No idea what this actually means, if it means easier trade, I'm all for anything that reduces our dependency on the yanks, as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes. The Americans are no longer our friends, Salut, mes amis Européens. :)
The US has depleted their missile stockpile and can no longer defend anybody. Countries in the Middle East are moving away from the US and forming their own alliances. Taiwan knows that the US cannot do anything to help them. South Korea also knows. The US has weaponized the US Dollar, forcing countries out of the SWIFT system if they don't do what they are told. As a result, the CHIPS system has become the alternative. China understands better how the economy works, with the Belt and Road Initiative. The US government doesn't understand how the economy works, and is run by a bunch of complete m orons.
Look around and visit any country, you'll see chinese made and sold goods inundating everymarket.
It used to be chinese made goods sold by local or western companies. Nowadays bar a few exceptions these are chinese goods sold directly by chinese brands/companies.
I am not OP and obviously "winning" reduces too many dimensions into one. But I will say that from my recent two visits to the country that I was pretty astonished by the speed at which they are building things. Cars, Buildings, Tech Hubs, Factories. You blink twice and a new tech company plops up somewhere making high end drones or humanoid robots or CNC machines or innovative 3d printers. It feels like there is an absolute abundance of electrical and mechanical engineers in that country and funding to match.
I am not making any comments on the politics of it all, but I have not seen this anywhere else in the world - perhaps it exists but I am not aware of it.
One thing that is common about middle democracies is that prioritize a bureaucratic elite structure over an entrepreneurship culture, while both the US and China embrace entreprenuership wholeheartedly.
If they changed that they'd perhaps become world powers themselves.
> One thing that is common about middle democracies is that prioritize a bureaucratic elite structure over an entrepreneurship culture
No, that's just the 2010s propaganda fed to you by people who assert that not letting them do whatever they want is "bureaucratic". These very same people are completely fine lobbying legislature for more moat when they benefit from it.
The difference between "middle democracies" or whatever that means and the US is just that politics aren't corrupted enough yet that they can buy whatever they want.
It's interesting to me that people generally see Europe's regulations as interfering with entrepreneurship, while they see American decisions that give more power to multinational corporations at the expense of smaller companies as a normal part of a free market.
The EU feels like an incomplete experiment. Not strong enough to actually be a single market. But still able to create additional annoying regulations on top of nation level ones.
The EU needs to be truly Federal to succeed economically. That might create uniform regulations with more uniform regulations and actually make Europe competitive.
I am not sure, if I see the example of US as federation, it might work well for corporations only, but people have nothing, uniformity doesn't work because not all populations have the same needs/expectations
Eh, on a long enough timeline we have seen this and been there before. US is the beacon of democracy and the free world until it is not, and then until it again is. Depending on who is speaking and about whom and when.
Most of these attention grabbing statements by politicians are usually about scoring political points at home. The only thing worthy of judgement are hard facts, and excruciating details, which are yet to materialize on this topic.
From Blackberry to a budding VFX industry and many other sustainable businesses to come out of Canada has always made it seem like a very EU-like philosophy. This will be great for fair trade.
I'm proud to live in the EU because for all its faults we have one thing going for us, we seem to be the only large institution that countries still want to voluntarily join, and can voluntarily leave.
In a world in which the other great powers revive the Monroe Doctrine or threaten their magnitude smaller neighbors with annexation we're not doing so badly. There is an inherent pettiness, weakness and fake strength in autocracy and force and it's often why I think the EU receives so much disproportionate hate.
The world was already moving on from US hegemony. China is already a super power, other economies are growing, and the west in general (i.e. all the countries mentioned here) are a shrinking proportion of the world economy (and population, or military strength).
> I thought Turkey or North Africa would be the next steps. Maybe Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Not white enough for the EU. There is a lot of opposition to even Turkey, which is already in customs union, joining and talks are dead specifically because EU countries do not want immigration from Turkey.
Von der Leyen sucks, but not in that way. She is an unscrupulous careerist with a talent for failing upward - and she failed a lot. More of a system abuser than a system changer.
Solar panels are even worse. Here in Poland they're covering entire fields in the countryside, I have no idea why they don't build them on parking lots or on factory roofs.
I've never seen a pumpjack nor any hydrofracking equipment. I have seen a few capitalists but I can't be positive they were red-blooded ones (whatever that means).
The LNG won't come from Canada either. Trudeau notoriously said "there's no business case" for it, but the truth is they can't agree with how to actually get enough of it to the east coast to make a difference, and that's what blocks it. (In fairness the route does go through some very unique environments).
Canadian provinces have a far bigger ability to screw things up for the whole than countries do inside the EU, and people remotely familiar with the EU will understand what a strong statement that is.
The middle democracies will do better fighting together and not deal with US individually.
The US has depleted their missile stockpile and can no longer defend anybody. Countries in the Middle East are moving away from the US and forming their own alliances. Taiwan knows that the US cannot do anything to help them. South Korea also knows. The US has weaponized the US Dollar, forcing countries out of the SWIFT system if they don't do what they are told. As a result, the CHIPS system has become the alternative. China understands better how the economy works, with the Belt and Road Initiative. The US government doesn't understand how the economy works, and is run by a bunch of complete m orons.
It used to be chinese made goods sold by local or western companies. Nowadays bar a few exceptions these are chinese goods sold directly by chinese brands/companies.
If they changed that they'd perhaps become world powers themselves.
No, that's just the 2010s propaganda fed to you by people who assert that not letting them do whatever they want is "bureaucratic". These very same people are completely fine lobbying legislature for more moat when they benefit from it.
The difference between "middle democracies" or whatever that means and the US is just that politics aren't corrupted enough yet that they can buy whatever they want.
The EU feels like an incomplete experiment. Not strong enough to actually be a single market. But still able to create additional annoying regulations on top of nation level ones.
The EU needs to be truly Federal to succeed economically. That might create uniform regulations with more uniform regulations and actually make Europe competitive.
Not because I think regulations are bad. But regulations need to be well designed with clears lines on what the Federal / State are allowed to do.
America's become erratic and untrustworthy. America's made a deliberate choice make its reputation worse.
Most of these attention grabbing statements by politicians are usually about scoring political points at home. The only thing worthy of judgement are hard facts, and excruciating details, which are yet to materialize on this topic.
Bonjour du Québec.
In a world in which the other great powers revive the Monroe Doctrine or threaten their magnitude smaller neighbors with annexation we're not doing so badly. There is an inherent pettiness, weakness and fake strength in autocracy and force and it's often why I think the EU receives so much disproportionate hate.
The EU does not have a military to annex any neighbours with. Individual states do, but non are really great powers any more.
Yes, you can read all about how that came about, and how it's going.
> The EU does not have a military to annex any neighbours with. Individual states do, but non are really great powers any more.
You're projecting an American ideal. Not all nations are--nor want to be--America, and we're thankful for that.
All it took was Trump & Republicans
I don't hate the idea
Not white enough for the EU. There is a lot of opposition to even Turkey, which is already in customs union, joining and talks are dead specifically because EU countries do not want immigration from Turkey.
This is all a big pain in the back.
Solar panels are even worse. Here in Poland they're covering entire fields in the countryside, I have no idea why they don't build them on parking lots or on factory roofs.
Canadian provinces have a far bigger ability to screw things up for the whole than countries do inside the EU, and people remotely familiar with the EU will understand what a strong statement that is.