TechDigits

Tech news
Monday, Oct 07, 2024

Europe’s anti-American itch

Europe’s anti-American itch

Europeans have only themselves to blame for their industrial and strategic failings.

It’s gotten cold in Europe, the economy is tanking and the natives are getting restless. There’s only one answer: Blame America.

Pointing across the Atlantic has long been a favorite diversionary tactic for Europe’s political elites when things start to get dicey on the Continent.

Whether it’s the war in Ukraine (Washington shouldn’t have expanded NATO), natural disasters (too many American SUVs fueling climate change) or the demise of French as a lingua franca (cultureless Hollywood), America is inevitably the culprit.

In the latest instalment of this tedious tradition, European officials are trying to blame the greedy Americans for the Continent’s current funk, accusing them of placing the mighty dollar über alles, stooping so low as to even take advantage of the war in Ukraine.

“The fact is, if you look at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is the U.S. because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons,” a senior European official vented to my POLITICO colleagues last week.

Sobriety, however, is not a quality one could safely ascribe to the anonymous accuser.

Leaving aside the fact that Ukraine would have collapsed months ago if the U.S. hadn’t stepped in, the direct impact of Russia’s war on America’s $26 trillion economy from the sale of natural gas and arms is a droplet in a bucket.

For one thing, the U.S. exports less than 10 percent of its natural gas production. In 2021, the value of those exports was about $27 billion. While Europeans are understandably upset that their gas prices are four times what they are in the U.S., no one told them to make themselves dependent on Russian gas or to switch off perfectly functioning nuclear power plants (in fact, Washington told them for years not to).

The accusation of supposed war profiteering from weapons is no less hollow. Of the roughly $30 billion in military assistance the U.S. has so far provided Ukraine, the bulk of the equipment has been donated.

While American defense contractors stand to benefit from replacing stocks and from stronger demand for arms among NATO allies, so too should their European counterparts.

Yet therein lies the rub: European firms should benefit as much as Americans, but don’t. The main reason is that Europe has underinvested in its defense industry.

Germany’s recent decision to purchase American F-35 fighters, for example, was driven by the simple fact that there are no European alternatives. A plan by France, Germany and Spain to develop a “future combat air system” was hatched in 2001 but has yet to get off the ground amid persistent infighting.


A U.S. F-35 fighter takes offrom an aircraft carrier

Political resistance in several European states over weapons exports has further stunted the region’s arms industry.

Take the Leopard 2 main battle tank, made by Germany’s Krauss-Maffei and considered by many to be the world’s best. Despite that reputation, the Germans lost out to South Korea when NATO ally Poland recently ordered nearly 1,000 new tanks. While price was one factor, political uncertainty was another, according to a person familiar with the decision, citing Berlin’s decision to block the sale of decommissioned infantry fighting vehicles and battle tanks to Ukraine.

Europe’s main bugaboo these days when it comes to the U.S. involves a set of green subsidies introduced by the Biden administration that benefit American companies.

One of French President Emmanuel Macron’s top priorities during his state visit to Washington this week will be to water down provisions in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a sweeping legislative initiative covering everything from climate to health. European officials describe it as a reincarnation of the Smoot-Hawley act, a catalogue of tariffs in Washington introduced in 1930 that historians blame for worsening the Great Depression.

The Europeans fear the generous “Made in the U.S.A.” subsidies will undermine their industry and are threatening a trade war.

The inconvenient truth, however, is that Europeans are having difficulty getting their own companies to invest at home because governments have placed more emphasis on subsidizing household gas bills than helping the region’s industry weather the crisis.

“Europe is not cost-competitive in many areas, in particular, when it comes to the costs of electricity and gas,” Thomas Schäfer, who runs the Volkswagen brand, said in a post on social media slamming Europe’s industrial policy.

“If we don’t succeed in quickly lowering energy prices in Germany and Europe, then investments in energy-intensive production, or for new battery cell factories, in Germany and across the EU will no longer be feasible,” he said.

Still, ask around Berlin’s government quarter what’s really holding Germany’s economy back these days and the answer is clear.

“The U.S. is pursuing a massive industrial policy with protectionist tendencies,” Lars Klingbeil, co-leader of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, told Die Welt last week. “It shouldn’t be that U.S. economic policy is targeting us Europeans.”

