The US industrial persecution complex ramps up production

The Trump Administration wants the EU to adopt its values. It’s going to take more than tarriffs to make that happen, says Billy MacInnes

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Image: Getty via Dennis

“Look, let’s be honest, the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it.”

My first thought on reading that statement by US President Donald Trump was how privileged we are, here in Ireland, to be able to see the terrible devastation visited upon US companies that have sought to trade in the EU. Things have been really bleak here for the Apples, Microsofts, Googles, Intels and Metas of this world for so long.

I’m old enough to remember when there were indigenous companies in most major European countries that made and sold their own computers. Bizarrely, despite the EU’s founding principle of screwing the US, all of those companies no longer exist, having fallen by the wayside in the face of competition from US tech companies (and others from the Far East). All I can say is, if the EU was supposed to be screwing the United States, it’s done a really, really terrible job. If I was appraising the EU’s efforts, I’d definitely have to say “could do better”.

The $13.5 billion “windfall” the Irish government has grudgingly accepted from Apple clearly demonstrates the pitiful state of so many US companies trading in the EU today. Imagine only owing a $13.5 billion unpaid tax bill. If the EU hadn’t been persecuting US companies so relentlessly for so long, Apple would be paying bigly.

To counter the shocking mistreatment of the United States, Trump has proposed slapping a 25% tariff on EU imports to the US, a move which is almost certain to be reciprocated.

It would be comforting to believe this is purely a trade issue but, of course, it’s not. What we have here is an attempt to use trade as a weapon for another purpose. In this instance, it’s to advance the cause of deregulation currently happening in the US and forcefully export it to Europe by imposing it on the EU.

US tech giants have frequently fallen foul of the EU’s regulatory environment when it comes to issues such as data protection and measures to protect citizens from misinformation. At the recent AI Action Summit, US vice president JD Vance argued that “excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative sector”. The US and the UK refused to sign the final statement of the summit which committed to making AI inclusive, open, ethical and safe.

A small imposition

In effect, Trump is seeking to impose the US model, one which frequently disregards consumer protections, a commitment to ethics, oversight and regulation and which, no matter how weak it was in the past, is currently being razed to the ground, on the EU.

Here in Ireland, as part of the EU, we need to learn to adapt to the coming fracturing of the landscape as the US and its companies diverge further from the European model. This is not an AI-specific issue. It will also affect other parts of the tech industry – as well as many others where Ireland has acted as a bridge between the US and Europe, such as pharmaceuticals.

The deregulatory mania in Trump and Musk’s America and the anti-science agenda currently being advanced there will create a huge, potentially unbridgeable, split in standards between the US and Europe. How, for example, will EU countries and businesses be able to trust US produced goods and software if the standards they conform to have been defenestrated of all meaningful substance in favour of producers over consumers? Will the software, services and drugs produced in the skeletal regulatory environment in the US meet the standards required on this side of the Atlantic?

Viewed in this light, it’s possible to see Trump’s anti-EU rhetoric as an attempt to extort the EU to accept and adopt the lower standards and regulations that will govern US produced goods and services. There’s a race to the bottom, the US is leading the charge and it wants to take the EU down with it.

The question is, can those of us who live in the EU afford to let that happen?

In response to Trump’s claim, Donald Tusk, prime minister of Poland, wrote on bluesky: “The EU wasn’t formed to screw anyone. Quite the opposite. It was formed to maintain peace, to build respect among our nations, to create free and fair trade, and to strengthen our transatlantic friendship. As simple as that.”

No matter what Trump thinks or says, it really is, as simple as that.

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