this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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BRUSSELS — The European Union said on Thursday it was ready to deploy its strongest trade weapon against the U.S. after President Donald Trump threatened to impose sweeping tariffs and scorned the EU as having been created to “screw” America.

“We have an Anti-Coercion Instrument, and we will have to use it,” Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen said in Paris after meeting with his French counterpart Annie Genevard at the Salon de l’Agriculture farming exhibition.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago (7 children)

something something global reserve currency

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago (6 children)

US has been running a trade balance deficit since 1976 and it upsets Trump. Pretty hard to avoid when you are the global reserve currency tho.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah, so as I understand it, the US is able to have this huge trade imbalance because they can pay for their imports in currency they can print themselves, and other central banks will take the dollars because it's the reserve currency and because petrol products are traded in dollars. It is a rather delicate balance, that allows the US to consume with unlimited credit, that will work as long as others want dollars.

I understand how other economies would like to break this relationship and get in on the putting everything on the credit card, or to break it just so that the US doesn't have so much economic power over the world.

What I don't understand is how an American, much less the president himself, would want this balance upset. Even as a European, I believe it's in my economic interest that the Americans consume.

Do I have a better understanding of this than the American government??

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

You have a better understanding than dumbass trump. He's surrounded himself with sycophants that will agree to his stupidest ideas so that they can get a greenlight for their pet projects.

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