No, it's not.
It's ASML looking out for its largest customer. It's Amsterdam looking out for its shipping lanes, as well as for its Nine Eyes partner. Washington absolutely strong arms Europe, but it's strategically aligned with the Netherlands.
Like, just think about the guy coming into the White House. What about him screams quiet, behind-the-scenes diplomatic win taker?
More powers involved the better for me even as an American.
I don't think this is really good for the US or anybody else in the long term.
Europe should arm up, but US should cultivate a friendly relationship. If Europe would arm up and the US keeps pushing it'll either end up with escalation or US will have to start dismantling European cohesion, both out comes would be bloody.
Plus, If this tragedy happens, China would have an easier time dominating.
5% is what Sweden needed in the 1980s to defend itself from the whole Soviet Union + Warsaw Pact, without the EU and without NATO.
That said, its a price we should pay instead of relying on the US as a partner.
It's true that Europe and Canada need to invest more in defense, but the balance is currently 755 billion USD (US) vs. 430 billion USD (EU) [1]. So it's certainly not like the MAGA rhetoric pretends. The US has the benefit of being a large nuclear power, but for a long time the US preferred being the nuclear protector to avoid too much proliferation on the continent.
Another annoying part of the 'they gotta pay up' Trump/MAGA discourse is that it's starting to sound like a mob wanting protection money. This is not how the NATO agreement works. Countries have to spend 2% of their GDP on defense, but it's not a payment to the US. They could buy Saab Grippens if they wanted to.
[1] https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2024/6/pd...
If that no longer holds, then we enter a new era where non-proliferation will be history.
Many of the countries already have certified delivery platforms, or have ordered them.
Of course, we're treading in new waters and it's completely unknown if any existing contracts and treaties will be honoured anymore, but that concern will be secondary to this, I think.
I say it is a secondary concern because 1. basically any European nation can put together a delivery system, ballistic or cruising, should they have to; and 2. creating the weapon itself is not really that big of an undertaking for a modern high-technology nation state level actor.
Starting to sound like a mob? He's been at this for his whole adult life.
It is still sad though. At any rate, it fits the pattern. During his first term he was also more interested in cozying up with autocrats.
History called our bluff. Event after event, Financial crisis (remember that?), the Brexit implosion of the UK, the Syrian war / migration crisis, the Pandemic, the Russian invasion, the Trumpist implosion of the US, the Adtech invasion, the Energy transition disruption from China etc. An endless list of setbacks that is not going to end anytime soon.
The old continent is shaken to the very core but somehow we are still in the denial phase.
Reality is the value that the US brings is lower than it was. Ukraine has chewed up the old Soviet-era WW2 style tank divisions, but we’ve also seen that 4th generation fighters can’t survive in contested airspace and traditional Navy ships need to stay offshore (for now) to avoid being sunk by drone jetskis. Kinda a problem where we have limited inventory of 5th generation aircraft in either of our air forces.
The Navy sort of figured this out, but instead of building submarines built stealth ships with no weapons.
We need a reappraisal of US military force structure, based on the technology of 2026 vs 1986, as we’re on the path to end up like the Russians.
YouTube channels that follow the Russian narrative suddenly amplify this and pivoted from "the US is to blame" to "the EU is to blame".
The US narrative (at least online) seems to shift similarly: The US wasn't that important for the conflict, it is the Brits, the French and the Eastern European states who are the real hawks and who have to pay for the war.
Since the EU will be left out of talks between Trump and Putin, one wonders what the game is here and if secret agreements have already been made.
This is defeatist. Europe isn't bound by talks it's left out of.
With the full text of the law implemented, several of these companies came up with compliance plans that don’t run afoul of the letter of the law, but the EC has repeatedly and continued to say “not good enough”, effectively inserting itself in the design process of new products and services from these companies going forward.
I’m against using NATO Article 5 as a bargaining chip too, but seeing what popular support crappy extremely targeted and extremely bureaucratically-minded laws like this has, has me questioning how much the EU is really an ally these days. It’s a given that a lot of you feel this way about the election of Donald Trump (twice), so I get it, but it cuts both ways across the Atlantic right now.
I'm sceptical Russia has this kind of power anymore, beyond being a proxy for China..
Honestly it feels like the US is also becoming a Russian sattelite with Trump & Elon having quiet gettogethers w Putin.
The significant geopolitical shake-up of the past few years should serve as a clear warning to Europeans to prioritize their own defense instead of depending on the USA.
> In 1997, ASML began studying a shift to using extreme ultraviolet and in 1999 joined a consortium, including Intel and two other U.S. chipmakers, in order to exploit fundamental research conducted by the US Department of Energy. Because the CRADA it operates under is funded by the US taxpayer, licensing must be approved by Congress. It collaborated with the Belgian IMEC and Sematech and turned to Carl Zeiss in Germany for its need of mirrors.[25]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding
Before aiming to not be pushovers, EU should probably study the history of their own companies.
> VELDHOVEN, the Netherlands — To win U.S. clearance in the purchase of Silicon Valley Group Inc., officials at ASM Lithography Holding N.V. agreed to a number of restrictions and obligations aimed at protecting lens technology and maintaining operations in the United States. But the Dutch company's CEO today said many of those requirements are compatible with ASML's original goals in buying SVG.
> ASML today announced it had finally cleared U.S. review of its planned purchase of San Jose-based SVG about seven months after announcing plans to acquire the lithography supplier for $1.6 billion in stock. Completion of the merger had been stalled for several months because of concerns about U.S. national security and protection of defense-related technologies. The U.S. government agreement now clears the way for ASML to complete its takeover of SVG within the next few weeks, according to officials in Veldhoven (see today’s story).
> “Clearly any CEO would like a completely free hand, with no obligations,” said ASML chief executive officer Doug Dunn, during a conference call today following the announcement of the agreement. Dunn said a free hand was “never going to be the case with this particular merger/takeover. The U.S. government took a very strong interest in this because, in their opinion, it very clearly effected national security.”
> Topping the list of requirements in the agreement is a promise by ASML to make a “good faith effort” to sell SVG's Tinsley Laboratories subsidiary within six months of completing the acquisition of Silicon Valley Group. Tinsley's lens-polishing technology was one of the major concerns blocking ASML from finishing its purchase of SVG.
The article continues: https://www.eetimes.com/what-asml-agreed-to-do-to-win-u-s-ap...
But there are still benefits to NL since China is their adversary too.
Wow, the conspiracy theories in this thread are nuts.
The Netherlands is a port economy and agricultural exporter. The U.S. Navy protects the sea lanes it relies on. The Netherlands have been a reliable and natural American ally because our interests align--particularly when it comes to a war as potentially devastating to international trade as a Pacific conflict.
(Zooming in to ASML, their largest customer is TSMC.)
Without the American companies not sure the benefits would be the same to the Netherlands or to ASML.
Who knows. In the last batch of negotiations they never made the deal public. These deals get made by elites and the public never learns the details.
FWIW this is not a very common ambition people have here in NL. Besides the implied blatant corruption, which I don't think is the case here, I strongly doubt you can bribe any Dutch executive with something as uncool as a bought Harvard admission.
Somehow it never leads to anything :-)
We also love it when our government takes marching orders from the US.