r/neoliberal • u/ldn6 Gay Pride • 2d ago
Why it's hard to be a friend of America Opinion article (US)
https://www.ft.com/content/ddd79f43-b56d-45e0-8282-38b8f0f9feb933
u/Augustus-- 2d ago
Friendshoring and nat sec industry concerns have always been nothing more than protectionism in a dress.
You're making America weaker and less friendly when you push away investment.
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u/FederalAgentGlowie Harriet Tubman 2d ago
I mean, yeah, I want to protect Mexico, Europe, and Japan.Â
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u/Ilsanjo 2d ago
I honestly know very little about the possible sale of US Steel to the Japanese company.  If you know anything about it, do you think in this specific case the US would be better off allowing the deal to go through?  My sense is that it’s mainly politics that is preventing it. Â
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u/StimulusChecksNow Daron Acemoglu 2d ago
Biden just tweeted out that he doesnt want foreigners owning a Steel company in America. Japan has been a USA ally for decades and is called “foreigner”. Is it any wonder why China is winning?
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u/ldn6 Gay Pride 2d ago
Brain rot, brat, bro-caster. All told, 2024 delivered a good crop of word-of-the-year fodder: the annual digest of what newborn vocabulary tells us about the year we are leaving behind and what we became in its clutches. Just as revealing are the funerals: for words that either quietly perished or are entering 2025 at death’s door, seeping relevance from some fatal wound. “Friendshoring”, after a bruising 12 months and the ugly, eviscerating saga around Nippon Steel’s takeover bid for US Steel, cannot be much longer for this world.
Some will contend that friendshoring — the concept of rerouting supply chains through countries perceived as long-term reliable allies — was too buzzy for longevity. Others will argue that the word was so cynically crafted to disguise a with-us-or-against-us bloc formation, that it would always have been replaced with something grittier. Still, for a few years, the phrase thrived as the rhetorical comeback to deglobalisation — exuding warmth in the early phase of cold war 2.0. It was a term born of crisis and disruption: first from the pandemic, then from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, above all, from the deepening consensus that US-China antagonism was permanent.
It was also a distinctive thing of the Biden administration. In 2022, US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen prominently used the word when setting out America’s new approach to trade. The US, she said, should favour reliance on countries that provoked no geopolitical worries for Washington, or which strongly adhered to a shared set of norms and values. Countries, she did not even need to say, like Japan. The vulnerability of friendshoring, as a word, lies in America’s historic relationship with the word “friend”. In both diplomatic and business circles, many are fond of a quote attributed to Henry Kissinger. The cold war 1.0 secretary of state may not have used the exact line “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”, but he came very close and it rings true. Its persistence as a way of interpreting US policy says much about how the country is often perceived.
In many respects, the Biden administration attempted to redress that perception, actively fortifying alliances and pushing the idea that, however consistently the “no permanent friends” line may have proven true in the past, you, country x, are the exception. No country was better placed — or had greater incentive — to buy into that campaign than Japan. Tokyo knows its own vulnerabilities and American friendship is a necessary thing for an ageing, shrinking nation in an ever more risk-riddled part of the world. It also knows it is able to be a very good friend to the US. Where the US has allowed its prowess in advanced manufacturing to be eroded in recent decades, Japan has largely maintained its edge. Its companies are very much the partners that American industry now needs. As Andrew McDermott, a Japan-focused investor, puts it: Sony remains the sole supplier of camera sensors to Apple; Tesla builds nothing without Japanese robots; Japanese suppliers provide nearly 40 per cent of Boeing’s most advanced parts.
And yet Japan’s pre-eminent steelmaker, Nippon Steel, has spent months struggling (apparently in vain) to convince both the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius) and Biden himself that it is a fit buyer for US Steel. The outgoing president has been clear that he is against the deal; the nine agencies that feed into Cfius were divided on the matter, and warned that the Japanese company could, through hypothetical cuts in domestic US steel production, pose a security threat. Nippon has been accused, by some, of naivety, for fighting for its $15bn bid in an election year, in an industry with wildly disproportionate political heft. That misdirects blame and underplays the concession that Japan probably feels it has earned.
