EU, Block eX-Twitter and raise tariffs against Elon, Inc x 100
This great summary comes from The New York Times: Countries Targeted by Trump’s Tariffs May Strike Back at U.S. Services Service sectors make up the vast bulk of the American economy, which gives trading partners some clout in trade negotiations.It offers a way to hurt Trump's big money supporters, his billionaire buddies, his tech bros douches. My first thought is go directly after Elon and ban Twitter outright. Then add specific tariffs to TESLA at a rate times one hundred. EU traiffs 25%? TESLA and all Musk affiliated would be 250%. Put the pressure on, EU. Keep 'em in the teeth, the balls, and wallets. The only way to fight a bully like Trump is to bring your friends and baseball bats and be willing to fight. Push back, EU. See it and raise the stakes. End this nonsense for all our sakes.
The United States is the largest exporter of services in the world, and a large share of those services, from financial services to cloud computing, are delivered digitally. The country ran a trade surplus in services of nearly $300 billion last year.
Many of the countries that the United States is targeting for tariffs run a services deficit with the United States, including Canada, China, Japan, Mexico and much of Europe, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“The E.U. is now equipped with policy tools to extend the range of retaliation against U.S. tariffs to target imports of U.S. services,” Filippo Taddei, a managing director of global investment research at Goldman Sachs, wrote in a research note about possible European responses.
Arguably the most extreme option is known as the Anti-Coercion Instrument. First proposed in 2021, the tool is largely untested, but it allows the European Union to hit a trading partner with a “wide range of possible countermeasures.”
Such measures could include tariffs, restrictions on trade in services and limits on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights. That could affect American tech giants like Google. Several European diplomats said that use of the tool is a distinct possibility, should the trade war escalate.
While possible restrictions aimed at services would be a new trade war response, Brussels has a history of penalizing the U.S. tech industry for other reasons. For more than a decade, the European Union has gone after Silicon Valley’s biggest companies for anticompetitive business practices, weak data privacy protections and lax content moderation policies.
Europe’s aggressive oversight has led to notable product changes because the European Union, home to about 450 million people, is a major market. Google has changed the way it displays search results, Apple has tweaked its App Store, and Meta has made adjustments to Instagram and Facebook because of E.U. rules.
Taking aim at the tech industry would intensify a feud with the Trump administration over European tech regulation. Even before the tariff standoff, senior officials including Vice President JD Vance have criticized the European Union for what they view as excessive regulation of American tech companies.
