The current political climate has made the relationship between the US and its European partners very tense and challenging. In an attempt to prevent misunderstandings from festering, Reddit user SprinklesNo164 asked people from the Old Continent to share the news they wish every American would know. Responses quickly poured in, highlighting a range of issues from travel to civil unrest and beyond.
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We are currently issuing travel warnings to the US. Secretly, a lot of Europeans hope we can have less dependencies and relationships with you - and hopefully not get nuked in the process.
Canadians are heeding caution, too. Many are cancelling their trips. Some people think as long as they have their paperwork and passports in order they're guaranteed to be okay. But from the USA's repeated refusal of due process and just making those denied entry to go back home, and some of those denials are based on errors or minor thing, there is no guarantee and if you're kidnapped and sent to the concentration camps, you may not get out for weeks or months. It's not worth the risk.
Lots of discussions about how the US now seems more aligned with Russia than NATO.
They are. And adding to that, the English to Russian translators suck. A "-" can be crucial during political or economic discussions. When they were negotiating with the Russians, the US guys did not pay attention to the "-", so the Russians are of the opinion that not all civilian areas are banned from being bombed. On top of that, Russia and US have a different understanding of what an agreement or a deal is. For Russia it is not binding at all.
Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, Georgia, and Turkey are all having protests against government corruption and have Anti-Russia sentiments, a "Balkan Spring" as you could call it.
The UK has emerged from the grey damp winter and it’s now sunny! Spring is here! Daffs are out in force! People are smiling.
While here in Australia, we're well into Autumn and soon into Winter - my favourite season. Sorry everyone, I know it's unAustralian but I just can't stand the heat
We're all backing away from any dependence on the US as they have shown they're not reliable or friendly anymore - business deals & investments, defence spending, security, trade, etc. etc. everyone' rushing to cut dependence on America almost as fast as they dropped Russia after they invaded Ukraine.
Many European countries including the U.K. are issuing travel warnings for their citizens who plan to visit the US. .
Netherlands: We of all places have a drought, and badgers are trying to eat the railways.
Serbia has been protesting for more than 4 months now after roof of railway station in Novi Sad collapsed on 1st of November, k**ling 16 people. Students barricaded universities around the country and unis haven't been working for all this time. They also have been walking for miles and miles to protests in different cities in order to spread the word and connect to people. They won't stop until their demands for justice and systems changes are met.
Professors and school teachers that support them stopped getting paid. Government used acoustic sound weapon on protesters a week ago, but continues to deny that.
Direct democracy is on the rise among people, but dictatorship is on the rise in the government.
Additionally, our neighbours (North Macedonia, Greece, Hungary, Turkey, and bit further, Georgia) also had their mass protests against s**t autocratic and corrupt governments. Serbia stands with them, you can frequently see Greek and Macedonian signs on protests these days.
Let's not forget the IF Metall strike against Tesla in Sweden, which began on October 27, 2023, and has become one of the longest labor conflicts in Swedish history. The strike was initiated because Tesla refuses to sign a collective agreement with the union, challenging the Swedish labor model, where approximately 90% of the workforce is covered by collective agreements.
That America is no longer seen as friendly, or trustworthy.
*and general world geography, that seems to always be new to America.*.
If you are a friend that can be counted on, a lot of s****y actions are forgiven. If you start acting hostile, be prepared for the echo. The reason why other countries sell more to the US than vice versa is simple: The US wants cheap and quality, so they outsourced whatever they could. And for gods sake, almost every country in the world adapted the voting systems, type of government, basic laws and rules, care and education for their citizens during the past 250 years. Not every experiment resulted in an improvement, but some countries e.g. in Europe achieved a pretty fair standard of justice, voice of the citizens in government (multi-party system) and living quality. But the US still get stuck with laws and a voting system from when post delivery by horse was an achievement.
There is now an €840 Billion plan underway to rearm Europe. Effectively making it a superpower and bringing the era of American dominance to an end.
Edit: Lots of comments on this. Sorry I have no interest in arguing on the Internet, I won't reply. Let me clarify my position: this is a terrible thing that's happening. If you are working class you'll be the one f****d in the upcoming wars. Trump is stupid for squandering American power in Europe but he seems to be doing it in advance of grabbing mineral rich territories for resources big tech companies need. All the bourgeois powers will be doing some version of this soon because capital needs to constantly expand or collapse.
