Trump Blasts EU Regulators for Targeting Apple, Google, Meta (bloomberg.com) 172
US President Donald Trump blasted European Union regulators for targeting Apple, Alphabet's Google and Meta, describing theircases against American companies as "a form of taxation."
From a report: The EU has established a reputation globally for its aggressive regulation of major technology companies, often sparring with major social media platforms, such as Facebook and X, over content moderation, and the likes of Apple and Google over antitrust concerns. "These are American companies whether you like it or not," Trump said in comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
"They shouldn't be doing that. That's, as far as I'm concerned, a form of taxation. We have some very big complaints with the EU." Trump specifically referenced a court case that Apple lost last year over a $14.4 billion Irish tax bill. The EU's Court of Justice in Luxembourg backed a landmark 2016 decision that Ireland broke state-aid law by giving Apple an unfair advantage, requiring Ireland to claw back the money that had been sitting in an escrow account pending the final ruling.
"They shouldn't be doing that. That's, as far as I'm concerned, a form of taxation. We have some very big complaints with the EU." Trump specifically referenced a court case that Apple lost last year over a $14.4 billion Irish tax bill. The EU's Court of Justice in Luxembourg backed a landmark 2016 decision that Ireland broke state-aid law by giving Apple an unfair advantage, requiring Ireland to claw back the money that had been sitting in an escrow account pending the final ruling.
Ignore the orange moron (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ignore the orange moron (Score:4, Interesting)
They will ignore him. EU regulators are very unimpressed by some banana-republic potentate criticizing them. Even if it is a large banana-republic. Rule-of-law still means something here.
Re:Ignore the orange moron (Score:4, Insightful)
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A banana with very tiny hands.
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What country is the only one to ever invoke article 5? I'll wait while you look that up.
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Re:Ignore the orange moron (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think Trump understands tariffs. He still keeps saying that the other countries will pay it. But they're taxed at the border, not in the home country. Thus, the importers pay the tax, which means that US residents will ultimately be paying the tax. In other words, tariffs are a new tax on the American public, which is not normally a goal of proud Republicans. But I'm still struggling to keep up with all the new rules so the anti-tax thing might be out of fashion now.
Note that EU is taxing activity within the EU. So a company claims $X billion in revenue in Ireland, then that needs to be taxed in the EU. The US is not taxing it, certainly. The big names are whining because they thought they had a tax free loophole. If they wanted a lawless shell company, they should have gone to the caribbean where all the rich people go to hide money. EU is definitely not taxing income earned within the US.
Why Trump is protecting those American companies is unknown, except that recent activities in the last few days show that he really loves pardoning criminals, like pardoning a child molester (fact) and the biggest drug dealer in history. So of course he doesn't mind if American companies break foreign laws while in foreign countries. But note: two of the heads of those companies were sitting FRONT ROW behind Trump at the inauguration, and the third was in the audience but not shown smiling in any pictures. Yes, they're kissing the pardoner-in-chief's ass.
Re:Ignore the orange moron (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think Trump understands tariffs.
According to people that have worked for him, Trump basically understand very little of anything. He does know how to lie and put on a show though. Seems for some people that is enough to see him as a great leader.
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With tariffs I find hard to believe he is so so very dumb he doesn't know it is a tax that his government will collect and use as they see fit. I think in this case he is lying to his supporters on the assumption they will sim
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I don't think Trump understands tariffs. He still keeps saying that the other countries will pay it.
He understands.
As long as he keep saying that the other countries will pay, his supporters will believe him. When their costs go up, he will say it is because the other countries are "treating us very unfairly", and that he needs more power to force them to "be nice to us"... and his supporters will believe him.
He will withhold foreign aid, block sales of equipment and technology, withdraw from mutual assistance treaties (NATO, etc.), and threaten military action. He will renege on any existing agreements
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The idea behind tariffs is that the importer pays it yes. But they will either just buy domestic instead (because it becomes cheaper to buy domestic or from another non-tariffed country) than to pay the tariff. The key is that if a country wants to dump its goods in the tariffed market, it has to SUBSIDIZE the commodity with its own funds in order to counteract the tariff.
Or just have fewer sales from the U.S. Realistically, most products are not sold at a high profit margin, which means the manufacturers can't absorb that. So the price goes up, and sales go down.
The critical thing to understand, though, is that sales don't go down much unless there are domestic equivalents. In most areas, domestic equivalents don't exist, which means that sales only go down to the extent that people can't afford to buy them, not because they've bought a replacement domestic good.