Biden’s administration had spent the better part of three years not just accentuating the criticality of strategic, industrial and ideological alliances, but doing so in the explicit language of friendship. At the first thorny test of that, the US has again allowed the huge caveats that come with its friendship to overwhelm the situation — even where its interests almost certainly lie in allowing Nippon to invest in US manufacturing. And all this before Donald Trump recasts American friendship in his own mould. The Nippon deal may, somehow, muddle through; but the damage to America’s friendship rhetoric will remain severe. Friendshoring as a concept may persist; friendshoring as a word is too cosy to survive the reality that Japan has uncovered.
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u/_patterns Hannah Arendt 2d ago
fair point but I assume it's harder not being a friend of the US
The average US citizens pays 3000$ a year for a military with unrivalled power that's deployed across the globe to keep the current order mostly in place, propping up global trade. If allegiance to this system is bought by occasionally dropping some protectionist policies it's not a big price to pay.
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u/ldn6 Gay Pride 2d ago
I think it’s more that the cost-benefit analysis is shifting. The US had already destroyed a lot of its credibility with the developing world (as evidenced by China swooping in and dealing FTAs and investments left and right), but now even traditional allies are rethinking things. It’s one thing to put up with the US being annoying on trade when there’s at least stability and guarantees about NATO and a general semblance of predictable foreign policy, even if it’s not great, but it’s another thing when the US could at any time just pull out. On top of that, you have stunts like forcing allies to drop trade with certain countries and then rewarding them for losing business by being loyal through slapping insane unilateral tariffs on them anyway.
This is a gradual thing. I don’t expect that people will drop the US overnight, but I do expect that there just won’t be as much emphasis on economic partnership or integration in the future. If a Democrat wins in 2028, another round of resets will be viewed with eye rolls because it’s quite likely that voters will just swing wildly back to isolationism in 2032 and even Democrats won’t be viewed as nicely given how they treated Japan. That’s quite serious long-term damage.
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u/Sine_Fine_Belli NATO 2d ago edited 2d ago
This unfortunately, well said. You hit the nail on the head.
The USA is becoming unreliable unfortunately
It’s because of these reasons why the us is viewed by many countries as unreliable
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u/Objective-Muffin6842 2d ago
The problem is that the US is still by far the largest economy and until that changes, economically it doesn't make much sense to completely move on from it either.
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u/SufficientlyRabid 1d ago
Sure, but as the US is starting to take an increasingly belligirent stance towards China, settling in to something akin to a cold war it also makes less and less sense for its allies to follow along.Â
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u/Objective-Muffin6842 1d ago
What would you say is the alternative? Closer relationship to China?
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u/SufficientlyRabid 1d ago edited 1d ago
Sorta? Being dependent on China is hardly any better. But engaging in free trade and economic cooperation wherever possible. Just because the US wants to tarrif the ever living shit out of something doesn't mean doing the same will be rewarded.
For the EU, as the worlds third largest economy I really do think there is an opportunity to gain from taking a balanced approach to a conflict between the largest and second largest economy.
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u/Sine_Fine_Belli NATO 2d ago
Yeah, well
I just wish that the USA is more reliable and less unpredictable
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u/Objective-Muffin6842 2d ago
That will only happen with serious political change. And I don't just mean dems winning in 2028, but actually moving to something like a proportional voting system and eliminating the electoral college. The current system just does not work.
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u/Objective-Muffin6842 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is a gradual thing. I don’t expect that people will drop the US overnight, but I do expect that there just won’t be as much emphasis on economic partnership or integration in the future.
The biggest reason why this hasn't happened (and keyword is "hasn't") is that the US is still the largest economy thus difficult to ignore. There might be less effort toward economic partnerships in the sense of free-trade, but the reality is that European companies simply don't want to give up the US market.