Germany relaxing its debt break to enable major investment in defence spending and infrastructure.
There is a pre-war atmosphere in Europe. Last October, Sweden distributed a brochure to prepare its citizens for an imminent threat. Now, this summer, the French will receive a survival manual at home to know how to act in case of a national emergency or an “imminent threat”. In addition, news came out today that Brussels is calling for European households to stockpile emergency supplies in case of a climate crisis or war.
“Europe must prepare for a potential war, also for cyber-attacks, pandemics and the terrible effects of the climate crisis, warns the European Commission.... Brussels is calling for all European households to have stocks of water, medicines, batteries and food to subsist for 72 hours without outside help in the event of a crisis. It is one of the guidelines of the Union's Preparedness Strategy, which will be presented by the Community Executive on Wednesday”.
Right now? Farmers are revolting all over Europe, protesting EU policies and climate regulations.
But Americans wouldn’t know, because they’re too busy arguing whether drag queens or vaccines are the real threat to democracy.
Meanwhile, half of Congress thinks Europe is a province in Canada.
Norway. The biggest *local* news event is that a kindergarten went on a ski trip and had a great time. Erik says he fell once but it didn't hurt and he had an orange in his backpack that didn't take any damage.
A big national news event is that they found even more proof of sexual a***e of patients at a gross doctor's house.
Here in Denmark we are talking about two things:
1. Greenland and how f****d up America is acting.
2. A prominent former politician was indicted for possessing thousands of images and videos of child sexual a***e material as well as a childlike s*x doll.
Other than that, sun is out and spring is here so that’s nice.
Everyone hates Russia, except the US right now and nobody knows why.
Trump is a wannbe dictator. His only goal in life is to win all the time. A true,, classic textbook narcissist. Trump sees Russia as winning the war but the USA wasn't endorsing Russia's side, and Trump is pissed that the USA has been supporting the losing side. He doesn't care what each country represents, their history and injustices. He doesn't care who started the war. He also sees that Russia invaded for valuable resources that Trump wants. It's insidious greed.
I'm saying Australia counts because of Eurovision.
We're about to have an election in the next month where it is literally a Republican vs Democrat election round 2: Electric Boogaloo. Our conservative (called the Liberal) party has started to spit Trumpist lines in his press conferences and our liberal/left (called Labor with no u) party is running a bump in healthcare funding.
The polls are so tight there is a massive chance of a hung parliament because of independents and the greens.
We are one election away from having a bald potato Trump.
Living in Sweden we're dealing with massive teacher strikes right now. Over 20,000 teachers walked out last week.
I'm from a small town in England, according to the local Facebook group:
* Immigrants are ruining the town, or not ruining the town, nobody is really sure at this point. They're definitely up to something.
* Nigel Farange is either the devil or going to save the UK. Nobody can agree on that.
* The bypass they have been promising for 80 years hasn't been built yet, people are salty about that
* Some drama about a Primary school not having an Easter service this year.
Exciting stuff.
UK: Everyone pissed themselves about a spiral in the sky last night that turned out to be rocket fuel being expelled from a SpaceX launch.
This has been covered quite a bit in US MSM (mainstream media). Not about the alleged UK reaction, but the event.
The UK's National Health Service is in absolute chaos right now. I'm a nurse in London and we've had the longest strikes in NHS history.
Another Pulse Nightclub tragedy that didn’t reach most American news outlets. On March 16th 2025, a fire at a DNK concert k**led at least 59 people (including the entire band except for one dude). It was caused by pyrotechnics. It is the deadliest nightclub fire in Europe since the 2015 Bucharest nightclub fire, and the deadliest fire in North Macedonia’s history. Super tragic. source
Edit: For the record I’m not European. I saw it on Wikipedia’s home page and was confused because it said Pulse Nightclub.. yet it was super recent and in Macedonia. I ended up listening to some DNK songs. They were super talented and it’s f*****g tragic. RIP.
My sympathies to their families, friends and fans. I do wish that pyrotechnics would be limited to outdoor venues with adequate safety measures.
The two people that stole the Paddington Bear statue were sentenced today. They both got community service and a fine.
Both of them are RAF engineers and brought the statue back to base with them so I'm guessing they're in for a proper kicking off their Seniors.
In the UK we're having pushback against our c***py government from all sides at the moment. The latest one being nationwide protests from disabled people regarding cuts to the Personal Independence Payment system that was already considered cruel and bureaucratic.