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Class action lawsuites are basically a sign that US government is failing to do it's job of protecting consumers. When a class action lawsuit is won most of that money goes into the pockets of lawyers, not the victims.
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They will ignore him, until he starts threatening to withhold NATO protection (which is really US protection)
Both France and the UK have nukes. The need for American protection is vastly overblown. Both the US and the Europeans like having the US bases there for entirely other reasons. If Trump wants to save the money that is fine, just say that is what you are doing instead of BSing (unlikely I know).
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And both France and the UK have stated that they are willing to step in should that become necessary. Unless the EU disintegrates (Ha, America First!), which is rather unlikely (most of the drama is just that: drama) and NATO disintegrates as well (which is even more unlikely, even if the US leaves), there is really no risk of Europe being without nuclear deterrence.
Yes, the orange criminal likes to make threats to soften up others for a "deal". But that does not actually work on everybody. And when it fail
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Both France and the UK have nukes. The need for American protection is vastly overblown.
There is more to it than having nukes.
The biggest one is the US Navy protecting international shipping lanes. I doubt the UK and France will nuke the middle east to protect shipping from Houthi pirates. They do not have enough ships to protect all the places the US ships protect.
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True... and true, but Trump is willing to hurt the US in order to hurt other countries and force them to give in to his demands. As long as he gets to sign a new deal in the end, he calls it a win.
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Nice disconnect from reality you have there. Looks a bit pathological to me.
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Dismantling NATO means US losing its ability to "project power" beyond its immediate vicinity. Losing her European allies will leave the US alliances everywhere much weaker, a vacuum that China and similar will gladly fill. But of course to you, the strategist to whom "stigginit" is most important that doesn't matter.
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They will ignore him for now. But in the wider context, the presence of Trump at the White House starts a positive cycle for far-right parties in different parts of the world. As him and Musk move their pieces and advertise themselves in the EU political context (by criticizing the current EU regulators and other things), their presence could influence future elections (by motivating similarly minded Europeans).
In addition to Italy, Hungary, Slovakia and the coalition governments in Netherlands and Austria
Foreign Interventions don't always Work (Score:2)
As him and Musk move their pieces and advertise themselves in the EU political context... their presence could influence future elections
It could but the last time I saw this happen in the EU it was in the UK pre-Brexit when Obama visted and stired the pot pointing out how stupid Brexit was and trying to persuade people to think again. The result was an increase in people voting for Brexit. If Trump had been president then and had come over to say how he thought Brexit was a great idea for the UK we'd probably still be in the EU!
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"I don't like the messenger so therefore I'm going to footgun myself" is a pretty stupid justification for self-inflicted voting wounds.
But hey, I say that as an American who is watching his country freefall into broligarchy.
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As him and Musk move their pieces and advertise themselves in the EU political context... their presence could influence future elections
It could but the last time I saw this happen in the EU it was in the UK pre-Brexit when Obama visted and stired the pot pointing out how stupid Brexit was and trying to persuade people to think again. The result was an increase in people voting for Brexit. If Trump had been president then and had come over to say how he thought Brexit was a great idea for the UK we'd probably still be in the EU!
Obama has the unfortunate habit of sometimes saying true things that are massively insulting to the people he thinks he's trying to reach. Was Brexit stupid? Yes. Should you lecture people you are trying to communicate with and make them feel like you are calling them stupid for having an idea you disagree with? Turns out, that doesn't really work well. Sadly, the Democratic party hasn't figured that out yet, and we're stuck with the alternative because most people don't like being lectured about how stupid
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To be fair, there is no known way to reach the stupid. The problem is that only 20-30% (apparently, the more important the question, the lower the number) of humans are accessible to rational argument. These are the ones that will say "yes, this guy may be an ass, but he is right", will learn something, get over themselves and do the right thing. The rest? You can only manipulate them. But if you have honor and integrity, that is the last thing you actually want to do because then you do not have truth on y
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Hehehehe, probably! Excellent point.
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They will ignore him. EU regulators are very unimpressed by some banana-republic potentate criticizing them. Even if it is a large banana-republic. Rule-of-law still means something here.
Unfortunately it would probably lead to nukes being launched at his command, but I think Donny Boy should be laughed at by leaders of other countries every time he talks. Oh, that would fucking burn his ego. He might even have a coronary. Never thought I'd ask, but what comes first, coronary or nuclear activity?
