Hacker News Reader

Comment by _8j50 | Hacker News Reader

There are European vendors like ericcson. This is about being cheap.

This is a strange case where for some reason the EU isn't doing exactly what it very obviously should be doing: looking after its own self-interest and pushing European technology aggressively [1]. The EU should have taken the opportunity to severely deflate Huawei in the EU and push European alternatives.

Europe needs to gain in tech and this is one easy way to do it, by supporting their own players, their own ecosystem. And it's a self-interest freebie at that: the US and EU interests are mostly aligned, there will be no push-back for supporting Ericsson & Co. The US would rather everyone use Ericcson than Huawei.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/29/21113289/european-union-e...

That's a short-sighted view of the EU's self-interest. If EU countries ban Huawei from their markets, then China bans EU car companies from its market.

So, is it worth it to sacrifice VW and BMW in order to help Nokia and Ericsson?

Cars are not national communication infrastructure. I am sure China will prefer Huawei for their own mobile gear over nokia and ericcson as well.

> Cars are not national communication infrastructure.

Sure, but are you saying the tradeoff is worth it? It's fairly simple: if Europe begins taking protectionist measures that harm Chinese companies, then China will respond in kind.

In many ways the EU plays by the rulebook of free trade : not discriminating between economic agents based on provenance, but on norms instead.

I don't know about that in this case. There EU members are supposed to have free tradr which means EU goods should have priority due to tax,tariffs and other issues I thought?

I agree. This thread discusses that with a historical perspective: https://twitter.com/mikebutcher/status/1221842546881679360?s...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com