<story><title>European Cloud Project Draws Backlash from U.S. Tech Giants</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/european-cloud-project-draws-backlash-from-u-s-tech-giants-11572600600?mod=rsswn</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Barrin92</author><text>The entity list program against Chinese companies, the pressure on Europe to reject Huawei infrastructure (and accompanying threats in particular when it comes to natsec  data sharing), the attack on the German car industry, on French agriculture, the list has been getting pretty long.&lt;p&gt;And while it&amp;#x27;s true that this has been the state of affairs for most of civilisation, it wasn&amp;#x27;t for the last ~70 years. Up until recently, the US was willing to underpin global free-trade without using economic politics as leverage for short-term or one-sided political goals. Which is precisely why US tech companies have become the first choice in much of Europe and indeed around the world.&lt;p&gt;Now the question is being posed if that is still a good decision. Without this interference, Europe would not think about investing billions and billions into its own cloud infrastructure, and China would not be ditching Android. It could have been smooth sailing for US companies for a long time. If this continues I&amp;#x27;ll give it 10-20 years before there&amp;#x27;s a major decoupling even between the US and Europe.</text></item><item><author>chance_state</author><text>&amp;gt;the US has been shown to be willing to use its economic leverage for political ends over the recent few years&lt;p&gt;Are there specific examples you&amp;#x27;re referring to? Because this is how geopolitics and diplomacy has worked since the dawn of civilization. This isn&amp;#x27;t something unique to Big Bad USA.</text></item><item><author>Barrin92</author><text>Many people have pointed to privacy and data issues, but there&amp;#x27;s also the plain reality that the US has been shown to be willing to use its economic leverage for political ends over the recent few years, so having key data stored in the US becomes an increasingly geopolitical risk even for European allies.&lt;p&gt;I think these mercantilist plays we&amp;#x27;re seeing from the US are going to cause a lot of long term harm to the tech companies. For national security reasons alone you cannot rely on US cloud infrastructure if the man or woman in the white house is likely to pull the plug at any moment.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Ididntdothis</author><text>”I&amp;#x27;ll give it 10-20 years before there&amp;#x27;s a major decoupling even between the US and Europe.”&lt;p&gt;I am originally from Germany and I think the main obstacle for this decoupling will be the reluctance of Europe to take defense into their own hands. When things get tough they so far always have relied on the US. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.</text></comment>
<story><title>European Cloud Project Draws Backlash from U.S. Tech Giants</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/european-cloud-project-draws-backlash-from-u-s-tech-giants-11572600600?mod=rsswn</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Barrin92</author><text>The entity list program against Chinese companies, the pressure on Europe to reject Huawei infrastructure (and accompanying threats in particular when it comes to natsec  data sharing), the attack on the German car industry, on French agriculture, the list has been getting pretty long.&lt;p&gt;And while it&amp;#x27;s true that this has been the state of affairs for most of civilisation, it wasn&amp;#x27;t for the last ~70 years. Up until recently, the US was willing to underpin global free-trade without using economic politics as leverage for short-term or one-sided political goals. Which is precisely why US tech companies have become the first choice in much of Europe and indeed around the world.&lt;p&gt;Now the question is being posed if that is still a good decision. Without this interference, Europe would not think about investing billions and billions into its own cloud infrastructure, and China would not be ditching Android. It could have been smooth sailing for US companies for a long time. If this continues I&amp;#x27;ll give it 10-20 years before there&amp;#x27;s a major decoupling even between the US and Europe.</text></item><item><author>chance_state</author><text>&amp;gt;the US has been shown to be willing to use its economic leverage for political ends over the recent few years&lt;p&gt;Are there specific examples you&amp;#x27;re referring to? Because this is how geopolitics and diplomacy has worked since the dawn of civilization. This isn&amp;#x27;t something unique to Big Bad USA.</text></item><item><author>Barrin92</author><text>Many people have pointed to privacy and data issues, but there&amp;#x27;s also the plain reality that the US has been shown to be willing to use its economic leverage for political ends over the recent few years, so having key data stored in the US becomes an increasingly geopolitical risk even for European allies.&lt;p&gt;I think these mercantilist plays we&amp;#x27;re seeing from the US are going to cause a lot of long term harm to the tech companies. For national security reasons alone you cannot rely on US cloud infrastructure if the man or woman in the white house is likely to pull the plug at any moment.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CharlesColeman</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; the US has been shown to be willing to use its economic leverage for political ends over the recent few years&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The entity list program against Chinese companies, the pressure on Europe to reject Huawei infrastructure (and accompanying threats in particular when it comes to natsec data sharing)&lt;p&gt;A couple points 1) political ends aren&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;necessarily&lt;/i&gt; bad ends, and 2) it&amp;#x27;s hard for me to view much of the Huawei stuff as pursuit of a &amp;quot;short-term or one sided&amp;quot; goal, given there are no American competitors for much of the Huawei equipment at issue.</text></comment>