Hacker Neue

Preferences
yalogin parent
This is a direct result of the current administration's overt animosity with Europe and every other democratic nation. EU saw that the tech CEOs are cozying up to him and probably it as a direct sign that they will be bend the knee and do whatever is asked of them. It is enough motivation to move things out. Wonder how many more countries follow suit. At the very least countries that don't have the resources/infra will want to diversify, may be.
JumpCrisscross
That and its inability to comprehend services exports.
jxjnskkzxxhx
I usually enjoy reading your comments, so I wish you'd expand a bit here.
JumpCrisscross
Balance of trade is commonly calculated by only considering goods [1]. America’s trade deficit is a deficit in the trade of goods; we usually have a services trade surplus [2].

When this administration has messaged [3] and made trade policy [4], it has used that goods-only view of trade, i.e. it ignores services.

Microsoft exporting Azure as a service has zero impact on how many goods America buys or sells. (If anything, it might increase the goods deficit if the servers Azure runs on, or the buildings its staff occupy, use any foreign components.) So by this administration’s accounting, the EU reducing its purchases of Azure is great if they e.g. buy two more Hershey’s bars. That’s economically nonsense, and that is the problem.

[And thank you! :)]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_trade

[2] https://www.bea.gov/news/2025/us-international-trade-goods-a...

[3] https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-pr...

[4] https://www.newsweek.com/trump-reciprocal-tariff-chart-20545...

jxjnskkzxxhx
I didn't know that. It's weird that I haven't seen this mentioned on the media once. Thank you.
tossandthrow
It has been widely covered in some EU media's at least.
JumpCrisscross
There was a brief moment when China threatened to retaliate against American services [1]. Shortly thereafter, Trump chickened out [2].

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-11/trump-tar...

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/05/fact-sheet-pr...

mk89
I think he is talking about the fact that Trump is screaming left and right that "EU iS ScREwINg US CiTIzeNs" because he merely takes into account trading of physical products, without showing the full picture. Basically if you consider services as well, the trade surplus is a few million euros only, because EU imports a lot of services from USA.
chalst
The case is strong for not depending on anything the Trump admin could have control of.

This item has no comments currently.