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Big mistake. They should focus on Bourbon and food. That will hit MAGAts the hardest.
No, bourbon and food is small fry.
Internet services headquartered in the US. That's the real deal.
Require a $100/per computer/per year on-going tax (phased in very slowly over 36 months, with extremely slow ramp in the first 18 months) for every enterprise Windows installation. Then figure out a similar approach for cloud computing and mobile enterprise (targeting Android/iOS). That's how you grab the Americans by the balls.
Lets be realistic here, everything from MAGA dominated states is small fry, they are not exactly the most productive states.
Devils advocate, most of those states are agriculture heavy. What do you mean by productive?
I mean they are literally some of the poorest US states with the lowest GDP per capita, the highest poverty rates, the highest rates of people who need government support,... and most relevant for this discussion, the least valuable exports.
Even better: services. Tariff Facebook ads, Netflix subscriptions, Office 365, Amazon Prime. If the corporations want to pull the strings in government, hit them directly.
Yes, that would be part of it. Windows on enterprise is just a good, simple example.
Invoke anti coercion regulations and suspend intellectual property rights of the US companies. Job done.
I think that surprising amount of them are already located in Ireland for that and other tax related possibilities. Giant corporations are basically pirates sailing on lawless waters.
Target HQ based on consolidated financial account reporting not regional HQ. Doesn't matter if you have a regional subsidiary in Ireland or Moldova. If the final accounts/HQs are US-based all transactions in Europe get hit with massive on-going subscription-style tariffs (since ICT services are largely subscription based).
If only tax-evasion was so easily solved. The are not shy of restructuring completely just to fit into any gap that law created. On paper "BigBadCorpo US" and "BigBadCorpo Irealand" could be two completely separate entities, with BBCI turning zero to no profits becouse it license brand from BBCUS.
You would think that Worner Bross is a movie making company. It's not. On paper it's a company that lend very overprices movie equipment. To shell companies created solely for the purpose of creating one movie...
Taxes are hard and people who employ literal armies of layers have the edge over slow law making.
Taxes are hard and people who employ literal armies of layers have the edge over slow law making.
While this is true, it's also a matter of desire and commitment.
Case in point, the US companies all publish consolidated accounts and often break out Europe, albeit sometimes it's EMEA not Europe.
You can target the final consolidated accounts and focus on revenues if the companies don't provide actual numbers for Europe (or if it looks like there is something fishy going on, which there is).
Company A is in Poland. You regulate law in Poland. Company B is in USA. You don't regulate a law in USA.
You want to tax company A, based on company B report, that was created for 3rd party government?
I recognize that this is not exactly a reasonable approach.
But sometimes (when the situation is dire and you're dealing with unreasonable, profoundly corrupt individuals that lack humanity) you need to take an active (not reactive) approach.
Literally just say "You made $20B (revenue) in Europe as per your 10-K, you will pay $4B and we don't care what you have to say because we both know you are dishonest and corrupt. Lying is not going to work!"
I am not saying that now is the time to use such measures. But to completely deny any active postures and solely leverage a reactive approach does not work.
That's not unreasonable. That's a law-suit. They will get back all this money with surplus.
Imagine that you have a company A. And you legitimately licens something from 3rd party company B. That's your cost.
And you license something else from company C... that's your profit some how?
On paper your relationship with company B and C is identical. There is nothing tangible linking you to company C more than B.
And if you manage to find something, they will shift the structure and change it.
You probably pay higher taxes than some of those companies.
Pirates. Enemies of the human kind.
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You can do a lot against tax evasions - if you want. Yes, they will find loopholes. But you can close them. Quickly - if you want. They have literal armies of lawyers? Well, hire armies of clerks, they will pay for themselves and make laws without loopholes.
I feel that would grab our European balls more than theirs. Practically everyone is heavily invested in AWS, Azure or GCP with few actual European alternatives, and migration to a new provider being a massive undertaking for a lot of those projects.
I definitely agree, I work in the industry so I have no childish illusions about how painful this would be.
That being said, it is not completely out of the realm of reality. China still uses Windows/Android/iOS, but they have their own cloud providers and they are making massive inroads with respect to semiconductors and homegrown components. And they are working on getting rid of American operating syste6m and I think in ~10 years they will succeed.
At some point you need to make a call around whether using American tech is in your interests. Moving off American tech will never be easy, the question is when and how you do it and how you manage the pain.
And mark my words, the Americans are only going to get even volatile and chauvinistic. Unfortunately, the sane Americans lack risk-tolerance and motivation (they are in a broad sense too well off to care if their country moves from current early proto-fascism to full on facism).
Yeah, that's an odd one to leave out. US alcohol isn't any form of necessity either.
Maybe there's a export like rye that the EU provides
Maybe it's to avoid tarrifs on European alcohols?
kentuckys economy is exclusively bourban, or at least most of it.
And Kentucky is full of magats
They should tax digital products.
Digital Providers are large donors but they are located in a blue state. Target the states with the votes that mater.
Right, why are countries not coordinating counter tariffs. Why isn't EU and Canada and others joining up to target some of the biggest donors and supporters
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There's Irish Scottish and Japanese whisky which are in my opinion superior anyway, should take a leaf from Canadas book and take them off the shelves.
American spirits are mixers here, I'll use bourbon if I want a cocktail but if I want a glass of something - I dont reach for american.
I dont want them off the shelves though, I wan america to revwrse course and be fucking normal before we end up at war.
You and me both sister.
Canada makes rye whiskey
When I did drink, I found bourbon too sweet
If the american supply ceases, european producers won't be able to handle demand. Expect higher prices - good whiskey takes several years to produce and nobody has prepared for a stupid situation like this
Lack of alcohol supply (a specific kind no less) is so far down the list of actual problems though. The majority of the population of the EU in every country seems to be on board with suffering a little in order to stick it to trump, so whiskey is really a weird thing to not import, especially given the potential impact it can have on the political opinion in affected regions.
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Someone in charge likely has a bourbon cellar. If you’ve ever had good bourbon, you’ll understand. Small amounts of the top shelf bourbon can be like good chocolate.
Or they’re practiced lushes and don’t want any alcohol price increases.
Found the American.
It’s all Whiskey, it having to be made in the USA is the only distinction of it being Bourbon.
There’s plenty of Whiskeys, Ryes and Corn Whiskeys that blow Bourbon out of the water.
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I think they're avoiding it because of the exports of wine, champagn, beer, etc. out of the EU more than anything, but that's just a (very slightly) educated guess.
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Just the initial wave. The next one should be a way bigger response to the blanket EU tariff
can’t do tariffs on the us but how about that chat control?
The eu seems to be really incapable of doing anything lately.
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this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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