What's stopping Volkswagen from lobbying Germany to ban Teslas because all the cameras in it pose a "national security risk"?
This is, by all account, a shortsighted move
This is, by all account, a shortsighted move
The US stood for free markets, democracy and human rights and (at least) pretended to make international decisions based on those values. Now the fig leaf is gone and it is clear that those are mostly used to make transactions to US benefit even if it comes at the cost to others.
If you value something like free markets, you stand by it even if it comes at a cost in the near future. If opaque TikTok recommendation engines are a problem, maybe regulate them in a way that solves the problem in general? That would hurt Youtube, Facebook and co. but it also would make the EU more comfortable in the negotiation for the Privacy Shield successor.
A free market doesn’t exist if a country wants to sell their products cheaply in your country completely untaxed, while taxing your goods to the point of being unattainable. Just like a country can’t reasonably say they deserve unrestrained, free access to your social media market while banning every single product from their country.
A free market means companies compete on their own merits without imbalanced restrictions. This is balancing the restrictions.
An anti free market move would be protecting their own companies against all global competition, irrespective of country.
Edit: This comment was being voted positively (+4) until the US folks started to wake up (now sitting at 0) :)
The problem is not even the goal, but the shallowness of the approach. He doesn't appear to be surrounded by people who craft comprehensive strategies that he then understands and ponders deeply before hitting the tweet button.
He had plenty of time to organize a cohesive policy to redefine the relationship with China; this all looks like improvised reaction based on a hunch or worse based on rumors that the Tulsa rally was tanked because of a viral video on tiktok.
I'd be happy to be proven wrong, please give me some stand of hope that we're dealing with a super smart 4d chess player that just behaves like an incoherent senile showbiz person. I might not agree with policies but I'd honestly prefer a competent person to this lunacy.
This whole thing is surreal. We have a chaos-monkey pulling the strings on global economy and order, and we're discussing whether he may or may not have a point on some things. He clearly has a point on something now and then. A random number generator would resonate with parts of the populace even more.
The modern CCP bears zero resemblance to 19th-century Marxist theory.
The U.S. was unique for a long time in that they did not ask for much in return for what they did, because they wanted the power (troop deployments in Europe, Hong Kong customs status, etc.).
Recently, Canada used tit-for-tat to deal with U.S. aluminum tariffs, but they're the "nice" country. This is how it all works.
I tend to think in the trade situation, it's best to play the long game and try and stay open. Once both sides start banning each other, then it's probably never turning around without some significant leverage gain by one of the parties.
Hardly. Reciprocity is common place in all manners of international relations, be it trade, visas/travel, embassy restrictions, and even warfare. The fact that China has been allowed to conduct themselves this way with little to no retaliation is the outlier, not these new actions.
This is how trade relationships work.
If china puts a tariff on us, for corn, or steel, or whatever, then the US is going to put the same exact corn/steel tariff on them.
Reciprocity is a foundational premise of trade relations.
> The US stood for free markets
We have tariffs against many countries for many different reasons... This is nothing new. That is just how trade relations work.
That's not trade, it's politics. Any economist would point out that tariffs hurt Americans by increasing the prices they pay. Yeah, let's teach those Chinese a lesson by making goods more expensive and reducing our standard of living!
Exactly the words you should be addressing to CCP, as the modern mainland China is not involved in fair trade, doesn't respect IP laws, and doesn't treat US companies equally on its territory.
A US company recieves this company, and we get it for cheap.
It's the China government started the trend of banning apps from foreign countries so that their own companies can grow and spread outside China.
I see this ban as a late but fair move.
Governments ban apps at will? Sounds like a Communist Regime move.
A late but fair move to achieve what, exactly?
"If you punch me in the face then, later, I'll punch _you_ in the face".
This type of behavior may be par for the course in USA but how is it good for humanity?
Not saying whether I agree or not, just saying that it is, according to at least some people, a reason in and of itself.
Having to sign up with FB or Google to be able to chat with people there is really no different to me (and it was not always the case in case of Goolgle). At least in case of Google, I can still send e-mails to Google accounts from anywhere.
This business model was allowed to continue in US, and now I can't communicate with Google users as I could in the past via jabber.
