Comment by hintymad

> Before: US: "please increase military spending" EU: "no"

What this meant between the lines for 60+ years is “please increase military spending on US overpriced weapons that we gonna sell you, weapons will be degraded versions of native counterparts and don’t think about making your own independent military industry. Oh by the way bring those weapons when we will do 20 years of failed occupation in Middle East, because we are the only country in NATO that triggered article 5 and bunch of Euros died for nothing. Because that’s the deal, we protect you, for the economic price of helping our imperial hegemony since 1940s stay at the top, but suddenly we decided this is a bad deal after all.”

It never ceases to amaze me the contortions some people put themselves through to make this US administration seem sane or even vaguely interested in the flourishing of Europe, Canada or the wider west.

Something tells me when the 'something' is a major trade deal with China suddenly it'll be 'oh my god how could you'. The US wants a EU vassal, what they're going to get is an EU that realigned itself to be politically and economically equidistant from the US and China.

> US: "We will invade greenland" EU: "omg we need to invest in greenland and increase its military support, we will send more troops immediately!"

> US: "we will pull out of nato" EU: "omg we hate US we need to massively increase military spending and industry"

It's in both the EU and the US's interest to ensure NATO is the strongest partnership possible and the US's actions over the last few weeks have undermined it almost perfectly.

If this is some kind of move, fair play, but its ham fisted because rank and file westerners across the world have lost respect and faith in America, that wont be rebuilt by some other president. Nobody will want fighter jets etc controlled by America. Perhaps USA is fine with it but to me it feels severely damaging.

No. The US does not want an independent EU. It wants an EU that lets any US company do here whatever it wants. It wants the EU to split up so it can force bad trade deals on our countries. We don't want a trade deal that lets you sell chlorinated chicken or other stuff that is currently banned here.

The US wants us to spend more on military but not on our own weapons but to spend all our money buying US made stuff. Now what the president of the US achieved is that we want to spend more to develop our own local alternatives and improve them, not buy more from the US. Why would we buy from you if your president threatens to invade Greenland?

Also - military spending was increased not because Trump bullied us into it doing it. It was seen as necessary because of russian attack on Ukraine. Trump was not some genius diplomacy mastermind. He is a man child that is pissed of for not getting the Nobel peace price. How childish is that? This is not some person who can be taken seriously in any way.

Regulation is good, Micro-USB and USB-C for phones and computer chargers is better than the dozens of different chargers that was before. Only Apple was unhappy and didn't want it. We don't want big US tech companies to steal our personal data and do whatever they want wit it.

Also - now trump is pissed off at Canada for trying to get a trade deal with China, when it was he himself who first said Canada should become a part of the US, started with random bs tariffs on canadian goods, etc. What else can you expect from Canada, why should they not try to find a more reliable trade partner? How can it be rational, what Trump is doing?

> I don't know if this was planned internally but it seems the way they figured out how to get EU to actually do something is to make it seem like big bad trump is going to hurt them.

This is an interesting take. You appear to be suggesting that the US has the EU's best interests at heart.

It ignores the fact that, on the rare occasion the Trump administration was not actively trying to undermine the EU, their "helpful advice" has always boiled down to "you should be more like us, and not being like us means you're failing."

My opinion, which I believe is common among Europeans, is that the opposite is true.

> US: "stop killing innovation" EU: " more regulation"

Have you ever stopped to think that maybe a large number of Europeans look at the lack of US regulation with disgust?

Guangdong Province at the moment has about 140,000,000 people. About the same as Russia so it figures. Also it is not the best idea to estimate GDP of Russia in USD and using US criteria.

Putin will need to die for Russia to change. Change is not possible in Russia until then. A strong EU is required post Russia.

Until then, starve the Russian economy of fossil fuel export revenue (which funds their war efforts). They have liquidated a majority of their gold reserves and have exhausted a majority of their military hardware stockpiles. If we wanted to wrap this up, we’d be bombing their oil and gas export facilities, but it appears we haven’t made it to that milestone yet.

Russia Liquidates 71% of Its Gold Reserves to Finance War Effort - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46738690 - January 2026

lol hahaha Europe will "say" and maybe in a few decades

In the local harbor, they built an LNG terminal in 6 months (Eemshaven, NL).

The Russian invasion was on February 24, 2022. They opened an LNG terminal on September 8, 2022.

My primary lessons of previous crises (2008-2010 financial crisis, COVID, 2022 invasion) is that under pressure EU/EU countries can do things very quickly and do things well. The pundits always say the next crisis breaks the EU, but it always ends up with the EU being stronger and more unified than before.

Switching gas providers is more difficult than switching from Zoom to Google Meet or other alternative.

> lol hahaha Europe will "say" and maybe in a few decades they might get around to starting some of that. Europe still buys gas from Russia; can't even ween itself off it during a war.

EU countries give final approval to Russian gas ban - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-countries-give-fi... | https://archive.today/wOHeR - January 26th, 2026

> Under the agreement, the EU will halt Russian liquefied natural gas imports by end-2026 and pipeline gas by September 30, 2027.

> The law allows that deadline to shift to November 1, 2027, at the latest, if a country is struggling to fill its storage caverns with non-Russian gas ahead of winter.

> Russia supplied more than 40% of the EU's gas before 2022. That share dropped to around 13% in 2025, according to the latest available EU data.

> The European Commission plans to also propose legislation in the coming months to phase out Russian pipeline oil, and wean countries off Russian nuclear fuel.

Ember Energy: The final push for EU Russian gas phase-out - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/the-final-push-for-... - March 27th, 2025

Considering Russian's invasion started February 24, 2022, it's fairly impressive Europe has only needed ~5 years to disconnect entirely from Russian gas supplies. Better late than never. They've proven they have the capacity to achieve these objectives in a timely manner, when motivated.