Comment by skeletal88
2 days ago
This has nothing to do with tariffs and everything to do with us companies hsving an unfair advantage or justnot following EU regulations. Or musk trying to interfere in our politics and supporting extreme right wing parties. Also us government having access to our cloud data, etc. All our advertising money goes to the US to google/fb, because everyone is using them, not because they are inherently better at anything, for example.
So many of you keep using the word “unfair.” What is so unfair? What can these countries do that we cannot?
Have you considered all the advantages the US has over some of these countries? Is that not “unfair”? I would say the US’s relationship with the Internet is certainly an advantage even if we call it “fair.”
I think what they mean is that post war US got a special treatment from their main allies in exchange for US globalism, diplomacy, security. For example in EU with digital technology the US got:
- always open arms for adoption (all govs prefer to use US software, although there have always been local alternatives). EU govs never really pushed adoption of their local software companies, they usually push for adoption of US tech
- extremely lax tax rules and enforcement towards US
- no protection of sales of local companies and startups (every successful EU tech company becomes US owned)
- lax enforcement of local laws towards US companies compared to EU ones. So many US businesses would be illegal but the companies do it anyway while EU alternatives have hard time existing (for example all consumer data gathering and sales but also companies like uber and airbnb)
All that is ok in eyes of EU politicians since there is “the silent deal”. But what do you do once one party doesn't keep their side of the bargain?
I totally agree and rereading it I completely flipped it. I thought he was another person in this thread saying that other countries have an unfair advantage against the US. My mistake.