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I'm pretty sure there's still a few Joint Chiefs that would tell him to shove his illegal order up his ass if he wanted to nuke someone over his bruised ego.
Those people took oaths to the Constitution, not to him. And they take that shit very seriously after a lifetime of upholding it.
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My take is they have contingency plans on contingency plans on this. But really, how is Trump going to make a deal with somebody he nuked? Even somebody as dumb as him must be able to see that will not work.
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So you think he is on the moral level of a suicide-bomber? Well, possibly.
Re: Ignore the orange moron (Score:3)
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The EU is far from perfect. But it does slow, lumbering progress in the right direction in many things. Even if there are plenty of people here as well that try to prevent that. All places on this planet have an abundance of idiots and a lot of assholes that will do anything for a buck.
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You project some weird fantasies.
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Nothing to see here.
The Oompa Loompa with a genetic defect? Aren't all genetic defects punishable by death from this point forward? Too soon? Sorry. /s
Re:Ignore the orange moron (Score:5, Interesting)
So, let him play with tariffs, trying to deport all the cheap menial labour, releasing a whole bunch of wingnuts back into the population, and so on. Sure, it's akin to locking a toddler in a room with an assortment of sharp objects and other assorted weaponry for a while, but he's going to do far more harm to the US than anyone else and the annoying noises will stop soon enough. Get it right and you might even make the shift away from the reliance on US goods in favour of your own or other economic partners permanent.
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51% of Americans didn't, unfortunately. I guess trans athletes scares them more than WW3.
(And no, drilling more US oil won't change grocery prices beyond a fraction of a cent.)
Not to state the blaringly obvious, but it also won't change prices at the pump. Actually, might drive them up because of all of the "new processing methods" and "transportation shifts" that will dig into those billionaires so much that it hurts. "What??!?!?!? $150,000,000 less in earnings this QUARTER? ABSURD! Pass the loss on to the customer. it's so unfortunate, but we have to."
Next quarter: "Stabilized and saving now. Earning are up $500,000,000. Make sure the prices at the pump stay the same and
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Technically less thatn 50%. Trump won the most popular votes, but technically not a majority. Because there were enough people voting for someone other than Harris or Trump that he didn't it the 50% mark.
Re:Ignore the orange moron (Score:5, Insightful)
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>> tired of having the trans agenda pushed on EVERYTHING
Utter bullshit.
Re: Ignore the orange moron (Score:2)
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BWHAHAHAHahaha. What year is it? "I don't so much care that they are GAY... it is more about how they push it in our faces"
Oh yeah, member GAYS IN THE MILITARY?
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Grandpa, get your kids to check out a retirement home for you. Your Alzheimer's is getting to be a real problem.
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If you're always on the lookout for "the trans agenda" then that's all your going to see.
Jackie Gleason, Bob Hope, and Milton Berle all appeared on national television in drag. Were they part of some agenda?
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>> it's anywhere you look these days
It's everywhere on the hard-right fearmongering news networks which you appear to be watching. If they weren't constantly yammering about transgender nobody would even notice it or care.
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Well then what shit do you watch?
Re:Ignore the orange moron (Score:4, Informative)
the biggest homophobes probably are closet gays themselves
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I'm in California, and nobody here has forced a trans agenda or forced me to bend to anyone's will.
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It's just too soon. Once AI thinks and manages your finances and other decisions, then it's time to generate new genders and pronouns because people aren't critical to their own survival anymore.
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Although we somehow assume those consequenses are only for people who are not in the US. We just think we always win. When these countries decide the consiquences are fine then what?
If we can pull this 'TicTok must be US owned' shit why can't the EU or Russia do the same to Apple or Meta? We just assume we don't need them. I hope we are right.
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Feel free to try if that's what you wish.
The TikTok thing, is only acceptable to me, because the CCP "owns" and manages what TT does in the US.
It's very telling th
Re: Ignore the orange moron (Score:2)
I created a private network ecosystem using all open source. Full corporate infrastructure, name servers, web, mail, messaging servers, desktop, mobile devices, encrypted. Basically a MVNO plus. So my clients function perfectly without any American proprietary software.
I get that corporate management
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If we can pull this 'TicTok must be US owned' shit why can't the EU or Russia do the same to Apple or Meta?
They will. Nationalism is gonna be the death of the global internet. It was a nice idea while it lasted.
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Stupidity is easily mistaken for bravery.
Re:Ignore the orange moron (Score:4, Insightful)
Trump is dumb as a rock, and the people at Davos are well aware of it. They won't be putting up with his nonsense.
