There is a new factor in the equation: Rising anti-american sentiments. This ties in with point 5 especially. Forcing Spanish websites off Cloudflare could seem like an additional benefit.
I've heard enough of this anti-american talk, and it sure smells like propaganda.
The huge majority of europeans have nothing against the american people. Please, do not propagate these claims.
The “anti American sentiment” is overblown. Average person doesn’t care. I live in Spain and I’m not seeing much anti-American anything. Anti-Israel has reached hysterical levels on the other hand — at least in the media, though the average person really doesn’t care about that much either.
In my circles of high level Spanish/European motorcycle racing, we continue to have a very positive reception as Americans in the paddock. The (Spanish) TV announcers have been positive towards our riders, the teams and crew are positive and helpful. We have more people wanting to talk about Route 66 than trade policy. Most Spaniards I know tend to roll their eyes at their own government more than anything happening in the U.S. The only exceptions are hysterical US expats on Facebook groups acting like the sky is falling. But they do that reliably every time a Republican gets elected.
Anecdotes aren’t data of course, but vocal people online don’t represent broader thought.
>Spanish/European motorcycle racing
Yeah, you're in a bubble and you're likely misreading their politeness. I don't know any Spainards who would want to get into pointless political arguments with Americans who they guessed to be right of center in the off chance they were supporters of the current US government. Unless of course they were Vox affiliated, but even then I'm not sure they would bother engaging. They'd probably prefer to stick to talking about common interest stuff (like motoracing). "Anti-American sentiment" in the European context usually means being Anti-American government, not being dicks to individual Americans. The few cases where it actually crosses into Anti-Americanism the way you describe it seems to happen when the US militarily attacks a country they consider to be "brothers" or very close to. One example would be Greeks during the NATO bombing of now Serbia. Definitely one of the worst times to visit the Acropolis for an American.
I think your error is that you are gauging "Anti-American sentiment" by measuring how much you witness them bitching about Americans or Israelis. Whereas you should measure it by their actions. Tesla sales dropped signifcantly in Spain as it did in the rest of Europe. BYD sales are up 644%. See what they think about taking family vacations to the US.
Spanish people often end up buying local alternatives when available anyway but don't mind buying whatever when there are no alternatives (iphones, sneakers etc)
You ask the Spaniards if you want to send ammunitions to a country convicted of war crimes, the majority will most likely say no. And if your government is actually acting in accordance with that position and pushing the rest of Europe on that front, there's even less reason to bitch about Israelis to random foreigners.
> Most Spaniards I know tend to roll their eyes at their own government more than anything happening in the U.S.
This we can agree on. As it should be. Why bother with things out of your control?
I live in Spain and there is no rising anti-American anything. The average person doesn't care beyond the Trump hate that is spewed by the mass media, but the mass media spews hate about many things, so much that the average person can't really invest much energy into hating every little thing.
I know that people here would love to live in an alternate reality where everybody in the EU is fuming at the US having a right-wing government but that's not here at least yet. The US has done so many terrible things throughout history; they will survive this too.
> The US has done so many terrible things throughout history; they will survive this too.
They may never recover from decades of top secret intelligence being compromised.
> The US has done so many terrible things throughout history; they will survive this too.
Right, because extrapolation is famously applicable to human history.