Wanna bet?
6/1/25 21:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mahnmut posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticsQuestion. How many countries will Trump alienate in the next 4 years? He's not even taken office and he has already alienated his Canadian neighbors, and now he's messing with a vital shipping partner in Panama. Add Denmark to the list, he's sounding off about buying Greenland again. Old men and their idées fixes. Where does he stop?
Of course it stands to reason that Russia and DPRK will escape his wrath.
But seriously. I think all that Trump will do is hasten the rest of the world devolving their economic connection to the US and the US$*.
Countries aren't going to leave themselves exposed to an unreliable and bullying 'partner' any further than they have to. The economic rise of China, and now India, are providing significant new markets that other countries can divert their current US trade towards.
As for NATO, if the other NATO nations spend more on defence they won't need US support enough to make working with an unreliable and irresponsible partner worth the effort. They won't want to see the US leave, but there is a point when it is better just to spend more on defence than stay reliant on an unreliable 'partner'.
* That could pose a huge security threat to the US.
Of course it stands to reason that Russia and DPRK will escape his wrath.
But seriously. I think all that Trump will do is hasten the rest of the world devolving their economic connection to the US and the US$*.
Countries aren't going to leave themselves exposed to an unreliable and bullying 'partner' any further than they have to. The economic rise of China, and now India, are providing significant new markets that other countries can divert their current US trade towards.
As for NATO, if the other NATO nations spend more on defence they won't need US support enough to make working with an unreliable and irresponsible partner worth the effort. They won't want to see the US leave, but there is a point when it is better just to spend more on defence than stay reliant on an unreliable 'partner'.
* That could pose a huge security threat to the US.
(no subject)
Date: 6/1/25 23:28 (UTC)I still obviously loathe Trump as a rabble-rousing lunatic, but it’s long overdue that the rest of NATO catch up to their charter. Is it instability to demand that?
(no subject)
Date: 7/1/25 01:24 (UTC)As for my own country, I'm thinking that we ought to have coughed up to support a rebuild of the Canadian Forces thirty years ago...but that was Reagan-Thatcher-Mulroney time, wasn't it. None of those three could have foreseen the nightmare of Canada being geopolitically sandwiched between the likes of Putin and the Vulgarian.
(no subject)
Date: 7/1/25 20:04 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/1/25 19:18 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/1/25 19:19 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/1/25 05:34 (UTC)He's The Great Gasbag (apologies to Fitzgerald) and if the next four years are anything like the last four, the shit he says will serve only one real purpose: Distract people while rich assholes plunder the federal government through unrelated means. Keep a weather eye out.
(no subject)
Date: 9/1/25 19:15 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/1/25 02:49 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/1/25 05:22 (UTC)Have you asked yourself why that is?
(no subject)
Date: 7/1/25 09:54 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/1/25 18:23 (UTC)I mean, if Trump were president in 1945 he would've said, fuck Europe, let them deal with it on their own. What was America's interest in doing this differently?
(no subject)
Date: 7/1/25 20:00 (UTC)Seems to me that, lamenting that the US has been, or is becoming, a “bad partner” is a lot like a 30-year-old man calling his mother a “bad parent” for ordering him out of her basement.
(no subject)
Date: 8/1/25 19:24 (UTC)I mean, if Europe becomes emancipated from the US and at some point it decides to side with Russia or China, the US will have no tools left to prevent that. And then America's geopolitical standing is toast. So again, what *IS* America's interest here? Truly.
(no subject)
Date: 9/1/25 05:26 (UTC)The US puts something on the order of 500x more investment money into the EU than China (trillions versus billions), and the region is their largest overseas trading partner (even above China) if you factor that in. Most people would probably be surprised to hear this, given the recent focus on trade between China and the US, but the two regions are tied together with many, many threads of trade. Same with between China and the EU - they're each the other's largest trading partner in terms of goods. So what are you proposing? That the EU would let trade stagnate with the US, at China's request or threat?
So, "side with" is gonna need some detail here. The EU has collectively been doing business with all comers. That approach has only been derailed recently by their gas board deciding to annex a few neighbors and do something genocidey, making them nervous. It would not be in the economic interest of China to subvert or invade such a massive trading partner, and the country clearly doesn't give a shit what sort of government another country runs with. So there isn't really much the EU has to fear there. It's Uncle Vlad and his reverse-glasnost crusade back into the days of empire building that could ruin things for the EU / NATO, because Moscow doesn't give a shit what happens economically to any neighbor: It wants the land, and will send as many outlander peasants (including North Korean ones) to hell as it takes to claim it, even if the land is reduced to charred bones and poisoned soil in the process, because ... DESTINY! On that basis at least, China and Russia are at odds.
I don't want to see the world go to hell any more than you do. The spread of a one-party total surveillance state whose charter is to protect and serve itself is not my cup of tea. But if that's what Europe chooses to promote, what do you expect the US to do? Cut diplomatic ties? Choke off their own trade? Send in troops? As I see it, Europe needs to arm itself specifically to keep Russia from winding back the clock. It's very charitable - and sentimental - to think of it as a suburb of the US that needs defending as such, but in the end, it ain't. It's far too economically powerful to fit in that costume any more. Hell, having the EU / NATO arm itself so that the US can back off may be exactly what stops Russia from broadening the scope of its war: It will less easily wield the excuse that the US is pulling the strings, when the troops on the border are Finnish, Polish, Romanian, Turkish, German, French, Swedish, etc...
(no subject)
Date: 7/1/25 18:24 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/1/25 05:22 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/1/25 19:16 (UTC)If you want to rule the world, you're going to do most of the work. The rest will just obey and provide you with bases and cannon-fodder whenever necessary.
(no subject)
Date: 9/1/25 04:46 (UTC)If Europe is displeased with the results of taking money from a democracy, well, they're democracies as well... They are collectively free to refuse it, and take money from, for example, an autorcratic kleptocracy or a communist oligarchy. Or refuse all assistance. Either way, they'll need to gird for battle.
Because hey, China, Russia, Japan, Spain, England, France, Germany, and the US, all want to (or tried to) rule the world. So what's the difference, right?
(no subject)
Date: 9/1/25 19:18 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/1/25 02:47 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/1/25 19:34 (UTC);-D
(no subject)
Date: 9/1/25 19:38 (UTC)