“The common denominator for the countries that are failing is the mental virus of woke ideology,” he said by video link because he is too chickenshit to attend in person. He can't even define 'woke', but we all know it means the opposite of the racism and misogyny which trump wholeheartedly approves.
“I’ll demand that interest rates drop immediately,” Hilarious! Maybe some more kicking and screaming will help?
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He can't even define 'woke', but we all know it means the opposite of the racism and misogyny which trump wholeheartedly approves.
It originally meant to be aware of systemic racial injustices. Thanks to misuse by American right-wing politicians, it now pretty much is a synonym for "liberal policies". It's hard to ignore the undertones of racism inherent to taking a term meant to raise awareness of racial inequalities and turning it into a pejorative of the left, which is why it works as a dog whistle.
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"The Digital Markets Act (DMA)is an EU regulation that aims to make the digital economy fairer and more contestable.
Rephrased (Score:5, Insightful)
EU actually upholds consumer protection laws against mega corps.
How unfair, *sniffle*
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Waiting on Trump firing anyone in the DoJ that tries to block antitrust action when X tries to merge with or buy Apple, Meta and Alphabet and puts them under a single banner. Or allows Alphabet to buy Microsoft and Yahoo (for search marketshare to go up to 95%+) and then merge with X when Musk bribes their CEO with $4 trillion in NFTs and gives Trump $2 trillion in kickbacks.
Hey, if you want REAL mega corps, the right guy is in office, right now.
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That's not a fair description of what's going on. They are passing legislation specifically to target specific companies.
This is to some extent unavoidable, because there is only 1 google, and 1 meta, and 1 Apple... and their scale is a big part of what makes them uniquely successful and potentially harmful.
On the other hand, especially since they are all American companies (something that should really give Europe pause), it also raises
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If you're in the USA, good news, the government won't. In fact, the US government is removing all those pesky departments that pretend to protect you: DoEd, EPA, FCC, NTSB, BCP, CFPB, FDA, NIH, CISA. If you're not in the USA, this is a good reason to immigrate there. Of course, you're a white, Christian, middle-class, 40-something male, right?
Amazing ignorance (Score:3)
Apparently the EU does not have the power to levy taxes on business done within its borders.
Thank God Trump let them know, I suspect personal income tax in the EU will have to spike drastically to make up next year's budget shortfalls.
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But the "framing" is wrong, incorrect, and incoherent. Fines are not taxation.
I'm sick of this shit (Score:3)
Re:I'm sick of this shit (Score:4, Insightful)
We do. You, like Trump, have no understanding of how because it's not cash straight into an American pocket, but American politicians didn't create the current situation just for something to do.
You will discover those benefits as they evaporate irretrievably, and they won't be replaced by cash transfers as the rest of the world simply starts doing without the US.
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The problem is we are a failing country economically and socially. We are so bogged
Re: I'm sick of this shit (Score:2)
> So short of nuclear weapons even China can't beat us.
History suggests otherwise.
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Doesn’t Trump want to leave NATO?
Playing to the local audience (Score:2)
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While it is clear from tariffs that Trump doesn't really understand how taxes work I think in this case he know the issue with EU is not really about taxes but is framing it that way for the US based audience in the assumption that they won't take the time to work out what the real issue is.
I still don't understand what the real issue is. I mean, yes, the U.S. doesn't have enough manufacturing, and tariffs might help with that, which is at some vague level a national security win, and as long as China is run by the CCP, allowing such a high percentage of global manufacturing to be within their immediate geographical sphere of potential influence (China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Indonesia) is a real risk.
But requiring them to build things in the U.S. isn't the only way to solve it, and doesn'
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Anyone paying the Trump 'tax' will be given an exemption. The boutique products will disappear from the market and mass-produced junk will remain. This is a staring contest, it's what Trump does, and he thinks having the power of the US government/military behind him, guarantees first place. That's the priority, everyone else loses and everyone else chooses to lose. Instead, he's about to discover the meaning of "union" in the title European Union.
Just like last time, he's not interesting in protecting
Boo hoo. (Score:3)
Apple and Google are free to not do business in the EU if they don't like EU regulations. And I'm sure the EU Parliament is more than happy to give Trump a hearty "how's my ass taste" if he has a problem with it, the same as his government would do to an EU company that has a problem with US Government regulations being applied to them.
