Do it
this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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Well then what are they waiting for?
America is doing quite fine wreaking havoc on itself, no need for Europe to get involved.
This is not a "YSK", it's just yet another post about (US...) politics.
Seriously, this problem ruined !showerthoughts@lemmy.world and it's ruining this community too.
Sign of the times... If it is on everyone's mind, it will infiltrate generic subs like these
Amen. And I know we all want to just agree with it, but propaganda is propaganda, and when people are painting it to fit the guidelines of communities (like this), it's deceitful and wrong.
... the time to do this shit has long been upon us. Who gives a fuck what they can do, until they do it? As an American, I'm begging you, put up or shut-up.
I didn't vote for the baby in office, and I would gladly suffer to see his toys taken away by the adults.
I said this in another thread but I'll say it again, threats are only useful if you hold leverage. If they blow their load, what else can they hold over the heads of the US? They need to threaten, and then if they threat isn't listened to then they act on it. Doing it now just ensures there's not much of a punishment left to be dealt, so there's no reason not to invade. Sure, the economy will collapse, but that would happen either way in the case they act now.
If I hold a knife to you and threaten you with it, you'll listen. If I just stab you then what reason do you have to listen? Just like nukes, the only use for a threat is in not using it. If you do have to use it then you've lost the reason they may have held back.
No one is proposing they rattle their saber. The scale of the threat has long been too great to bother speaking aloud, and putting it into words instead of action would just be laugable.
Again, the "listened to" or no phase is past the horizon, around the curve and honestly several hills and valleys back in the rear-view mirror. A threat that isn't followed-through on or is spoken only after you'll obviously never act isn't even a threat any more; Its a mark of submission.
Nice job contradicting yourself in that second paragraph though. Let me ask you this: Did Trump bother saying we were going to, could, or "should" abduct Maduro in advance?
Did they make this threat before? I never heard it if they did. Yeah, a threat is only good as long as the other party believes you're going to act on it, so if they did threaten it before then they should. However, again, this isn't going to prevent anything, except for making them believe your threats are good. What good will come out of them taking this action? (By this, I don't mean collapsing the US economy, which will hurt a lot of people. I mean, does it prevent harm.)
I don't believe I contradicted myself. Could you point out how? I'm not sure how abducting Moduro is related to this. However, I do believe he's been saying we should remove him for a long time, though I think most people ignored it because it would have been seen as crazy, and gets mixed up with all his other insane ramblings. I don't know the relevance of this question though.
Trump didn't specify how we would remove Maduro in the same way its pointless for Europe to specify exactly how they could or would retaliate. Its more than enough for there to be multiple options to make them all valid when it comes time to say "we warned you".
Please don't confuse my enthusiasm for one option that's been shown to be possible and devestating, for me saying this is the only option Europe should consider. On the contrary, I'm just wishing they would pick an option that matters and run with it already. All they've done is show their belly like a submissive dog.
They don't even appear to care about plausible deniability any more. Arresting Gaza protestors is just such a good, strong-arm look for going against Trump. Fear of Europe must be why so many churches in my area are flying Israeli flags at the moment.
As for how you contradicted yourself, you said "if the threat isn't listened to then they act on it", then went on to claim a threat that has to be followed-through on is worthless. On the contrary, a threat that has been known all-along is rendered moot when you spell it out long after the time for it is past.
Its the threat you have to verbalize that's worthless. Holding a knife to someone's throat to threaten another person is not the act of someone with any control over their present situation, and its a threat made-up on the spot that's easilly invalidated in so, so many ways. That scenario is not applicable to Europe versus the US at all.
As for how you contradicted yourself, you said "if the threat isn't listened to then they act on it", then went on to claim a threat that has to be followed-through on is worthless. On the contrary, a threat that has been known all-along is rendered moot when you spell it out long after the time for it is past.
That's not a contradiction. If you have to follow through on your threat then it failed to achieve its goal. Usually it's not a desired outcome. It doesn't gain you a thing. It still needs to be done though or your threats will be ignored.
Its the threat you have to verbalize that's worthless.
