Arnaud Bertrand praises India for its political courage which EU lacks

[Ajay0]

Geopolitical writer and commentator Arnaud Bertrand has praised India for its political courage which EU lacks, as per his perception. He also praised India for upgrading its diplomatic ties with China.

https://www.businesstoday.in/amp/india/story/modi-has-the-political-courage-europe-lacks-entrepreneur-says-eu-lacks-will-courage-shame-for-giving-in-to-trumps-demands-490405-2025-08-21

 

Quote

 

“You can say what you want about India, Modi does have the political courage that Europe thoroughly lacks. Imagine if Europe had done this with Russia when Trump started, like he just did with India, to go hostile on trade. Not only would they not be in the absurd situation where they need to negotiate peace with Russia via the intermediary of a hostile Trump, but they also could be rebuilding ties with Russia as leverage against American extortion. And I'm not even speaking about avoiding the pathetic spectacle of being lined up like schoolchildren before Trump's desk, or having to pay several points worth of European GDP in tribute,” he said. 

Bertrand stated that Europe now gets the worst of all the worlds – “public humiliation as American vassals, systematic wealth extraction by the US, a ruinous proxy war they need to pay for, and continuous hostility with their next door neighbour even when, ironically, the US is now restoring relations”. 

He also highlighted that it is harder for India to take a stand than for Europe, considering the level of animosity Indians have for China, which is more than what Europeans have for Russia. “Heck, European leaders would undoubtedly have been cheered by a large proportion of Europeans if they'd taken the diplomatic initiative in Ukraine instead of Trump, all the more if it was as a strategic move to resist Trump. But no, they'd rather sit in the Oval Office like obedient pupils, write $100 billion checks to American defence contractors, and continue playing vassals to a hegemon that openly despises them.”

 

 

[Sucuk Ekmek]

Courage is easy when you can reroll your  life on earth.

[zazen]

4 hours ago, Ajay0 said:

Bertrand stated that Europe now gets the worst of all the worlds – “public humiliation as American vassals

Second hand embarrassment lol

Arnaud is awesome. Here’s another recent tweet about the Dutch company seizing Chinese assets:

https://x.com/rnaudbertrand/status/1978085002584662448?s=46&t=DuLUbFRQFGpB8oo7PwRglQ
 

“This is an extraordinarily dumb thing for Europe to do: the Dutch government is quite literally stealing a leading Chinese semiconductors company, at least its international operations.

They're probably acting in coordination with Washington since it was simultaneous to Trump's new "50% rule" that added all subsidiaries of companies on the U.S. "Entity List" to the list (which is the case of Wingtech Technology, Nexperia's Chinese parent company).

I'm not even exaggerating on the "stealing" bit: they suspended the Chinese CEO from his position, appointed a non-Chinese director on the board with decisive voting rights and expropriated the company's shares by placing them under management by a third-party trustee.

All under a law called the "Goods Availability Act" (government.nl/latest/news/20…), which is an emergency wartime legislation designed for things like the requisition of bread or fuel during a foreign invasion. It makes absolutely zero sense in this case: last I checked Holland wasn't being invaded, and Nexperia is operating normally, with chips flowing to European customers exactly as they always have.

It's so dumb in so many respects.

First of all this obviously kills the investment climate in Europe: go convince any non-Western country to invest in Europe now, when they know their investment can be seized from one day to the next on the flimsiest of pretexts.

It invites retaliation from China, which is almost systematic. I wouldn't want to be a Dutch company with Chinese operations right now...

It undermines Europe's own semiconductor strategy. Nexperia is one of the all-too-rare successful EU semiconductor companies, headquartered in Holland with 14,000 employees worldwide. Destabilizing it isn't exactly smart...

Last but not least, it sends yet again the message of a EU with zero strategic autonomy since, again, this was simultaneous with new US rules that affected Nexperia.”

Tweet 2:

“Interestingly, now that we have more information, the best angle to understand what happened with Nexperia is as an economic proxy war between the U.S. and China, with Europe - as is often the case these days - as the battleground (and therefore the main victim).

As per confirmation from court filings (x.com/FT/status/1978…), it's now clear that the Dutch moved to seize Nexperia because they were told by the U.S. that if they didn't do so the company would end up on the Entity List and would therefore be basically killed by extraterritorial U.S. sanctions. 

Which would have been a heavy blow for the Dutch economy because, despite being owned by a Chinese company, Nexperia is headquartered in Holland and employs over 10,000 people in Europe.

And now China's response to the Dutch seizing Nexperia (x.com/Sino_Market/st…) is to deploy their own economic weapon against the company: the company has been banned from Chinese supply chains, which is also pretty much a death warrant for such a business.

So in effect it was a "tails I lose, heads... I lose too" situation for Europe: no matter the response - be it from US financial weaponry or Chinese supply chain weapons - Nexperia would basically be on death row.

Which again illustrates the tragic strategic situation European leaders have put the continent in through decades of terrible choices. There's that saying: "if you're not at the table, you're on the menu"... well in Europe and Nexperia's case it's even worse than this, Nexperia is not being eaten by either side: it's being destroyed to prevent the other from having it. Europe doesn't even get the consolation of getting eaten: they're simply simply collateral damage, crushed like a powerless bug without a second thought about it.”