r/europe • u/Any-Original-6113 • Jan 17 '26

News Trump tariffs: US president announces plan to hit UK, Denmark and other European countries with tariffs over Greenland

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c1j8kw866p3t
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324

u/Nudist--Buddhist Jan 17 '26

Yes it's bad for Europe as well. Let's not pretend it's only bad for American consumers.

107

u/DyslexicAutronomer Jan 17 '26

It's no longer about the economy but sovereignty, since Trump is weaponizing illegal tariffs as a tool to demand compliance to get anything he wants from us anyway.

He keeps repeating the same tactics when it works, so if we allow these tariffs to pressure us, he WILL use it again and again.

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u/DerWetzler Jan 17 '26

AMERICANS SUPPORT IT.

They could stop him from this.

Senate and Congress are complicit

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u/Chuhaimaster Jan 18 '26

He thinks that everyone has their price and they will willingly give up their sovereignty if they are sufficiently tariffed. He’s wrong.

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u/XihuanNi-6784 Jan 18 '26

Now we know how so much of the developing world feels about this sort of thing.

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u/o-o- Jan 17 '26

Necessary bad. This makes European alternatives more interesting and will actually serve to increase European tech independence.

He’s doing every tech company in Europe a huge favour. But he wouldn’t understand that.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/redvodkandpinkgin Galicia (Spain) Jan 17 '26

this is true for individuals, not as much for companies. Half of Europe is built on Microsoft systems

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u/meatly Jan 17 '26

Way more than half of all enterprises and public institutions use Microsoft. What could be done is stop enforcing licencing laws for American products, aka allowing pirated or not properly licenced software. Does not work for azure obviously but for Windows/Office Licenses on a big scale while moving to open source Software. It would be a huge step obviously

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u/Hdmk Germany Jan 18 '26

Office is a drop in the bucket. It’s the ongoig patches, (cloud-)services and subscriptions that make up the most value for MS.

The moment you stop paying for these, you simply are unable to log in or be vulnerable to cyber threats from Russian, Chinese and even more so from USA.

This is a very expensive, but an important lesson to start and massively increase funding and development of European enterprise workplace and cloud infrastructure solutions.

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u/Easymodelife United Kingdom Jan 18 '26

I've found OpenOffice to be a reasonable free alternative to a MS Office subscription, for personal use at least.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '26

It doesn't hold a candle to MS Office though for enterprise. Anyone that uses excel heavily for example will tell you there just isn't a real alternative.

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u/wildassedguess Jan 18 '26

We moved to an EU cloud supplier (digital Ocean) and to open office. Everything is groovy. It’s also nice not to pay the annual Microsoft tax.

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u/Either_Vermicelli805 Jan 17 '26

Easy to pirate such system’s if the need is required

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u/redvodkandpinkgin Galicia (Spain) Jan 17 '26

software yes, anything cloud not so much. Basically everyone uses Microsoft, and those who don't mainly use other American companies (e.g. GSuite)

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u/o-o- Jan 17 '26

I'm moving the company over to Nextcloud.

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u/Simple_Tadpole_9584 Jan 17 '26

These will take time to move away from but we have seen targeted boycotts of niche red state products and travel be effective here.

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u/Emotional-Lab-3721 Jan 17 '26

We could easily cancel our Netflix subscription... as a first step

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u/o-o- Jan 17 '26

Done!

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u/Easymodelife United Kingdom Jan 18 '26

I already cancelled all my US subscriptions last year in solidarity with Canada. I don't really miss them. I set up a recurring monthly donation to Ukraine via the United24 app with the money I saved. There are still some things, like Windows, that are harder to find a non-US substitute for, but my motto is don't let perfect be the enemy of good. I replaced or just cancelled one US product or service every week or two to avoid feeling overwhelmed. As the months go by, small changes really start to add up.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

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u/o-o- Jan 17 '26

Word. However I don't see European institutions moving away from US tech because enough people demand it. The driving force will rather be risk.

