Even by your standards that's a bad take. America isn't sacrificing itself to save Europe, the opposite is happening. When America tells a Dutch semiconductor company to stop exporting to China how does it help them? Sanctions affect resource deprived Europe far more than the affect America.
It's most apparent in the military industry, where Europeans are voluntarily disarming themselves of their European made weapons. Rearming is going to be difficult - most of the European military industry has disappeared or is very uncompetitive compared to the American MIC. It will just be cheaper to just buy ready to go American platforms instead of developing their own after two decades of stagnation.
A graph showing VW has no bearing on the point you are making, it's like you've merged two seperate wrong posts into one. It's also wrong.
The reason German cars are (were) popular in China is because they are good compared to the domestic alternative. Once domestic cars improve in quality, all those VW sales will disappear.
This isn't even conjecture, it's exactly what happened in Japan. In the 60s everyone in Japan drove American cars, how many American cars do you see on Japanese roads today?
It is hilarious. I *wished* it was an intentionally sent surveillance balloon but it is weather observatory.. so obvious.
