I don't think I've ever seen the words Made in Britain, Spain, France, ect once in my life. Also does 1 billion go further in Chinese goods or EU goods?
I don't know where you'd look for the label "Made in a bunch of European countries" on an Airbus, but if you were on one of those (and you'd have to be, if you fly regularly), you had your life depending on something designed and made in Europe.
If you bought a new phone or laptop recently, then chances are, that its chips where lasered by an advanced machine built in the Netherlands (ASML) running frighteningly accurate optics from Germany (Zeiss). Those chips were built with these machines in Taiwan (which is obviously not European), but you get my point how Europe plays a critical part here (and incidentally, how important international trade and cooperation is, without it things like laptops become really difficult to produce).
I'm not sure what kind of cars you drive, but Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, obviously all European. Stellantis, a big European automative firm, produces a lot of brands you probably wouldn't know, but they recently acquired the american Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep brands. I could go on: IKEA, Adidas, Lego, Heineken, Nivea, Red Bull, Nestle. And isn't Aldi kind of getting big in the US these days too?
We've mentioned the defence sector a few times now. One of the reasons Europe can spin up quickly, is because when it was not producing weapons for itself, it was exporting them around the world, including the US. Thales and Rheinmetall (especially for weapon components) are the two who immediately come to mind. Oh, which reminds me, some parts of the F-35 are built in Europe too.
Hmm let's take a deeper look shall we. Pharmaceuticals is number one. What a coincidence. Our largest overpriced industry. Wow. How many of those companies do you think are based in Ireland or other low tax EU countries? You forget that we are outsourcing jobs and companies. Many American companies switched to EU as well. Lemme search it. Omfg. I just looked it up. Can't believe i guessed that right. Lol. I knew Ireland was a tax haven for many American companies because of an article i read while Obama was president, but this is bad. Ireland in 2024 exported 28% of EU pharmaceuticals. Switzerland came in 2nd at 19.8% and Germany in 3rd at 17.8%. Singapore is at 16.7%. Those 4 countries make up half of all USA pharmaceuticals exported by budget from the entire world. Not just EU. Wow who knew the Irish were huge into pharmaceuticals?
True, some companies relocated to the EU, some for tax havens for sure (although, i am not entirely sure if that effects export numbers as you say it does), some perhaps also for the fact the EU (and Europe in general) has a lot of research centers, a lot of very decent universities, and, due to our relatively accessible educational system, a lot of people with PhDs walking around, who generally can speak fluent English. Especially that last point made Ireland and the UK (especially when it was still part of the EU) valuable places for the US to invest in.
Aside from that, if you don't know Bayer, AstraZeneca, Philips and Siemens (the last two not only medical companies, but they built a lot of medical equipment and related components), i don't know what to tell you. Remember Ozempic? Comes from Denmark (Novo Nordisk), of all places.
Speaking of Philips and Siemens, relocation of factories and jobs goes both sides, often it makes sense for EU companies to set up shop in the US. Where you ever under a MRI-machine? It might have been assembled in the US, but quite a few of them come from Philips and Siemens.
Again, whether you like or not, EU (and moreso Europe) is a large trading partner. And why shouldn't it be? It's a developed continent with an industrial base, lots of highly educated talent, mostly functional governments and a largely free market. I'll grant you, that we are severely lacking in the software services industry, but even there you might know us from booking.com, ayden, SAP and, oh yeah, Spotify.
Is the stereotype that we are all just work-shy hippies, getting high on dutch weed, while critiquing french noir movies so deeply entrenched?
Wanna get more depressed about your absolute lack of awareness as I take you off the script that has been written for you? This one is gonna hurt. So Ireland we pay the most for pharmaceuticals. 66 billion of our budget or 19.8% as stated above. They are responsible for 44% to 52% of drugs in America by tons shipped. From China we import only 9.5 billion in pharmaceuticals or 4% of our budget goes to them. They ship around 44% of our pharmaceuticals by tons as well. So... thanks for charging us 5 times more than China I guess? Lol. So you mix those 2 and you end up realistically around 80 to 90 percent of pharmaceuticals shipped to the USA by tons. That means 10 to 20 percent are made by the rest of the world, but 58% of what we spend goes to them. Wow.
Yeah, or you get really basic cheap mass produced stuff from China and get the more advanced, expensive, stuff from Europe.
Now this whole America is leader of the free world is malarkey. You're talking about the old America. This new one poisons its people for profit. Throws them in jail for petty crimes. Sinks them in massive debt to go to college or risk their lives in the military. Did you know investment groups own 25% of single family homes in places like Atlanta, Georgia and only rents them? That and AirBnB has caused this massive housing shortage. America kicks off wars directly or through proxy constantly as well.
Yes, those are all real issues and some of those problems we have over here as well. Housing shortage, for example, is pretty horrific here. Knowing that, doesn't help you much, but perhaps you can find some comfort in the fact that this is something we all struggle with.
America is no longer what you should aspire to become. We are quickly turning into a cautionary tale unless we fix it. We're flying too close to the Sun with these wings made of wax.
Then, i really do hope it gets fixed and there we can find common ground. But, you and i fundamentally disagree on who you should employ to fix it. In my opinion, Trump is going to make things way, way worse. Others e.g. have pointed out the corrupt nature of his government. That can't be helpful, if you want to tackle those issues you mentioned.
Like I said Trump isn't perfect, but our country was broken long before he became president.
Fair enough, but again, Trump is not fixing it. From where I'm looking, he's mainly using your country for his own personal agenda and vendettas.