It would take something incredibly drastic for countries to completely cut ties with the US economically. Sure, free-trade agreements and what not are probably dead for a long time, but that doesn't mean business itself is dead.
If a Democrat wins in 2028, another round of resets will be viewed with eye rolls because it’s quite likely that voters will just swing wildly back to isolationism in 2032 and even Democrats won’t be viewed as nicely given how they treated Japan. That’s quite serious long-term damage.
Problem is you're talking about hypothetical things that haven't happened yet. We have no idea what America will look like four years from now, let alone what the rest of the world will look like. I'm not implying the next four years will be good, but to imply anything is difficult.
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u/ldn6 Gay Pride 2d ago
That’s…literally what I said. The US has made it less attractive beyond core stuff to partner or interact with. It’s not like the rest of the G7 are going to sever their ties with America, but the increasingly ridiculous actions and decisions made in the White House and Congress will reshape their interactions.
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u/College_Prestige r/place '22: Neoliberal Battalion 2d ago
The US already spends more per capita than almost every other country. Throwing more money doesn't fix the problem if the policies are bad. See: the way Bidens money hose immediately ran into problems with permitting and slow dispersement
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 2d ago
We are that guy who tells you he has a really good stock tip. So you invest in it. Just to find out he sold his shares after you invested.
We also don't practice what we preach. Not anymore. We tell everyone else that they need to work on things like child hunger, homelessness, race equality, education and other issues with society. Yet we just let that stuff decay here at home.
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u/OrganicKeynesianBean IMF 2d ago
We also don’t practice what we preach. Not anymore. We tell everyone else that they need to work on things like child hunger, homelessness, race equality, education and other issues with society. Yet we just let that stuff decay here at home.
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u/chugtron Eugene Fama 2d ago
If only we had the luxury of living in Sorkin-world.
But, good lord, if this isn’t the truth, I don’t know what is. We half-assedly say “do the good things (see above) and stop doing the bad things,” while at least a quarter of the population actively wants the inverse because they hate non-white people. It’s hard to debate ideas when you’re having to beat back radicalized brain rot first.
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u/anangrytree AndĂşril 2d ago
Yet we just let that stuff decay here at home.
Rule 1 me idgaf. The GOP has, since the Nixon years, almost single-handedly held this great country back on so, so many fronts.
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 2d ago edited 2d ago
And at the same time on the other side of the aisle you see half cook measures in policies with no substance that are quickly overturned with the stroke of a pen.
Hey isn't it great that our current president managed to cap drug prices for prescriptions? That's awesome right? It's going to save people a ton of money.
Wrong.
If you talk to any insurance broker they will tell you that most dental plans have been reduced in coverage. Dentures have been stripped from coverage as well. So even though all these elderly people are saving money on prescriptions they're now going to have to pay out of pocket for dentures.
Here in a couple years you're going to see a lot of elderly people walking around toothless. Because they just can't afford dentures and just deal with it
Basically the insurance companies were not going to take that prescription drug loss lying down. So past few months they changed what they payout in other parts of plans to compensate their loss.
That's not helping. That's just helping some while screwing over the rest. And they passed that policy with no protections to prevent that
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u/Healingjoe It's Klobberin' Time 2d ago
Dental insurers are rarely pharmaceutical insurers, in my experience.
I don't see how these are related. Seems like dental insurers opened up some cheaper plan options in your area that remove denture coverage. Pretty normal.
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 2d ago
No these are directly related to the optional add-ons that people will get through their employment insurance. When you sign up for insurance you are signing up for a basic package. Then you choose options to add into that such as greater dental, vision or prescription coverage
That additional coverage for dental is now covering less than it used to. At the same cost to the policy holder that it used to.
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u/Healingjoe It's Klobberin' Time 2d ago
Again, dental and health insurance are more often than not different insurers. "Basic package" refers to the health coverage, which includes pharmaceuticals. Vision coverage is usually covered by the healthcare plan, if opted in, while dental is not.