It depends on the context, but usually no. There needs to be clear boundaries where the threat becomes acted upon for it to be effective most of the time.
its a threat made-up on the spot that's easilly invalidated in so, so many ways.
This is exactly my point. This threat was just made up. It can't be used retroactively. That's not how things work. They need to set boundaries, then execute it if the lines are crossed. If you set boundaries that have already been crossed then what are you trying to gain?
You think the boundaries weren't spelled out? I mean, we all know "international law" is a joke 1st world countries ignore versus their own actions and the rest of the world, but versus eachother? "Don't fuck with us and we won't fuck with you" is stupidly over-defined.
The same for the financial enmeshment that sees this threat well-inside the realm of potential reality. Europe never promised not to sell these debts. The fact the US can't complain about it if they do is part of what makes it a good threat. Are you not familiar with "soft power", like, at all?
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While it economically can, we should also be able to military defend all Europe ourselves.
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Yeah, the problem is that Europe is going to dick around not doing that while the other side is actually using bullets.
Are they shooting at us?!
No, unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. “Europe” doesn't owns a lot of US bonds; private investors from Europe own them. There's no way to compel them to sell them.
Ok except you're completely wrong. The foreign holdings are both private and government owned. From https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/RS/PDF/RS22331/RS22331.51.pdf
Ok except you're completely wrong regarding Europe. Governmental investments in US are mainly made by countries outside Europe, like China. The only European exception is Norway, which alone can't do much (and is not in the EU).
So yes, almost half of foreign US bonds owning are by governments, just not European ones.
Hmmm except that just saying the same thing again still doesn't make you right.
When you get further down the pdf from Congress (or any other valid source on government debt breakdown) there's a number of European countries. Such as this.
Have you got any actual sources for your statements other than just repeating the same thing?
Again, your table doesn't differentiate public and private ownership. You obviously don't understand the numbers you're sending. Citing page 1 of your own link:
Investors in the United States and abroad include official institutions, such as the U.S. Federal Reserve and foreign central banks; financial institutions, such as commercial banks; and private individual investors.
Both financial institutions and individual investors are private. So your link is totally irrelevant to our discussion (as you would know if you had read it). Yes, for example Luxembourg holds $423.9 billions, but do tou actually think the Luxembourgian state owns it? Of course not! Luxembourg is a trading place where a lot of holdings are based. These holdings hold the far biggest part of those billions. It's the same with the UK (the London City is another trading place with a lot of holdings). And most of European countries.
As far as I know, the US Treasury doesn't communicate on this, so we don't have strict numbers. But it's a well-known thing, as stated the Financial Times recently:
But this doesn’t change the fact that most of these assets are not actually owned by European governments (the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund being the only notable exception). These stocks and bonds are actually overwhelmingly held by the private sector: thousands of insurance companies, pension plans, banks and other institutional investors, and millions of ordinary people.
I'd love for Europe to have this kind of power, but we simply don't have it (we have others however, like the “commercial bazooka”).
The section you've quoted that line from is only talking about privately owned US debt.
As you can see from the actual beginning of the paragraph rather than picking out the words you like at the end.
As I've already posted and mentioned right at the start of the pdf
See where it says 44.2% are held by foreign governments. Governments.
In the document from Congress.
About their own national debt ownership breakdown.
Then when we look at the country breakdown of ownership of this debt later on there are plenty of European nations in there.
As you can see from the actual beginning of the paragraph rather than picking out the words you like at the end.
The beginning of the paragraph changes nothing. Two different sentences can have two different meaning; the text says “in the US and abroad”.
As I've already posted and mentioned right at the start of the pdf
Again that's a worldwide average. It's not equally distributed. Prove me wrong instead of repeating your error.
there are plenty of European nations in there.
Again, this table mixes public and private investors and is then irrelevant. Prove me wrong instead of repeating your error.
Nope your turn to prove that none of this debt is owned by European governments.
I've provided the most reputable source that says the debt is owned by governments and within their breakdown it says some of those countries are European.
