I expect other governments to follow suit.
From a tech defence angle, I can't see Trump rallying in support of his good buddy, Jeff Bezos.
The space of... international laws to transfer money for literally no reason to the government of the UK, even though they have no services or investments to recuperate related to the money in question?
I mean, it's fair that everyone asks for a slice of the pie, but that doesn't mean it's fair that they take it.
In the general case, it's once thing to let an industry shrink because they are out-competed, it's another entirely to let them shrink to the point where recovery is extremely hard or event nearly impossible because of the loss of domain knowledge.
In addition, there's also first mover advantage, and in some industries that can mean the first mover dominates to such a degree that fair competition (market information is distorted) is hard. There's nothing inherently wrong with trying to alter the market, it all depends on the goal and methods. If this were applied towards bolstering competition by incentivizing Europeans offerings, that might benefit everyone eventually.
So far I'm with you.
> to prevent starvation and entire dependence on external parties.
Heh. Man I remember when I used to think like this. I remember the time fondly, oddly enough. Sadly, sorry to say, you will be cured of this.
THIS is also the UK government:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Inquiry_into_Child...
or, perhaps,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_smallpox_outbreak_in_the_...
The UK KNIGHTED the person who lied in court to get the government out of paying compensation for ONE VICTIM that the UK government, after being forewarned of exactly what would happen ... to which the UK government didn't react to save a buck. Resulting in a problem that could have easily killed 1 million UK citizens, majority of them children. Needless to say, the UK government did impose incredible costs on some of it's citizens, in almost all cases with very flimsy justification (one person's wife being forcibly kidnapped, without informing the guy or their families, never to be allowed to see each other again, after the government killed her. I mean, it's almost a Disney villain plot, except without the good ending)
Sorry to say, but if you think the UK government has either your or any of it's citizens' interests at heart. Or any other government. You're sorely delusional.
So:
Fairness - Nope
Fixing competition - Nope
Altering the market - No
Incentivizing European offerings - Nope
None of this is a goal. Another example linked to is that the UK state is an organization that has been known to use violence to kidnap child abuse victims, and lock them in with other sex offenders, then afterwards refuse so much as acknowledging that might have been a wrong decision, when the inevitable happens.
Such an organization, I'm sorry to say, can be reasonably assumed not to have the interests of you, or me, or anyone but itself, at heart. It's on the side of big companies and tax law is just driving a hard bargain. It is very much not about making their own job harder by doing such things as massively increasing the number of people they need to negotiate with (otherwise known as "competition").
But go ahead, down vote me, of course the state is the epitome of all that is good of the universe. I understand that if that were to be a flawed way of seeing things, social policies start to sound a lot less like they're helping, and much more like they're cynically designed to increase the abuse suffered by the "helped" people, and prevent them from finding actual help, get out of their situation, or find redress. This shows you a new way of thinking about social policies and why they're made. Anti-child abuse laws are about encouraging child trade (and with that, inevitably, abuse), and preventing at all costs any means those kids might want to prevent the state from harming them further, and above all, to eliminate any legal redress such children might have against the state, at the damage done by it's agents to them.
Of course, one can easily make the determination about these policies. Find a few homeless, find a few now grown adopted children, and find a few that look smart, and ... ask them.
We all know what view they will have. The irony is that usually people turn those opinions into "see ? We need more child care/job programs/homeless assistance/...". A method for preventing those very programs from inflicting future damage as was done on these people is never discussed.
Stupidity _and_ condescension? That's a combo I can't resist trying for myself. Blue ducks bark oranges.