I see no evidence that dental coverage is any different today than what it was a year ago, besides the usual price increases. Do you have any linkable source for this info?
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u/anangrytree AndĂşril 2d ago
Oh I totally get all that, but imperfect, incremental progress (as represented by the Democrats) is infinitely superior to stagnation. And the GOP represents stagnation, and in many cases regression.
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u/ArcaneAccounting United Nations 2d ago
But it is NOT progress. Every flagship policy from the Democrats during Biden's presidency has been moronic industrial policy, demand subsidies, and protectionism. They are not liberals, and they are not making this country better. They're actively making it worse. The bitter truth is that there are no liberal parties in America. The only thing Dems are better on are social issues.
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u/jtalin NATO 2d ago edited 1d ago
I could understand and mostly shared this sentiment ten years ago, but to continue believing it in 2025 is to overlook some very dramatic failings of the Democratic party - and I don't mean the tactical or political failings, I mean the fundamentally misguided policy positions.
The focus on multilateralism and diplomacy over collective security of US allies and partners was an abject failure with dramatic consequences that make the Bush era foreign policy look only mildly disruptive in comparison.
Once the argument on climate change was won, the actual climate policy has been strategically nonsensical and can best be described as doing something for the sake of doing something while the allowing the developing world to pretend the issue doesn't exist.
Withdrawal from America's position as the preeminent facilitator of free trade was more on Democrats than it was on Republicans. Trump is the first Republican President to dissent on trade, but Democrats actively obstructed TTIP and the two Democratic primary forerunners denounced TPP before Trump got elected.
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u/spyguy318 2d ago
Literally this is all because of Trump. Prior to Trump, republicans at least had the veneer of respectability and understood basic foreign policy conclusions that led to a certain kind of stability. Stuff like pulling out of NATO and reneging on key trade deals was unthinkable even to the most hardline GOP because even for those ghouls it’s basic fucking common sense. All that people who were actually like that were just fringe lunatics and conspiracy theorists about globalists or whatever.
Trump took a sledgehammer to all of this by being so virulently stupid, antisocial, and anti-democrat that sometimes it felt like he insulted and spited our allies just because Obama or Biden was friendly with them at some point. He went back on trade deals on a whim, if he ever thought a trade deal is anything less than stacked in America’s favor. The lunatics are running the asylum now, isolation and protectionism is mainstream, and conspiracy theories are running wild.
Biden tried to renormalize things but trump’s re-election means we’re all gearing up for another round of nonsense and stupidity.
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u/Cleomenes_of_Sparta 2d ago
Prior to Trump, republicans at least had the veneer of respectability and understood basic foreign policy conclusions that led to a certain kind of stability.
Untrue. The W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq on false pretenses provoked some of the largest protests in world history, and the way they attempted to twist allied members of the Security Council to accept evidence they knew was false outraged America's friends. The H.W. Bush invasion of Panama was similarly loudly condemned by the EU and OAS, and the Reagan administration's invasion of Grenada was universally condemned in the General Assembly (and criticised by ideological allies like Thatcher in private).
If you want to move beyond security, the W. Bush administration ripped up their country's commitment to Kyoto, 'unsigned' his country's commitment to the ICC and pledged to invade the Hague if any US nationals were held there. And then we have the various layers of crimes committed by Republicans of this more distant past, such as Iran-Contra and Watergate.
Trump is certainly an escalation to another level of criminality and chaos, but his Republican predecessors were not exactly architects of stability and paragons of justice, and there could be no Donald Trump without two terms of George W. Bush.
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u/Creative_Hope_4690 1d ago
Yeah it’s trump fault but Biden has no problem sparing the death penalty to child rapist and murders. Sorry but maybe Biden believes in this crap.
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u/Ilsanjo 2d ago
There is a difference between saying we want to increase trade with other Democracies and saying we want investors from those countries to own US companies.  And whether or not it’s a good idea for Japan to be a US ally is another question entirely.
