Context
The Trump administration classified the Italian hacktivist group Autistici / Inventati as a terrorist organisation[1], meaning that American companies could no longer do business with them.
The immediate outcome was the closure of their Paypal account used for donations, and the loss of one of their .org domains, which is managed by the Public Interest Registry, an American non-profit company.
Before that, that administration retaliated against International Criminal Court Judge Nicolas Guillou and former EU commissioner Thierry Breton as well as four of his collaborators by sanctioning them, which essentially cut them off American services likes bank processors and parcel delivery, among other things.
My questions
Given that most Europeans are not activists nor political figures, how likely do you think it is to happen to individuals? Do you believe that Trump could use sanctions and embargos against the entire EU or some of its countries as leverage? The rational part of me thinks no, but we have seen so much crazy shit since his mandate started that my anxious side leans yes.
Personally, I have been trying to reduce my reliance on US tech and companies for the past two years, because really, the US cannot longer be trusted. And maybe I am overreacting, but I’ve got myself a .eu domain to replace the .com I use for self-hosting.
That’s a relief, totally makes the problem go away /s.
I mean, it very literally does. The US built the postwar global economic system. And we built it in a way that was quite friendly to our interests.
The US for instance controls the global system of payment transfers. And we can cut people and countries off from that system if it serves our interests. But this is a power you can only use very sparingly, ideally only in situations with broad international consensus. A friendly government isn’t going to lose sleep and start building their own payment systems after they see us sanction Al Qaeda. But if we start sanctioning their private citizens for peaceful activities that just happen to go against the politics of the man in the White House? Suddenly every friendly government has to worry they may be next. If allies as steadfast as Canada or Denmark can end up a US target, then no one is safe. That’s the kind of environment where governments start building their own alternative international payment networks. And the payment system is just one tool the US built in the post war period.
Despite the US military, the US relies far more on soft power than hard power. Ultimately we’re less than five percent of the global population, and we’re a literal ocean away from most human beings. We don’t have the ability to impose our will on the world by force. Trump is learning this the hard way. We’ve only been able to maintain the influence we’ve had through soft power, mutually beneficial trade relationships, and through reasonably balanced military alliances.
Trump is destroying all of that. Countries around the world were willing to accept US hegemony because the alternative would be risky, expensive, and on the whole just not worth the trouble. But when we abuse the tools that we have, then other nations have great incentive to find alternatives to the American options. And the more countries that do that? The weaker the US becomes.
Soft power is just that, soft. At it’s most influential, it’s an aura you build around yourself to encourage the world to willingly follow you. If you try to beat someone over the head with soft power, the club made of soft power simply breaks in the attempt.
It’s not that it goes away. It’s more like throwing a live grenade at your enemy while you’re both stuck in the same room. He is so obsessed with hitting his “enemy” that he doesn’t realise he himself is in the line of fire.