weapons ofc.
Because spending more needs time to ramp up, relevant, arms production. Or buy from the USA of course.
So they can turn off those weapons whenever they want?
Yes but not like that.jpg
Yeah it's just so nakedly transparent how dishonest their posturing is about Europe not doing enough on defense.
Turns out what they actually meant was "our entire economic system is predicated on infinite unending YoY growth targets, and we've run of ways to grow, so now you all have to start spending more money on feeding this fucking beast we created".
Also this theme of "how dare you take advantage of us all these years" is exactly the kind of talk domestic abusers use.
The US was far from reaching the end of ways to grow, they just have to keep financing universities and public research then load it up to applied science and VC money...
They got rid of research. They are getting rid of universities financing. They are emptying the pockets of VCs.
Oopsy.
No, they want Europe to pay for its own defense. That still would include buying US weapons.
Basically the US was the worlds police until recently. That gave them a lot of global influence mainyl the USD being the global currency. However it also required them to have a massive military and do things like supporting Ukraine, which obviously cost a lot. So they want other reasonable countries to pay for their own defense to keep their costs down. That however always meant still buying US weapons. The problem being that for some like the EU a working defense means less reliance on the US, hence less benefits.
Basically the US was the worlds police until recently.
For the most part, only they saw it that way. The very fact that America refuses to recognize the ICC tells you everything you need to know about how good faith their "world policing" actually is.
What they've actually got a history of doing is describing foreign incursions to protect their own economic interests as "police actions" rather than formal declarations of war, in order to ignore various laws and international conventions. America has not been the good guy since 1945.
If you need their permission to use the weapons you bought, it sounds a lot like they still are the police and you are only a samaritan that calls them and follow whatever they tell you to do.