It seems pretty clear that the US has been a good ally to Japan.  I don’t see Japan deciding it wants to switch its strategic alliances towards China any time soon.  We buy Japanese products, have helped develop their industry, provide security against a potentially hostile China and Russia.  If you are Japan would you rather have a Russian, Chinese, or US base on your soil?  The answer is obvious.
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u/secondordercoffee 2d ago
You have explained why it has made sense and still makes sense for Japan to be our ally. Â The question is if it will keep making sense for them in the future. Â If we become openly ambivalent about defending our allies it does make less and less sense to remain out ally, hosting our troops, abstaining from aquiring nuclear weapons. Â If we become more and more protectionist it makes less and less sense to pursue policies of economic intergration and interdependence with us.Â
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u/animealt46 NYT undecided voter 2d ago
The answer is obvious but not at all satisfying. What you describe is not a partnership it's a hostage situation. It's basically bullying Japan and telling them what other option do you have. The obvious answer to this is to build up stronger self sufficient defense and slowly decouple from such an abusive partner, a solution that nobody in the region wants.
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u/Ilsanjo 2d ago
The action the US took in the article is preventing a Japanese company from purchasing US Steel.  That’s hardly bullying.  Japan can and should respond by not allowing US companies to purchase similar Japanese companies.  Just as they should respond to any tariffs Trump imposes with tariffs of their own. Â
We have been good partners with Japan, even if the initial phase of that partnership was one where Japan had no choice in the situation after its defeat in WW2.  It’s important to point that out now that we are entering a phase with the Trump administration where the US could begin to act like a bully.
I do hope Japan does continue to build up its military more to the point where they are not dependent upon the US.  I’m sure that the alliance between Japan and the US will only strengthen if this is the case.
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u/Wow_Big_Numbers 2d ago
If you think it’s hard to be our friend, you should try being our enemy for a little bit……
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u/Daddy_Macron Emily Oster 2d ago
We're going back to if you're not with us, then you're against us foreign policy again? How did that one go for the George W Bush Administration?
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u/secondordercoffee 2d ago
There is quite a spectrum inbetween friend and enemy. Â India, for example, is neither our friend, really, (they have not joined in on the Russia sanctions) nor are they our enemy.Â
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u/imdx_14 Milton Friedman 2d ago
 spreading liberal ideals
If this is your pitch for why someone should be an ally of the US, you're in deep trouble.
You can't eat liberal ideals, nor can you defend yourself from an invasion using liberal ideals. They can implement liberal ideals at home if they want to, they don't need the US for it.
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u/imdx_14 Milton Friedman 2d ago
If liberal ideas aren’t something the US should have an active interest in spreading
I didn't claim this - of course, the US should be promoting liberal values, because it's the right thing to do.
However, for countries entering into partnerships with the US, that's near the bottom of the list. It's much more important whether they can count on you economically and, if necessary, militarily.
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u/GMFPs_sweat_towel 2d ago
The United States being the most powerful, and a country sorta halfway committed to spreading liberal ideals is a rarity in human history.
This is just the British Empire's justification for colonizing a quarter of the globe.
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u/like-humans-do European Union 2d ago
Your populace elected Trump who has damaged the current world order more than any other world leader besides Vladmir Putin. Please humble yourself.
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u/Objective-Muffin6842 2d ago
Your populace elected Trump who has damaged the current world order more than any other world leader besides Vladmir Putin
Boy I love how openly hyperbolic this sub is now. Feels like nature is healing.
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u/like-humans-do European Union 2d ago
Clowns, aka the guy who is currently threatening to annex Greenland and attack Canada. Lol.
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u/like-humans-do European Union 2d ago
This is the standard lmao, "yes we are joking about threatening war against your country and invasion".