France here while everyone's focused on our pension protests there's actually a massive water crisis happening in some regions.
So much drought across the world at the moment :( but no, climate change is a myth...
The Netherlands (a small country (18 mio.) west of Germany) quickly wants to increase its army from 75.000 people to 200.000 people. They accept anyone now, so they claim.
Asparagus season is coming early this year.
The leader of the Serb-dominant region of Bosnia is defying arrest, breaking the constitution and threatening to raise an army. He's a separatist. The arrest warrant for him hasn't been filled because local police from his region would likely protect him. He's also been sentenced to jail and banned from politics, but he's still there. It's very complicated and not easy to explain quickly so I think it's been way underreported, even in Europe.
Europeans live about 6 years longer than Americans on average.
Is that because infant and maternal mortality have been on the rise in the US for years?
Chickens are producing so many eggs that farmers are paying people to take them off their hands.
Similar to the US a whole ton of cuts are being made in the UK right now and it's causing a similar backlash. The people who will be most harmed are those who are most vulnerable, it is seen by many to be justifiable given the current circumstances of the war but I'd prefer we just hit the Americans with retaliatory tarrifs to pay for it instead.
My bf is British. He's told me they are cutting off benefits to disabled people to make them work. He's a carer for his severely disabled, ailing parents, and is very worried what's going to happen. I've heard of how their benefits system gives their own assessments of disabled people, through invasive, upsetting tests to figure out what they are capable of. I've been trying to reassure him that it's highly unlikely he and his parents would be affected. But I'm not fully confident of that.
In France, the prime minister has lied about his knowledge and cover up of a violence scandal at a private catholic school, so the government is currently distracting the population by banning islamic veils from sports competitions. Just islamic veils, not crosses or whatever religious symbol under the name of laïcité.
Here in Sweden we're dealing with this wild situation where our biggest grocery store chain ICA is in a massive fight with Coca Cola.
I have no clue the background on this (And I don't really care), but I usually root against mega corporations . Sweden has my worthless moral support.
Croatia:
People: spring is here! Yes, everything is expensive, but it is warm outside, trees geeting green...
Meteorologist: breaking news, it will rain all week.
UK economy is in big trouble. Debt interest now huge- bigger than education budget. Debt aporoachimg 100% of GDP. Our crappy productivity per capita is depressing. Population due to reach 85m on a crowded island ( England 434 people per sq km) but we don't produce enough. 'Left' wing government needing to cut spending as we desperately need to up defence spending.
Gloomiest country in Europe just now?
In Portugal, Ronaldo went playing some tenis today.
UK - Freddo is 30p at Tesco.
Norway is selling a lot of teslas again.
To put it in perspective: Owners of Teslas are selling, not Tesla itself. Just like everyone else in Europe. The lease contracts are running out, and the used ones are flooding the second hand market, which in itself caused the prices to drop, but now no one wants neither a new Tesla, nor a second hand. This means that the value of a second hand has dropped in a few months by more than half. And still nobody buys one. While for some reason the price of a new one has already dropped (before Elon lost his cool) by nearly 10%, lease rates have gone UP by 10%
Poll Question
Have you heard of the news events mentioned in the article?
I'm European and I haven't heard most of these
I'm European and I'm aware of most of these
I'm American and I haven't heard most of these
I'm American and I'm aware of most of these
Exactly. Gives me something else to focus on for a while.
Load More Replies...aMerIcAn here and yet again, I would like to like to apologize to dam near everyone else in world for the upheaval orange vomit is causing, resulting in a lot of this unnecessary b******t stress and mental load! We're protesting like hell over here. F**k tRuMp, mUsK and everyone else who voted for him and/or kisses their a*s. EAT THE RICH!
Eat the rich - yes, good idea. There's a film with that title if anyone feels a comedic distraction is called for. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092944/
Exactly. Gives me something else to focus on for a while.
Load More Replies...aMerIcAn here and yet again, I would like to like to apologize to dam near everyone else in world for the upheaval orange vomit is causing, resulting in a lot of this unnecessary b******t stress and mental load! We're protesting like hell over here. F**k tRuMp, mUsK and everyone else who voted for him and/or kisses their a*s. EAT THE RICH!
Eat the rich - yes, good idea. There's a film with that title if anyone feels a comedic distraction is called for. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092944/