It doesn't provide a detailed breakdown of private Vs government for these countries but no where does it say that is debt is only privately owned in European nations.
You need to prove that or stop talking nonsense.
Although not technically part of the EU anymore the UK government has confirmed a number of times that it owns US debt. Other nations will certainly do this as well.
Unless you can provide a source that says that no European governments own US debt you're just making things up.
Show me where I said that European governments owned no US debt, please. I said that it was mostly owned by private agents in Europe. The keyword here is mostly. Mainly. For the greatest part. Predominantly. Don't change the terms of the discussion now that you feel cornered.
Of course the UK, Luxembourg, France or Ireland own US bonds. But what is owned by European countries is largely dwarfed by what's owned in European countries. Not a word in the Congress's document contradict that, and I provided a source that you conveniently ignored.
So if the European countries sold what they own directly, the effect would be weak. For this idea to work, they'd have to make private agents cooperate, and I don't think they can.
Here we go your own post where you sat they weren't owned by European governments. Only Norway
I'm not the respondee but you may want to reread that post. they use the word mainly there to indicate most but not all. You are risking cherry picking the argument. By what I see it, the wording for "only exception" since the word mainly is used, would indicate that the only major exception would be, not the "only exception" would be.
That's how I read it anyway.
regardless though, the entire theory is silly anyway, doing what the original article suggests would also send the world into a global recession and would be the a classic case of shooting your own foot in an attempt to harm the opponent.
ammendum/post addition: regardless of who owns it though, the outcome is still unlikely. For government it would be political suicide in democratic countries, and for private sector it would be a massive financial dumpster fire. I think finding alternative export/import partners is far more likely to happen than something of the scale the article posts
It's the last line. Where they say it is owned by governments just not European ones. That's just wrong. They do own some of it. How much is up for debate but to say they don't is wrong.
Also agree they probably won't do anything with it as using it as a lever will also damage global markets, increase the overall cost of debt and impact all the economies involved.
However the world seems so fucking mental at the moment. So who's to say it won't happen.
Also I do wonder if China might do it with theirs just because they can, to flex their muscles or as a big fuck you to the US.
I counted, I say 5 times “mainly” or a variation of “mainly” in our discussion and I wrote one ambiguous (if taken out of context) sentence. You're trying to save face at this point.
Again your own post. You do put a couple of maybes in there but then say the only exception is Norway and finish with a very unambiguous final sentence that EU governments do not own US government debt.
It's not me that's trying to save face by bringing a load of maybes into it. You were wrong. EU governments do own US debt.
Just the last two sentences again since you seem to be a bit thick
I put no maybes. I put mainlies. Do you understand the difference?
It's easy to take a sentence without context and making it say something else, but it's a bad faith argument. You only discussed in bad faith until now.
Ha ok to put mainly rather than maybe. A typo by me.
Again you did say mainly. Apart from the section where you said it was only Norway and then that no EU governments owned US debt.
Your post again.
"Only Norway" which you then clarify isn't EU. Then a whole sentence that clearly says that EU governments don't own any US debt.
Just can't admit that post was wrong huh.
There’s no way to compel them to sell them.
On paper no.
In practice, when you consider how much economy at that level is driven by quid pro quo, that statement sounds almost silly. It's not a matter of whether governments can trigger a mass disinvestment, it's a matter of the cost.
Europe won't though.
Selling US Treasury bonds is exactly what Trump wants as it would devalue the dollar (flooding the market with dollars basically devalues the dollar) and Trump wants to devalue the dollar to make manufacturing in the US more attractive and to stimulate exports and therefore jobs in the US.
Not sure it's a plan as much as an unintended consequence. The man doesn't really have a track record of deep thinking.
I don't think he has a track recording of thinking in general to be fair.
I think he spits actions and just takes whatever sticks. The dude bankrupted how many times now and is expected to be the master in resolving US trade?
the man certainly does not do deep thinking but the thinktanks that are his advisors sure do.
It would devalue the dollar, but it would also substantially increase borrowing costs. Not that great for a country which is effectively paying off one credit card with the other.
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