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u/Objective-Muffin6842 2d ago
Yes, it's literally called the "firehose of falsehood" (Or "flood the zone with shit" as Steve Bannon called it). I wasn't making that up
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u/like-humans-do European Union 2d ago
I'm aware of the tactic, I'm also aware of Trump saying he'd oppose the results of the previous election and people dismissing it right up until he got his supporters to literally storm congress to prevent Joe Biden being elected by the EC. There's no reason to think his comments on Greenland aren't sincere.
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u/Objective-Muffin6842 2d ago
Let's be serious for a minute: Trump can't do an annexation without the support of the military, which he doesn't have. Not to mention a number of states neighboring Canada like New York, Washington, and Minnesota would completely oppose it as such and we'd sooner have a civil war here than annexation.
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u/TheKindestSoul Paul Krugman 2d ago
Those things are jokes. There’s a lot to hate about Trump but getting fired up about the Canada and Greenland stuff is pointless.Â
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u/Objective-Muffin6842 2d ago
It baffles me that so many people still don't understand the "flood the zone with shit" strategy that trump has been doing for years.
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u/TheKindestSoul Paul Krugman 2d ago
Apparently this sub really truly believes there is going to be american flags over Ottawa??? Or that we are going to mount an invasion of Greenland? Like be mad about what hes going to do to the intelligence community, or our Middle eastern foreign policy. Giving any oxygen to the Canadian invasion is stupid.
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u/Ramses_L_Smuckles NATO 2d ago
OK, but can we live with ourselves? Can we accept being a country that consistently over many, many decades abandons allies with changes in administration and undermines friends on a whim?
I can't. I hate it. I hate Hair Gel Jr.'s gloating about cutting funding to Ukraine as if he hasn't actually been a leech his whole life. I hate the last chopper out scenario. I hate the US folding to anti-democratic currents in Israel. I hate what we did to the Kurds. It makes me sick.
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u/TheKindestSoul Paul Krugman 2d ago
Long term planning in any democracy is hard. Couple that with an 8 year max of executive leadership and it makes it tough to execute democratic ideals over the decades.Â
I’m not saying America is awesome and the perfect ally. But this piece is missing the forest for the trees. America could be a lot less friendly to Europe. We could much shitter to the global order. In the end, having America be top superpower is a pretty good deal.Â
This article acting like it’s sooooo hard to deal with America is hilarious. Try dealing with Xi or Putin then.Â
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u/ldn6 Gay Pride 2d ago
You do understand that there are more options than you’re pointing out, right? A weaker relationship between the US and its traditional allies doesn’t mean that they’re friendly with China and Russia.
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u/Objective-Muffin6842 2d ago
Options with who exactly? Who else has the economic and military power of the US?
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u/m741863 John Keynes 2d ago
They hated him because he told them the truth
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u/m741863 John Keynes 2d ago
I’m just glad I’m seeing Europeans lecturing Americans about the US Military doing Europes dirty work again. The world is healing.
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u/SufficientlyRabid 2d ago
Because Europe is not a federal state? Some European countries absolutely could hold of a Russian invasion on their own, and collectively its not even a question.Â
The problem is with the will to do so, but thats like saying that the US can't hold back a Russian invasion because it hasn't done so in Ukraine. Its not a question of capability but of will.Â
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u/ldn6 Gay Pride 2d ago
Never ask an American which country was the only one to invoke Article 5 and what continent its NATO members who followed through with their commitment came from.
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u/Objective-Muffin6842 2d ago
Never ask u/ldn6 how many times he's threatened to leave the sub but is still here for some reason.
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u/petarpep 2d ago
There's a really odd advantage that nations like China actually have over American democracy and that somewhat ironically is their political stability. The US's views on various trade agreements/treaties/etc can flip radically every 2-4 years depending on Congress and the presidency and it can make us unpredictable.
The US can sign a deal with another nation, only to want to cut it in two years later because politicians changed and now the anti-deal party leads Congress.
At least with Xi you relatively know what you're getting for the next decade or so (although as he grows older this stability is being threatened more by possible death). If Xi were a more formidable threat he could easily grasp onto this.