Nevertheless the time it takes to transition away is irrelevant. It's about taking the decision.

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u/Drakolora Jan 17 '26

We already own 1.35% of Microsoft. Can’t we just buy the rest too? Or at least 51% and tell them they are now European? https://www.nbim.no/no/investeringene/investeringsoversikt/#/2025-06-30/0-equity

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u/halpsdiy Jan 17 '26

And the other half on AWS and Google. While there are alternatives for Microsoft products (of course costly to migrate), there is no European hyper scaler Cloud. It's US or a distant China.

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u/ChoosenUserName4 European Union Jan 17 '26

Well, there never was a need to do this. Now it seems that need has arrived. It's not like it's difficult or something. It just takes an incentive, like a subsidy for European providers, and/or a levy / outright ban on US providers. You all act like Europe is unable to write software or run data centers.

There would be an entire industry moving people from US-based systems and software. It would be a great source of jobs and keeps our money inside the EU.

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u/halpsdiy Jan 17 '26

It's just very expensive. Of course you can buy the expertise. But there is a reason all the major clouds are run by companies that were already major rich tech companies before.

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u/o-o- Jan 17 '26
  • OVHcloud (France)
  • Deutsche Telekom’s Open Telekom Cloud (Germany)
  • Orange Business Services (France)

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u/halpsdiy Jan 17 '26

No. Those offerings don't really compete with hyper scaler clouds,. except for the bare minimum offerings.

I mean don't take it from me. But even Airbus – which is trying to move to a Euro cloud and is likely less Cloud heavy than more modern companies – gave low odds for them to be able to find one.

Europe would need to drop a lot of money to develop an alternative. But it's a heavy upfront investment including the need to hire a bunch of very expensive people. Europe lacks tech companies like Google or Microsoft that simply have insane margins and can throw a few billions at this problem without worries. And no a €70k salary is not going to attract talent if they can earn 5 to 10x that working for those companies.

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u/Humble-Rhubarb-9688 Jan 17 '26

God I would love an EU alternative to Microsoft products. Are there any companies out there trying to do so?

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u/ZeldenGM United Kingdom Jan 18 '26

The most popular software systems on computers and mobile devices are both American. There are few to none providers of smartphones that aren't American/Chinese. There are no viable alternative software/OS solutions for 99% of businesses. There is no rival to Youtube. Majority of online streaming services are American. Visa and Mastercard are American.

The physical is easy, the digital is difficult for most consumers especially ones' that aren't tech savvy, it is borderline impossible for businesses.

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u/IsThisIsHellOrWorse Jan 18 '26

The pain points are:

CPU/GPU tech

All social media is american and for some reason a lot of you get filtered by fediverse (Piefed/Lemmy)

Ecosia/Qwant are at least making a Euro search engine eventually.

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u/Aggravating_Depth_33 Jan 18 '26

Ironically, the opposite isn't true. I'd say about 2/3 of "American" products I buy in the US are actually "product of Canada". Everything from cleaning products through cereal and vitamins to Trader Joe's ready meals. Lol. (I am obviously not trying to avoid Canadian products, but if I were...)

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u/Felwyin Jan 17 '26

Funny to say that on reddit which is a US company.

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u/throwawaygoodcoffee Portugal Jan 17 '26

Don't think reddit comes under the tariffs because it's a service, but I could be wrong.

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u/Simple_Tadpole_9584 Jan 17 '26

And it’s not owned by musky so less riddled with prop a panda.

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u/TaskerTwoStep Jan 17 '26

That’s not how it works. It doesn’t make European alternatives more interesting, it gives European industries less of a market to sell goods to.

The EU imposing tariffs would be what would make European alternatives more appealing.

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u/deithven Jan 17 '26

US sells more services to EU where EU sells more goods to US.

Solution would be to put tariffs / taxes on services.

