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Comment by thrance | Hacker News Reader

I think the correct response would be to immediately ban Facebook and Twitter, to make the worst oligarchs reconsider their support of Trump and show that Europe means it (one can always dream). I don't believe slow and silent are the correct stances to adopt when the global economy is held at the whims of this egotistical manchild.

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Trump can make drastic course changes much faster than Europe can ever agree on any strategy. Trying to match Trump's approach of drastic responses is a losing strategy for Europe. All Trump has to do is put 200% tariffs on LNG exports right as winter starts or something similar. Democratic governments don't last long when their population literally starts to freeze to death.

Yes, my ban of Twitter and Facebook is pure wishful thinking, I know that. But ultimately, it's a war of attrition, and it's the US vs the World. The US economy is alreay starting to show cracks, I don't think de-escalation is the way.

Nah. If Trump does that you will see how fast the Nord Stream 1/2 can be fixed.

I like how Europe's solution to Trump is to make itself a puppet of an even worse dictator. While expecting the worse dictator to not use that leverage to take over more of Europe. Who will charge 100% tariffs as well since a weak Europe is to their advantage as well.

This is not what will happen at all. I won’t go here into much detail, but the thing is, there’s a demand in Europe that cannot be fulfilled from other sources for the time being. Europe is not going to fix America or Russia, so it has to trade with them. It is a huge market for both, that cannot be ignored, and access to that market won’t be sold cheap. If they have to compete to sell us gas, great. The lesson has been learned anyway, emission targets will be hit, alternative energy sources will make us much less dependent within next 15-20 years.

You should google Cartel. Trump and Putin won't be competing. They'll be fleecing Europe for every cent they can while keeping Europe as weak as possible. Maybe manage to get a few more Russia aligned right wing governments if enough people freeze to death and Europe doesn't block the propaganda for fear of more freezing.

I understand very well what cartel is. “Cartel” formed by Trump and Putin to manipulate prices of gas for Europe is a fantasy for many reasons. Bad strategy for Russia (and I’m sure I know Russia better than you), technically hard to implement (sanctions don’t work well in both directions), will have consequences for global markets (Europe gets Russian oil via India now - are they going to be impacted?) etc etc.

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