Derek. 🇺🇸@SuitablePolitic
EU: "We have a special relationship with the USA!"
USA: "Sweet. So we have a trade problem. We're buying all your stuff, which is cool. But you don't buy any of our stuff."
EU: "Okay. But that doesn't really matter, right?!"
USA: "Well. Since our market is so full of your stuff, that's less room for our own stuff. Which would be fine. But we only really sell our stuff to us, because... you don't buy our stuff."
EU: "Okay, I guess. But really, we can't buy your stuff because of the dollar."
USA: "Well, that's one barrier. But you also create more barriers."
EU: "No, we don't!"
USA: "You tariff us."
EU: "Well, we need to!"
USA: "And your VAT taxes make imports nonviable in your markets."
EU: "That's to protect our own markets!"
USA: "Great, so you understand what we're doing perfectly. We're tariffing you."
EU: "YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"
USA: "Well, until you remove those barriers, we are doing that."
EU: "YOU HATE WESTERN CIVILIZATION!"