This law, still on the books, theoretically allows the president to order military action against the ICC in Den Haag (The Hague) should they ever try an American Service Member.

> The act also prohibits U.S. military aid to countries that are party to the court. However, exceptions are allowed for aid to NATO members, major non-NATO allies, Taiwan, and countries that have entered into "Article 98 agreements", agreeing not to hand over U.S. nationals to the court.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...

Nonetheless that does not make the US forces in Germany an occupational force.

A stick is a stick regardless of whether it has been used to thrash someone lately.

Maybe Germany (and the EU as a whole) should start paying for its own defense, and paying their agreed to share of GDP into NATO while they are at it

Huh, and here I thought it was 2020 and not 2024. Weird.

> Allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defence is below this level [2% of GDP] will […] aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade.

From the 2014 NATO summit: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

It works the other way around. We cannot have an European industry meanwhile USA government backed-up companies are competing with our startups.

> collection of small countries

Europe is bigger than the USA. And the division within the USA is as big or bigger than Europe. And, we cannot talk about China.

OK, on some metrics. But I think nobody questions which country is still leading the world.

> And the division within the USA is as big or bigger than Europe. And, we cannot talk about China.

I don't agree with this or we're talking about different things.

The grip of Washington DC on the states of the USA is much stronger than Brussels' on the countries of the EU. The degree of sovereignty is very different. No matter the internal divisions inside the USA, first of all there is one USA. On the other side of the ocean first of all there are multiple competing EU countries, each of them trying to exploit the others and the EU and with different economics and foreign policy goals. About that, do (random picks among large states) California, Texas and New York have a foreign policy worth talking about?

If you're in a security alliance with countries you share values and goals with, how can you not apply different standards in terms of data sharing? And how can you not react somewhat differently to any transgressions, mistakes and imperfections?

I know Trump has made this very difficult by making his personal whims indistinguishable from the interests and commitments of his country. In my view this is a form of corruption that does massive damage to the U.S. And yes, democratic control over security services has been rather tenuous at the best of times.

But I still see many good reasons not to impose broad economic sanctions on allied democracies. And I do see good reasons to side with them against completely illegitimate regimes that use their security services to keep themselves in power without a democratic mandate.

Of course there are many grey areas and a lot of valid criticism. But asking for Europe to officially impose economic sanctions on the U.S is not a proportionate reaction to that. The economic damage would far outweigh any additional freedom or security.

If you refuse to apply a degree of pragmatism and proportionality, other countries would then have to impose economic sanctions on Germany for their use of Staatstrojaner. Essentially, all cross border trade in digital goods and services would have to end globally. That can't be a good idea.

We've had to warn you about this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23645175.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Yes I do. It follows from the simple fact that there are no free and fair elections on those countries. Freedom of speech in combination with elections gives us some power to change things. People in dictotorships don't have those powers, regardless of whether or not they are homeless.

Homelessless exists in Europe as well by the way.

Umm... the British monarchy hasn't held executive authority in centuries. They're window dressing like almost all European monarchs.

Is the "spying" by the US on Germany as damaging to Germany's future as spying by the Chinese?

If you answer these questions honestly, you'll understand why you're making a false equivalence.