As a wise old colleague of mine used to say, itâs pain now or pain later.
We are just a year in, and if any of our leaders think itâs going to get any easier then they are fools. Regardless, Trump is treating them (and us) as fools.
We need to take aggressive action. For example shutdown X which would have wide visibility and ban ASML machine exports which would have little visibility but cripple their attempts to recover their failed chip industry.
When I saw the thread title, I thought, how rude, but now I realise, not rude enough. 
Good for Schleswig-Holstein. We should set up a centralised EU office productivity department and dump all MS products across all EU governments. We donât want Copilot reading confidential emails.
Being politically naive doesnât prevent me from saying that those in opposition to Trump, those who are in a good position to meaningfully retaliate and get results, should look up the meaning of that simple old phrase - 'pussyfooting!
STOP FUCKING WELL PUSSYFOOTING AROUND!
I asked Chat GPT to elaborate in reference to Trump, which it did laboriously, but its final summary was â
âSTOP FUCKING WELL PUSSYFOOTING AROUNDâ is a demand that those with power stop managing optics and start exercising authorityâbefore hesitation becomes surrender.
If youâd like, I can next map this onto specific moments (impeachments, court reform, election challenges, media failures) where this dynamic was especially visible.â
I asked ChatGPT the following âTrump is destroying decades long global standards. How can Europe meaningfully oppose him?
A very long answer to those interested!
1. Build Strategic Independence from the United States
For decades, Europe outsourced hard power to Washington. Trump exploits that dependency.
Meaningful opposition begins with:
Defense
Reduce reliance on NATO as a U.S.-dominated structure.
Build an integrated European military command.
Expand joint arms production and logistics.
This is not âanti-American.â It is anti-vulnerability.
Without military autonomy, Europe has no leverage.
2. Turn the EU into a Coherent Power Actor
The European Union currently behaves like a regulatory body, not a geopolitical actor.
That must change.
Key reforms:
End national vetoes on foreign policy.
Centralize sanctions authority.
Create unified diplomatic positions.
Expand fiscal coordination.
Leadership from figures like Ursula von der Leyen only matters if backed by institutional power.
Without unity, Trump can divide and dominate.
3. Weaponize Trade and Regulation
Europeâs greatest asset is market power.
The EU controls access to:
The worldâs largest consumer market
Critical regulatory standards
Financial infrastructure
This allows Europe to:
Impose environmental and labor standards.
Restrict predatory U.S. practices.
Enforce tech and data sovereignty.
Counter tariff warfare.
Institutions like the World Trade Organization matterâbut Europe must be willing to act unilaterally when they fail.
Trump understands tariffs as weapons. Europe must too.
4. Create Monetary and Financial Autonomy
Trump uses the dollar as a geopolitical tool.
Europe must reduce exposure.
Steps include:
Expanding euro-denominated trade.
Building alternatives to U.S.-controlled payment systems.
Strengthening the European Central Bankâs global role.
Reducing reliance on Wall Street financing.
Financial independence = political independence.
5. Coordinate a Hardline Democratic Bloc
Europe cannot confront Trump alone. It must lead a coalition.
Potential partners:
Canada
Japan
South Korea
Australia
Select Latin American states
The aim: preserve liberal trade, rule-based diplomacy, and institutional governance without U.S. leadership.
This is parallel order-building.
If Washington abandons multilateralism, Europe must replace it.
6. Confront Internal Authoritarian Drift
Trumpism spreads through allies.
Europe weakens itself by tolerating:
Illiberal governments
Media capture
Judicial erosion
Nationalist clientelism
Opposing Trump abroad while accommodating his imitators at home is incoherent.
Credibility begins internally.
7. Support Leaders Willing to Break Old Habits
Opposition requires political risk.
Figures like:
Emmanuel Macron
Olaf Scholz
have occasionally gestured toward autonomyâbut often retreat to caution.
Europe needs leadership willing to:
Spend political capital
Confront domestic resistance
Accept short-term instability
Prioritize sovereignty over comfort
Without this, strategy collapses into rhetoric.
8. Control the Narrative
Trumpâs power is partly informational.