That being said, China levies rules on foreign companies that are levied across all companies, and some foreign companies don't want to play by those rules. That's totally different from an outright ban based on "national security." Just think about it, how is Wechat/TikTok supposed to even comply with US demands? It's clearly a political move. Plus, Wechat users in American know they're being watched by the communist party, whereas Facebook users don't even know how much they're being watched by the US government...
There absolutely is a valid reason to be authoritarian towards authoritarians. They get what they preach and deserve. It is the same principle of morality of an action of self-defense, when a physical force is applied on those who initiated a physical force in the first place.
This is a public image question for Western world companies more than anything.
"In a statement, Apple said it had to comply with recently introduced Chinese laws that require cloud services offered to Chinese citizens be operated by Chinese companies and that the data be stored in China. It said that while the company’s values don’t change in different parts of the world, it is subject to each country’s laws."
Also note how the Chinese government effectively set up and runs this company, so the government more or less forced Apple to give their Chinese operations to them.
EU countries don't get to have "national security" that conflicts with the US to more than a trivial extent, like the Airbus/Boeing conflict. That's been a tradeoff that was accepted since the end of WW2. The US now complains about Europe not having strong militaries, having forgotten that for decades it was policy to discourage Europe from having strong militaries in case that started another war.
The US and China only get to play the national security card like this because of a high degree of conventional military and economic power.
Do german people really care about those? (besides the obvious economic benefits in the towns where those troops are stationed due to local spending)
I always thought it benefited the US more than germany (easier access to eastern europe and middle east).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landstuhl_Regional_Medical_Cen....
The plan is to relocate them to other bases in Europe (mainly Italy and Belgium) so in the big picture it really doesn't matter.
With China, well, they are already blocking lots of American software companies so this would be more of a proportional response than anything else.
The real question is, why did the West went along with that bad deal at first place and allowed China into the WTO under these conditions. It was extremely short sighted.
China had to carry out massive economic reforms in order to join the WTO, such as the privatization or splitting up of many state-owned enterprises, large reductions in tariffs, opening up of many sectors to foreign investment, the creation of a legal system to protect IP, and much more. Moreover, China joined under unusual terms that allowed other countries to more easily retaliate against China - sort of a probationary status.
Western companies did extremely well in this relationship. Much of the growth in the West over the past few decades is thanks to China's opening-up.
[1] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/huawei-gchq-security-evaluat...
"The US argues that the pipeline will increase Europe's dependence on Russia, which both Berlin and Moscow dispute. The US proposes selling European's American natural gas shipped across the Atlantic as an alternative."
But a greater dependency on the US is fine of course. The, as a champion of free trade, should be happy about more competition right?
Germany is in bed with the US, especially the secret service.
I don't think after all this we can go back to the old world order.
Nothing. And it would not surprise me if Germany did it or at least put up a lot of barriers to help Volkswagen.
It's not so much against straight out bans, but against Germany lobbying for all sorts of regulations in the EU to limit Tesla's market access.
With Tesla now having a huge factory in Germany, suddenly Germany will lobby in favor of Tesla.
Didn't people understand from the start that this was the primary reason why Musk chose Germany?
https://forums.tesla.com/discussion/171515/not-allowing-tesl...
Politicians tend to be shortsighted (reelection, next term). That's partly why not enough has happened (or will happen, under this political paradigm) when it comes to the environmental issues our habitat is facing.
Some people will probably argue at this point that there is no right to privacy in a public place. I disagree on both moral and pragmatic grounds with such an absolute statement in light of modern technologies and what privacy means (or should mean) now, but more importantly, the culture and laws in some parts of the world disagree too.
Restricting uploads of dash cam footage would be a rational response to that situation.
And even without that, there are other laws that would make it illegal for Tesla to just download cam footage without solid reasons. Hell even GDPR would apply, as it would contain personal information (license plates), and the penalties are severe ("€10 million, or 2% of the firm’s worldwide annual revenue from the preceding financial year, whichever amount is higher").
It's just that as long as the power dynamic is that Trump looks like a stubborn toddler while Merkel is the responsible parent, the US won't be able to do much about Tesla taking a hit. Plus, I'm not sure how much Trump likes Musk... so maybe he's willingly accepting it.
Also, Tesla doesn't have 80 million monthly active users in Germany who are young & impressionable.