The US wields all kinds of influence over a nation like Sweden. If the US raised a few barriers to trade with Sweden, it would have a drastic effect on Sweden's economy. Many Swedish industries depend on exporting to the US, and while US citizens could just import similar goods from elsewhere if Swedish goods became more expensive, Swedish businesses would lose a gigantic and wealthy market that they depend on selling to.
I'm sure that Sweden depends on the US as a military ally as well, it provides visas for many Swedish citizens regularly, and much more. At the end of the day, Sweden just needs the US more than the US needs Sweden, and that's why the US can argue from a position of power for its own industries.
I think Sweden might overestimate their dependence on the US. The military threat to Sweden is currently rather low, (and there's always the rest of NATO).
Countries just need to all agree to start ignoring the US. I bet doing so would be a positive gain for economies in the long run.
Ignoring the US effectively means shutting yourself off from the global culture, because like it or not, America's entertainment industries are the biggest in the world. American movies play everywhere. American music is heard everywhere. Last I heard, America is about half of the video and computer games industry. And even the Internet is dominated by America unless you're Chinese or somewhere similarly insular (this site you're on right now? American).
Some examples of things you'll have to boycott to truly ignore America:
You don't need to ignore products of American companies to ignore the American government. I'm sure Google or facebook won't stop refusing service to Sweden, no matter what happens in politics. Physical products will still be available through other countries, if you really need them. Of course other products will be probably easier to acquire, hence the boon to friendlier economies.
Furthermore, if countries start doing this en mass, like I'm suggesting they should, one of two things would happen:
1) Companies would move their Corporate HQs outside of the US. Most already have significant resource outside the US (like for instance, their factories..).
2) or, Enough lobbying pressure would be put on the government that the bully-tactic legislation would stop. If other nations stop responding the way that American corporate lobby groups want them to, they will have to change their tactics or suffocate.
"America's entertainment industries are the biggest in the world."
Well that's kind of the point of this discussion isn't it? Just let your people download what they want, and give the US the finger.
Don't forget, there are many reasons why American businesses are so successful. Most of those reasons have nothing to do with government intervention or bully politics. You may disagree, but there's a very strong argument that movies and music of the quality that comes out of America would be impossible without such strong global copyright enforcement. Every time you consume a movie, you're the direct benefactor of a massive global economy and copyright system that can fund content costing tens of millions of dollars to produce and give it to you for $10. If getting everything for free is more important to you, then only consume open source content.
America doesn't want to force Sweden to obey copyrights just because Microsoft needs Swedish business, it does so because Sweden backing pirates sets a standard for the rest of the world that could very easily lead to a global breakdown of copyright law and less high quality content for everybody, whether they can afford it or not.
"here's a very strong argument that movies and music of the quality that comes out of America would be impossible without such strong global copyright enforcement"
>Most of those reasons have nothing to do with government intervention or bully politics. //
In the UK I expect a lot of it is to do with mobilisation of GIs in WWII.
>Every time you consume a movie, you're the direct benefactor of a massive global economy and copyright system that can fund content costing tens of millions of dollars to produce and give it to you for $10. //
Well actually it's more like £15 GBP which is >$20 ($25-23 this year, I think being out by a factor of 2 is notable) for some of us.
That aside it's not exactly an efficient process and the capitalist system appears to have no interest in making it more affordable. Why do actors get paid multi-million dollar sums for doing a movie, why do we support this sort of thing through copyright. Yes I know that's not the limit of it, there's much much more to copyright but you picked on big-budget movies.
If the copyright term on a blockbuster movie was 10 years do you think that movies wouldn't be made any more? Absolutely not. There would be more of them IMO with more drive to creativity. Why on Earth do we protect movies to such an extent when inventions are limited to c. 20-25 years.
I think you have it backwards. To not comply with US diplomatic interests doesn't mean the US stops exporting into the country but means that US will make it harder for the country to export to them. The US is a huge factor for every country whose economy is based on export, like Sweden. The reverse is not true: Sweden (or every other small country) is not a crucial market for the US economy, which makes it possible to ignore them as long as they act on their own.
In recent years the US Congress has had a lot of success bullying other countries through the use of the banking system. By putting restrictions on the ability of US banks to do business with the target country's banks they can put a lot of stress on financial interests in that country.
