If you're getting tariffs anyway, why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders? Let French engineers sell jailbreaking hardware for iphones, or Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors.
Just look at the public opinion polls, EU citizens are ready to take on Americans and even the most pro-US countries are barely on the green in public opinion towards US. The problems is that the old guard, the establishment is fanatically pro-US and pro stability. Which means that the current politicians are in odds with what the public wants and eventually either the public will have to become pro-US again or the anti-US politicians will take stage. US Doing stuff like tariffs that can destabilize the stability folks can push things to much earlier.
Make the existence of their sovereignty a threat and all factions will stand united setting their differences aside (usually).
Like its one of the most effective ways to unite a complete nation against a cause, in this case its against America and its calling the wrath of not just the danish people but the whole EU as it feels not just a threat on Greeland but EU itself.
> The EU's ... Anti-Coercion Instrument, offers a range of punitive measures ... Among them are ... limits on intellectual property protections.
It is sold by Israeli engineers for at least a decade and mostly bought by law enforcement.
> Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors
That infrastructure exists since year 2000. Called chiptuning tools, but it is usually done by Italians or Swiss. And specifically for John Deere we had some Ukrainian company, I don't remember exact name.
Sure, but it's a crime to provide these tools to people or instruct them how to bypass controls, is it not?
Furthermore one of HN users has this repo up https://github.com/bri3d/VW_Flash
It is doing what chip tunning companies are doing but in less polished package. If it is a crime, why is it still up?
Most regions do have these laws. Enforcement sometimes is lax, yes, but America and it's businesses do go after people internationally sort of at their pleasure.
Having a world where it's not illegal to understand & look at how the devices around us work is a bare minimum, imo, spiritually, for government to stop being in opposition to honor erectus, man, the tool maker. Letting us do things too lets us live up to our namesake of homo sapien, man the brain-ed one.
Because that means we in the US may as well quasi-nationalize major European investments in the US like VW, Siemens, Saint-Gobains, OnSemi, NXP, Arm, and Nexperia and target European luxury cultural exports like Cognac (LVHM), Wine (LVMH), designer clothes (LVMH), designer purses (LVMH), and others like China did.
As a result, oligarchs like (eg.) Arnault (LVMH) would metaphorically slap Macron like they did on multiple occasions [0][1], and threaten to switch to supporting the RN. If they made Macron in 2017 [2], they can unmake him in 2026 [3].
It's the same story across Europe [4][5]. And any domestic capacity that could have remained within the EU is going to start leaving on January 27th [6].
Edit: can't reply
> how you get from IP law abrogation to 'quasi- nationalization'
IP Law protection is sacrosanct in any US trade deal, as we are a services exporter. If faced by actions like those mentioned above, we wouldn't be above retaliating.
This is why American tech companies successfully lobbied both the Biden and Trump administration to tamp down on any attempt on a Digital Services Tax by any country, such as with Canada [7] and the EU [8].
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arna...
[1] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2023/08/07/how-be...
[2] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-05/lvmh-s-ar...
[3] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la...
[4] - https://www.ft.com/content/9b3d057c-16cc-4ab9-93bb-ed82c9ca5...
[5] - https://www.ft.com/content/cc06031c-f4a9-45db-ba3a-a3a23404b...
[6] - https://www.euractiv.com/news/exclusive-eu-india-trade-deal-...
[7] - https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/06/can...
[8] - https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/-wyden-and-cra...
I'm not quite sure how you get from IP law abrogation to 'quasi-nationalization', care to explain your reasoning here ?
I don't think americans quite understand how much the population has shifted from being pro-USA to anti-USA
in the space of a year, as the orange cretin has been throwing his wrecking ball around
we don't have the cancer that is fox news
some billionaire who makes fancy handbags saying he's going to support a different political party will have zero impact on election results
Arnault already has. He's the reason Élisabeth Borne is no longer the PM [0] and why the billionaire tax failed [1]. And his rival Bolloré is the reason why the RN is at the cusp of power [2]
> we don't have the cancer that is fox news
Instead you have Vivendi and Canal+ who are now owned by Bolloré [3], who has been using the Murdoch/Fox News strategy as well [4].
[0] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/12/18/emmanu...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arna...
[2] - https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240627-how-the-french-m...
[3] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la...
[4] - https://rsf.org/fr/derri%C3%A8re-la-campagne-de-d%C3%A9sinfo...
all before the US went completely off the rails
even the AfD are now distancing themselves from the US regime
Oligarchs like Bolloré continued to support, collaborate, and disseminate pro-Putin and pro-Russia media [0][1][2] despite Macron's avowed support for Ukraine and Putin going "full retard".
In other cases, oligarchs like Arnault have been personal friends with Trump since the 1980s [3] and have co-invested in his personal businesses for decades.
They'll continue to collaborate with Trump as well due to personal, ideological [4] and financial [5] ties.
> even the AfD are now distancing themselves from the US regime
Yet their backer Dröpfer, who has had a history of support Thiel projects like Vance [6] and continues to maintain capital relations with Thiel [7].
Even in Poland, Tusk came out against sending troops to Greenland [8] due to political pressure from the American funded Polish right [9].
The reality is, the US, China, Russia, and increasingly even India view European states as easily pliable [10]
[0] - https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2025/03/08/les-medi...
[1] - https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2025/03/11/attaque-...
[2] - https://www.streetpress.com/sujet/1741019147-bollore-embauch...
[3] - https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/trump-e-arnault-antico-legam...
[4] - https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2025/03/03/comment-...
[5] - https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2025/03/14/l-administ...
[6] - https://www.ft.com/content/cb1cc264-84b9-40da-a484-ff897cd38...
[7] - https://www.sueddeutsche.de/projekte/artikel/politik/drohnen...
[8] - https://www.reuters.com/world/poland-will-not-send-soldiers-...
[9] - https://china-cee.eu/2026/01/15/poland-monthly-briefing-karo...
[10] - https://www.economist.com/china/2025/11/17/europe-sees-china...
As a Frenchman, I'm sure you are well aware of how in Vichy France, industry collaborated with the authoritarian regime via Comités d'organisation.
Humans are selfish and normal people cannot win against oligarchs. What else can we do.
whoa, there's no need to be offensive
(It was shaped and driven by US and other big business interests.)
Those kinds of laws are great for incumbent moats, much less for innovation. Compare eg. China. (or early USA or Japanese industrialization)
Modern, expansive, DMCA-style anticircumvention regime that now dominates global law can be said to originate from the US.