EU Set to Halt US Trade Deal over Trump's New Tariff Threat | Hacker News Reader

EU Set to Halt US Trade Deal over Trump's New Tariff Threat

bloomberg.com

25 pointsekjhgkejhgk20 comments

Why would any country do any deal with America at this point or for the next 100 years? People have long memories and will remember the extent to which America could abuse them. No one wants to see that type of power sustained, including many Americans. They would rather see a more balanced and peaceful world in which many people can prosper.

There’s going to need to be serious reforms after Trump’s reign ends for there to be confidence in the US again.

Countries like to do deals with the world's biggest economy / greatest innovators. They'll come at it more suspiciously than ever before, but America is, for now, "so good you can't ignore it"

Linus was a Finn and Tim was a Brit. So Europe can claim those two innovators - their work's turned out to be pretty useful. Don't know where you can stuff Elon, but he's mostly non-US as I recall (3 citizenships?). I'm too lazy to look up whether any of the Bell Lab people weren't natives, and I think the MIT hackers were US-born. But, perhaps, innovation moved worldwide in the 80's or 90's?

Many of the people leading the Manhattan project were European. America's greatest strength has always been its ability to attract and give opportunity to the smartest people from across the world. That is now ending.

That's wishful thinking.

because in the midst of all the ancient stuff that is very destablising in the Constitution (electoral college, 2 parties, a head of state which resembles an elected king etc) there is something that is amazingly well structured:

Elections every 2 years (the most frequent in the world) + term limits

22 Months from the date the POTUS takes the oath until the midterms which are always a win for the party not in power , when the POTUS gets a second term effectively 22 months from the moment the POTUS takes the oath until the 'lame duck' period

In this way the damage can always be contained by the sheer lack of time to do anything drastic (although Trump is trying)

He's talking about cancelling elections, kidnapped a foreign head of state, pardoned thousands of people including the head of one of the largest drug trafficking operations in human history, destroyed countless trade partnerships and is now threatening war with NATO while deploying a gestapo publicly.

Meanwhile, if every single Senate seat in 2026 went to a Democrat, they could still not impeach him. And that's after he gets a full doubling of the time it took for him to do all of the above.

Then, no matter what, the SCOTUS is now fully stacked with his cronies who have lifetime appointments, the executive has been purged, institutions have been destroyed, and government work is now poisoned so recovering them is doomed. And unless we fundamentally restructure the entire model of our national governance, we are at risk of it just happening again every 4 years with increasing escalation now that the actual Nazis know just how easy it is.

Even worse than that, the US people have only gotten worse. They aren't openly going against this and unifying against a dictator. A third of the population is openly calling for dictatorship. So there's absolutely zero sign of this being reversed.

I don't exactly see how this is "amazingly well structured".

>They aren't openly going against this and unifying against a dictator.

I'll push back on this some. There are demonstrations (the No Kings was the largest political demonstration in US history) and some open defiance, like currently in Minneapolis. But it's not enough. Not yet. The opposition party (Democrats) is led by some feckless weaklings who don't act like they understand the severity of the situation. Polls seem to indicate that unrest is growing so maybe something will change. Sadly I can't say it any stronger than that.

I don’t disagree, but I am also worried that Trump and many members of his administration view our political process and constitution as something to be discarded or worked around. He literally said the other day that we shouldn’t even have midterm elections. And the main guy behind Project 2025 believes in pivoting to a ‘post constitutional’ America, whatever that means. I have a genuine fear that all the stability that comes from the Constitution and process that America has, is about to be thrown away. But even if it isn’t, I think other countries view it as not as protective as they previously thought.

They gamified politics to the point where the state of the country doesn't matter at all as long as they get to have their way. This can't hold long term but it will do immense damage to the USA and the rest of the world until the inevitable correction. I try not to think too hard about how bad this could get but it is hard not to lie awake at night.

Yes, but in the US system, gridlock can prevent a budget being passed for a year or more. In the Parliamentary system, failing to pass a budget results in an election. Also, in a multi-party Parliamentary system, majority governments are less common, fostering compromise rather than dogmatism.

There are a lot of implicit assumptions here. But I hope you're right. And if you're wrong I hope then realize that it is those assumptions that will end up costing all of us - including those that can not vote in US elections - dearly but that it is up to all Americans to fix it.

A lot of people seem to be missing the point that the reputational damage that is being done by the Trump administration right now is nontrivial and will not be unraveled quickly. The creation of a new economic trade zone between S.A. and the EU, the halting of the EU/US trade deal, Canada creating new trade deals with China...all of this spells disaster for the US. Despite what the right wing thinks, all countries play together in a big sandbox with each other and this idiocy and isolationism is not going to make us more wealthy or more safe.

Deploy the anti-coercion instrument. This is exactly the kind of situation they had in mind when it was drafted.

Good. Seems like Trump pissing off the rich people in this country would be the fastest way to dump this entire admin.

The US will only learn by feeling pain, both the administration and the electorate. So, make them feel it politically and economically.

How are the USD, EUR, and GBP doing in forex (and trade balance and national debt) since Trump took office in 2025-01?

The USD has dropped a few percent vs. world currencies and the US markets have trailed Euro, Canadian and Asian markets. Tariff uncertainty is causing a bit of economic gridlock which coupled with AI is playing havoc with hiring.

Is it accidental Dedollarization?

Dedollarisation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedollarisation

"Vivre WLFI!" (and the Trump USD1 stablecoin)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com