The sad reality is that the Biden administration probably didn’t even consider Europe when it decided on the subsidies.

That fact alone should give Europeans pause.
Europe has become more dependent on the U.S. than it has been since the Cold War


The issue isn’t that Europe doesn’t matter to the U.S., but rather that it doesn’t matter as much as Europeans would like to believe.

When it comes to innovation, Europe is a desert. There is no European Apple, Google or Tesla. Indeed, Tesla’s market value is four times higher than the entire German auto industry.

That’s why it’s difficult not to conclude that Europe’s blame game is really about something else — envy.

Despite America’s political divisions, the country has never been stronger in terms of its military might or its economic muscle.

Europe, meanwhile, has become more dependent on the U.S. than it has been since the Cold War, a circumstance that is fueling both resentment and the blame game.

In Germany, a book titled “Ami, It’s Time to Go!” (Ami is German slang for Americans) has become a bestseller. The author is Oskar Lafontaine, a former finance minister who once led the Social Democrats before breaking with the party.

“We have to free ourselves from the tutelage of the U.S.A.,” Lafontaine writes, describing America as the root of most evil and arguing that Europe needs to blaze its own path.

Judging by the past century, Europeans would be wise to ignore him and accept that they only have themselves to blame for their current malaise.

Newsletter

Related Articles

TechDigits
0:00
0:00
Close
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The future of sports
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Poor Man With Money, Mark Zuckerberg, Unveils Twitter Replica with Heavy-Handed Censorship: A New Low in Innovation?
The Double-Edged Sword of AI: AI is linked to layoffs in industry that created it
US Sanctions on China's Chip Industry Backfire, Prompting Self-Inflicted Blowback
Meta Copy Twitter with New App, Threads
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Refiled, Naming Coinbase as ‘Surveillance-Sharing’ Partner
UK Crypto and Stablecoin Regulations Become Law as Royal Assent is Granted
A Delaware city wants to let businesses vote in its elections
Alef Aeronautics Achieves Historic Milestone with Flight Certification for World's First Flying Car
Google Blocked Access to Canadian News in Response to New Legislation
French Politicians Advocate for Pan-European Regulation on Social Media Influencers
Melinda French Gates Advocates for Increased Female Representation in AI to Prevent Bias
Snapchat+ gains 4 million paying subscribers in its first year
Apple Makes History as the First Public Company Valued at $3 Trillion
Elon Musk Implements Twitter Limits to Tackle Data Scraping, but Faces Criticism for Technical Misunderstanding
EU and UK's Slow Electric Vehicle Adoption Raises Questions About the Transition to Green Mobility
Top Companies Express Concerns Over Europe's Proposed AI Law, Citing Competitiveness and Investment Risks
Meta Unveils Insights on AI Usage in Facebook and Instagram, Amid Growing Calls for Transparency
Crypto Scams Against Seniors Soar by 78% in 2022, Experts Urge Vigilance
The End of an Era: National Geographic Dismisses Last of Its Staff Writers
Shield Your Wallet: The Perils of Wireless Credit Card Theft
Harvard Scientist Who Studies Honesty Accused Of Data Fraud, Put On Leave
Putting an End to the Subscription Snare: The Battle Against Unwitting Commitments
The Legal Perils of AI: Lawyer Faces Sanctions for Relying on Fictional Cases Generated by Chatbot
ChatGPT’s "Grandma Exploit": Ingenious Hack Exposes Loophole in AI, Generates Free Software Codes
The Disney Downturn: A Near Billion-Dollar Box Office Blow for the House of Mouse
A Digital Showdown: Canada Challenges Tech Giants with The Online News Act, Meta Strikes Back
Distress in the Depths: Submersible and Passengers Missing in Titanic Wreckage Expedition
Mark Zuckerberg stealing another idea: Twitter
European Union's AI Regulations Risk Self-Sabotage, Cautions smart and brave Venture Capitalist Joe Lonsdale
Nvidia GPUs are so hard to get that rich venture capitalists are buying them for the startups they invest in
Chinese car exports surge
Reddit Blackout: Thousands of Communities Protest "Ludicrous" Pricing Changes
Nvidia Joins Tech Giants as First Chipmaker to Reach $1 Trillion Valuation
AI ‘extinction’ should be same priority as nuclear war – experts
×