Instead of levying counter tariffs to respond to the unjustified trade war, should the defending countries instead stop, or threaten to stop domestic enforcement of colonial IP rights?

It’s not an awful idea, but I’m not sure it makes sense in Europe. The various European governments are trying to enforce IP laws against European media (not just America-produced media) so the framework of this ‘revenge’ would have to be somehow cognizant of the European content producers.

And I’m not sure how the line would be drawn.

Bottom line for me is that this sounds interesting, but I’m not sure how it would work in real life.

The better solution would be to even out the trade instead of getting in a pissing match with Trump.
Germany for example sells more to us than we do to them. Buy more of our items to help us out and everything will be fine.

@KNOWITALL
Make something that is not shit or poisonous first.
And it is not like you have not already exploited Europe by making everyone reliant on your digital services, like visa, mastercard, google, paypal, amazon, microsoft, apple, etc.
We even buy your weapons. But I guess all of that does not count for you.

@KNOWITALL Trade is mostly done by private citizens and companies, so not something that a government can really dictate by itself, for the most part.

And adding tariffs (not to mention threatening invasions) is having the opposite effect, causing people to boycott US products.

@ragingloli Actually, if you do the search you find that the US currently has very low tariffs on the European Union (including Germany). These tariffs range from 0 to 6% on the various things that are traded. Meanwhile the tariffs the EU has on the USA are closer to 30–50%.

So why is it okay for Germany to lay heavy tariffs on the USA but it is somehow unfair for the USA to want to level the playing field?

https://wits.worldbank.org/tariff/trains/en/country/EUN/partner/USA/product/All

@ragingloli Like 87% of Canadas toilet paper? Machinery, oil, chemicals, soybeans, corn, nuts?

For Germany, its rubber, leather goods, transpirt equipment, plastics, machinery…you can buy more to balance it out.

@seawulf575 Most of these folks dont do any research on what they import, so its difficult to converse about actual facts.

Maybe if you do not just stay on page one, you would see that colonial tariffs on germany specifically go up to 94% https://wits.worldbank.org/tariff/trains/en/country/USA/year/2022/partner/DEU/product/All/pagenumber/5/pageSize/200

@ragingloli Thats 2022.

As of Feb 11 2025 Germanys trade surplus with the US reached a record high.
If the US imposed tariffs the trade surplus could reverse per Holger Goerg.

Reuters.com

We are Germanys top buyer. Imports from the US fell by 3.4% under Biden. We are just asking for that to be more fair rather than Germany buying so much from China and the Netherlands.

@KNOWITALL “Thats 2022.”
so was his link.
and again. make. something. worth. buying.
Also, do you ever go into a grocery store to get them to buy some of your home-grown vegetables?

@ragingloli is correct. Whining that “Germany doesn’t buy our stuff” is stupid. We in the US need to make products that Germans want to buy is the point.

Tariffs are not the answer. Better products and US manufacturing is.

@elbanditoroso Or we slap on tariffs and they go into recession.
Listen to Joachim Nagel.

Whos whining? I call it warning.

Maybe you should beg more for our eggs.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/14/trump-egg-prices-denmark-greenland

@ragingloli You’ll never see me beg for anything from another country silly. Bet. I dont even pay for eggs at all. Ha!

@ragingloli Ooohh…ya got me! You found that tobacco products get a higher tariff from us. Now go back and look overall and how much we pay in tariffs. Here’s a concept: maybe we don’t ship stuff to Germany because they have such high tariffs on our stuff? Huh. And in the end, it isn’t that we can’t/don’t make good stuff, it’s that the tariffs are uneven. That is what you are dodging as hard as you can. You still can’t justify why it is okay for Germany to lay high tariffs on the USA and then whine when the USA wants to level the playing field. Isn’t that the whole point behind your initial quesiton? You are whining that President Trump is going to start evening out the tariffs? You call it a trade war, but the war is already underway. You are just mad that we are going to start actually fighting it.

@seawulf575 It is not logical to face losing our buying power and military support, rather than reaching a compromise.
As we’ve seen, the UK. China and others are now starting to stand up for themselves as well.
Most economists say countries losing the American market face certain recession quickly. Just play nice, even things out better-make a deal, and we all leave the table better off.

@KNOWITALL “Just play nice”. That’s all Trump is trying to say. They want preferential treatment that they aren’t willing to give to us. They are not willing to stop things that are harmful to our nation (like letting illegals or drugs in) and just want us to continue to put up with trade relations that don’t favor us.

That is the sad part. Most of these countries are still favored by post-WWII trade relations when we were giving them preferential treatment to help them rebuild. That was 80 year ago. At some point, when we start saying we want equal, fair relations, they all seem like it is unreasonable.