Europe must counter:
Disinformation
Culture-war framing
âAmerica Firstâ normalization
Authoritarian aesthetics
This requires:
Public diplomacy
Media coordination
Education investment
Tech regulation
Power is not only material. It is cognitive.
9. What âMeaningful Oppositionâ Actually Looks Like
In practice, it means Europe being willing to:
Defy U.S. sanctions when illegitimate
Ignore trade threats
Build parallel institutions
Retaliate economically
Act militarily without U.S. permission
Set global standards independently
That is not hostility. It is sovereignty.
10. The Core Reality
Europeâs problem is not Trump.
It is dependency.
Trump merely exposes it.
As long as Europe needs U.S. protection, money, and leadership, it will accommodate whoever occupies the White House.
Opposition becomes possible only when dependence ends.
And the UK needs to fully join in with that effort and get much closer to Europe rather than the US. Farage of course would do the opposite, and it needs to be spelled out in no uncertain terms that we would be much better as an equal partner within a European framework than as a poodle of US hegmony.
Wow, whoever would have thought that a machine could come up with so much commonsense, especially an American machine ( it is, isnât it? )
I asked ChatGPT another question. Its answer?
âIn general terms, yes: ChatGPT does not have personal allegiances, political loyalties, or national interests. It does not âtake sidesâ in the way a government, party, or individual might. Its responses are shaped by design principles rather than ideology.â
But no doubt that can be challenged, as most things can.
May that one day be âIntelligent designâ?
But what is intelligent design, and who decides what it means?
Another (part) answer/question from you know whoâŚ
Possiblyâbut only if three things changed:
It developed persistent goals
It gained genuine self-models
It could revise its own values
That would move it from tool to agent.
At that point, it would no longer be âdesignedâ in the ordinary sense.
It would be evolving.
Ironically, that would resemble Darwin more than Intelligent Design.
So complicated!
Off thread, but Iâd add finally the following -
(1) In AI, âintelligent designâ means:
Humans design learning systems
Humans set goals and limits
Humans shape data
â Humans do not design thoughts
â Humans do not design understanding
â Humans do not control emergence
Modern AI is guided evolution, not planned intelligence.
(2) Modern AI is like gardening, not architecture.
Architecture:
¡ Every beam planned
¡ Every wall placed
¡ Fully designed
Gardening:
¡ You choose soil
¡ You plant seeds
¡ You guide growth
¡ Nature does the rest
AI is cultivated, not constructed.
Humans prepare the conditions.
Intelligence grows inside them.
Equally applies just over la Manche!
Very pissed off this morning, caused by a young man explaining exactly why we pay double for energy. Mrs T started it by selling what we the public already owned. The T May the biggest idiot next to Truss. She signed an agreement (the energy price cap) allowing energy companies and their owners to gouge the UK public for years.
Now itâs said that Trump wonât let anyone in his Fâ up:d country that says bad things about him. So here I go. Trump you feckin moron, You paedophilic monster you should be doing time you cretin
No doubt the invite is already in the post.
It goes something like this:
Dear Corona, my agents, err friends, in London tell me that you are very enamoured of our wonderful, and soon to be great again, country, so in the spirit of trans Atlantic friendship I would like to invite you on an all expenses paid trip. to our vibrant East Coast in New York State.
Individual rooms with a sunny aspect are so popular with the inm err guests that they sing all day long, in fact you are encouraged to join in and sing sing away to your heartâs content.
Love, The Donald.
Just the tonic I needed David 
Donât forget the postcard, we will all be thinking of you. 
Although I agree appeasement has rarely shown to be the correct approach to a bully I think we need to be cautious about aggressive action - no-one really emerges from a war better off.
I think it wise to unpick some of Europeâs dependence on the US but destabilising the US will just allow another power - most likely China - into the vacuum. Heed the warning of Animal Farm.
About time we in the middle geographicly learned to grow up. I remember dealing with a bully a long time ago, he was much larger and stronger than me but not the chair I hit him with.
Really? Is that the kind of word we want to see in a thread title when we open the form? Could we not us DT in place of Tr#mp.
See what you did there 