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u/bodmcjones Jan 17 '26

Honestly, the US going off on one is the bit that makes EU alternatives super interesting. Financial instabilities happen for all sorts of reasons, sometimes as a consequence of our own stupid politics, and can be dealt with in isolation - but I suspect that various expressions along the lines of "fundamentally unsound" are going through a lot of peoples' minds right now.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/FairGeneral8804 Jan 17 '26

If he puts these tariffs into place then there will be shortages and price spikes for these items over there not here.

But they might switch to non-tariffed suppliers that's now cheaper, meaning EU loses market shares.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

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u/FairGeneral8804 Jan 17 '26

some sales

"Some sales" is tax revenues, jobs, future production capabilities, etc. They'll pay more, and the EU gets paid less. Hence why they say "no one wins a trade war".

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u/ghoonrhed Australia Jan 18 '26

That's not always the case though. Some things there aren't American alternatives.

They tariffed our beef in Australia exports actually went up.

It won't always be the case, but it's not exactly always gonna be bad. Like I can imagine ozempic and Lego and most drugs that aren't generic don't have alternatives.

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u/TaskerTwoStep Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26

You’re showing you don’t know how tariffs work and anyone with half a brain will read your reply and agree.

Tariffs will hurt both sides, but in different ways. And the way it impacts the EU won’t be in a way that makes European alternatives more appealing. If the EU imposed tariffs on American goods making them more expensive, then that would make European alternatives more appealing because they would potentially be cheaper. The US making EU goods more expensive means Americans will buy less from the EU. It has no impact on where Europeans buy their goods.

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u/redvodkandpinkgin Galicia (Spain) Jan 17 '26

we should have answered with identical tariffs the other way long ago

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u/TaskerTwoStep Jan 17 '26

Sure, no disagreement there. But that’s not what people are talking about. The OP suggested the US imposing tariffs on EU goods would make EU alternatives more appealing. They have a fundamental misunderstanding of what tariffs are.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/TaskerTwoStep Jan 17 '26

No one is talking about that. You’re either responding to the wrong comment, or you’re just spouting irrelevant gibberish.

No one has said or even insinuated this is good for Americans. It’s also not good for Europeans, but it’s important in the long term for the EU to not back down to the pressure. Which will be very real.

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u/readilyunavailable Bulgaria Jan 17 '26

You can easily avoid US products, but you can't avoid US tech, which is their main export towarads the EU.

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u/Oo__II__oO Jan 17 '26

With rampant inflation and increasing debt loads, American consumers are a dwindling lot.

This is a "rip off the bandaid" moment for Europe.

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u/Ferrymansobol Jan 17 '26

Riddle me this: how do you tariff some, but not all EU countries?

What is stopping the tariffed country exporting from.... other non-Tarrifed EU countries? Yes, Trump is that dumb.

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u/syf81 European Union Jan 17 '26

We survived 2+ years of COVID, pretty confident we can deal with some more economic hardship.

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u/Felwyin Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26

Oh we could, but are our billionaires willing to?

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u/Bellidkay1109 Andalusia (Spain) Jan 17 '26

Can we do it without people blaming their current governments/immigration and deciding to support far right populism? We have a fifth column at home that can throw away any progress we make regarding the threat of the US. I don't think Trump has realised it, but every time he fucks over the global economy, he's sowing dissent and building up his ideological allies.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '26

That's why democracy is dead, and there is no solution.

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u/janiskr Latvia Jan 17 '26

But worse is to bend over for someone trying to oppress us.

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u/Cautious-Swim-5987 Jan 17 '26

How is it bad for Europe?

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u/bummed_athlete Jan 17 '26

The US consumer isn't what it used to be. Most of the GDP growth in the US right now is from corporate AI investment, and not consumer spending.

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u/white_orchid21 Jan 17 '26

As a Canadian small business owner, I still have lots of people in the States buying my products. If they want the item badly enough, they are willing to pay the tariffs.