Re:Boo hoo. (Score:5, Informative)
As the USA retracts to be more inward looking the rest of the world is simply going to adjust to new world where the USA is not longer such big player. I realise in your fantasies that USA will say "Jump" and the rest of the world will say "How high?" but the reality is they will say "Why? We will think about it". Sure the USA can be a pain point for some countries for things like LNG, but exercise such threats and they will respond by finding solutions that remove the risk of dealing with country that is no longer consider a stable partner.
The trend of not trusting or relying on the USA has been underway for many years now and will accelerate.
Oh, and just in case you weren't sure, you come across as an asehole. I have friends in the USA, they would be embarrassed to have people like you representing them.
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Given that the US can't really afford current military expenditures and the EU can affo
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You want to dissolve NATO if American companies aren't allowed to operate tax-free in Europe? Are you mentally well? Are you taking your pills?
Not the brightest orange in the tree... (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy solution (Score:3)
No, Fuck 'Em (Score:5, Insightful)
They headquartered outside the US to avoid US taxes.
They left America. They should be paying us a penalty for doing business.
He wants to start a war against Europe (Score:2)
Europe is in the way of him being Kind of the World,
so he's building consent for military action against them.
Give it another three weeks and war it will be.
Slowly at first, then it will quickly escalate to the end of everything.
A narcissist's end.
Apple isnâ(TM)t American (Score:2)
Someone tell him that Apple is headquartered in Ireland because Tim Cook doesnâ(TM)t like paying taxes for all the services Apple gets from the US government.
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Someone tell him that Apple is headquartered in Ireland because Tim Cook doesnâ(TM)t like paying taxes for all the services Apple gets from the US government.
Apple Europe != Apple.
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Now I'm confused. Is it? - Trump Blasts EU Regulators for Targeting Apple, Google, Meta. Or - Trump Blasts EU Regulators for Targeting Apple Europe, Google Europe, Meta Europe.
Just to clarify, I'm not saying that they're not the same company. I'm saying that Apple's headquarters is in California. Their European division is headquartered in Ireland.
The vast majority of international companies have multiple homes for tax purposes, because repatriating money into the U.S. that is only going to be sent to Europe again for their continued operations involves a tax hit for services NOT rendered. The purpose of taxes is to pay for all the services rendered by the government where a c
Logic (Score:3)
The US can impose levies on China, Mexico, Canada and just about anyone else... but the EU can't do it on US corporations???
Won't suffer fools (Score:2)
Microsoft didn't pay the Trump tax. Given their history, I can't call it a demonstration of moral principles. Let's call it, refusing to bow to the competition.
The EU is self-sufficient: That US-made silicon that drives world economy, the tools for making the silicon come from the EU. No, EU-made tools, no US-made technology. Let's see how far the US empire extends, when the EU isn't helping.
Trump will find "because I said so", isn't effective outside the USA. He got laughed off the podium when he t
As Denmark said (Score:3, Insightful)
Suck . (Score:2)
Suck it orange jello baby. And try to obey the law.
Overheard at work (Score:3)
*blank stare*
I postulated that it was the construction and agricultural industries.(though hospitality may also rank up there)
*blank stare*
I then asked what do they think will happen when farmers can no longer pay illegal immigrants below legal wages to pick fruits/veggies for sale in the super markets? I closed simply by saying most of what Trump has publicly stated will increase inflation. However the current crop of Republicans are more about making a scene than actually doing anything so the likelihood we'll see significant actions is limited.
I'm definitely not for illegal immigration but the GOP has been railing on a very small percentage of our population as a cause for most of our problems... where have we heard that one before. If the GOP actually tried to solve problems, they'd have no-one to blame... and that's the sad state of American politics. The DNC is only a slight step above the GOP at this point.
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Tariffs (Score:2)
Maybe they should call it tariffs. Doesn't Trump like that word much better?
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How about demanding I don't have to pay taxes. You're declaring US-owned corporations have more rights. This is straight-up fascism.
"That big" is why a few billionaires can use ownership of media to decide who can speak in the USA and who is 'cancelled'. It's why it hasn't happened in other countries and the rest of the world, plans on keeping it that way.
Meaningless buzzword proves you're/they're the victim: Nope, not believing you.
You misspelt "deregulation".
No, he's demanding dozens of countries canc
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A day. 100 days. I'll cut off Ukraine and they'll negotiate.
Now suddenly it's, "I'll break Russia with sanctions if they don't negotiate soon". Like Trump finally realized as POTUS Putin no longer has any hold over him. This could get fun.