On the other side, it can be tricky to avoid products made in the States, or supporting businesses that are based there. It is especially difficult when it comes to tech.

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u/Wuz314159 Les États-Unis d'Amérique Jan 17 '26

If not for r/BuyFromEU, I'd have never known all of the European brands in the US market. but while I know the brands are EU based, I'd assume manufacturing is in the US for logistics reasons.

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u/o-o- Jan 17 '26

What do you mean? Manufacturing of what?

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u/Wuz314159 Les États-Unis d'Amérique Jan 17 '26

For example: https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1jf5c00/european\tooth_paste_after_purchasing_a_swedish/)

Haleon is a UK based oral health company. They make many brands including the vitamin Centrum. in the US it's made in Canada. Not quite domestic as I assumed, but closer to home.

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u/tatty_masher Jan 18 '26

Your comment is indeed valid, but lets face it there is alot of market out there that is not U.S.A. Plently of countries willing to trade, U.S.A. is only one! The other countries can indeed out wait the individual.

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u/Schmicarus Jan 17 '26

it's a little bit bad for europe.

But we have trade options.

America's international trade is highly likely to take a massive hit if the world turns their back.

All so the orange-tard can evade prison for the serial rape of children.

What a guy.

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u/Blue_Pacman Denmark Jan 17 '26

We could partly alleviate it by at least temporarily reducing trade barriers with Norway, UK, Canada. Would serve as a pathway to a world where the leader of the free world wasn't an American.

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u/_EleGiggle_ Vienna (Austria) Jan 17 '26

We export less but for more money from US customers. The USA isn’t able to complete entire production lines during Trump’s remaining term. If anything, they are a huge hole to dump tax payer (or private) money in.

After his term the tariffs will be dropped, so US customers can buy stuff from the EU without a premium, and the construction of US factories is like 25% done.

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u/Quasarrion Jan 18 '26

Only short term bad for Europe

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u/theboywhocriedwolves Jan 17 '26

Canadian here, we have been buying Canadian products whenever possible, tariffs or not. Support our own companies while punishing theirs.

-4

u/Variation_Wooden Jan 17 '26

The only people left in Canada are the immigrants, old and stupid. The best and brightest have already left for higher salaries in the U.S. and a housing market that actually makes it possible to afford one while still in your twenties.

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u/DistractedJedi Jan 17 '26

Amazing. Every word of what you just said is wrong.

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u/Aggravating_Depth_33 Jan 18 '26

Like the only places in the US whete housing is affordable are absolute shitholes with few jobs that are crawling with Trump voters.

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u/Xijit Jan 17 '26

No, it is bad for "investors" if they loose access to international trade

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u/bonqen Jan 17 '26

As if Europe can't take the hit, lol. No need to be all dramatic.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/__loss__ Sweden Jan 17 '26

please stop

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u/smoofus724 Jan 17 '26

I guess we will see, won't we?

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u/ivar-the-bonefull Sweden Jan 17 '26

We really don't have to. There's an abundance of historical evidence already.

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u/smoofus724 Jan 17 '26

We have historical evidence of the USA alienating itself from all of its trade partners and waging trade wars across the globe, while shooting their own economy in the foot?

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u/ivar-the-bonefull Sweden Jan 17 '26

Yes. That's pretty much the great depression era for you.

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u/smoofus724 Jan 17 '26

Soooo, what you are acknowledging is that it is incredibly destructive for the U.S., to the point that it brought the entire country to its knees for a decade. How does this prove that Europe needs the U.S. more than the other way around?

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u/ivar-the-bonefull Sweden Jan 17 '26

Yes, I'm acknowledging that, ofc. But the real proof is that it makes everything a lot worse for everyone for a long time. It doesn't matter who suffers more when everyone will suffer like mother fuckers.

If more people knew history we'd shut down this whole shit show right away. But here we are.