France has always been kind of contrarian. For example, they are NATO members but unbelievably they were also selling Russia a couple of Mistral landing platform docks.
Tons of high profile people have been talking about how it is not tolerable that the US is unilaterally forcing embargoes using the $US and tech as a weapon. Development of alternatives take time, but this has already started.
The goal is not to replace the US with China. Not only things are not reducible to a single dimension, but even if they were, it does not make the need to enforce our own sovereignty disappear.
France left once, and came back. They used to pander to communist regime during the Cold War. During the NATO bombing during the Yugoslavian dissolution, a French General was caught giving out the bombing plans to the enemy.
No wonder nobody likes their foreign policy, and Macron is puzzled why the other EU countries don’t follow France in creating a Common EU military force.
The other countries know when push comes to shove, the US is a reliable partner, while France is not.
Plus it might be insanely profitable to stand with China when it comes to chip and gadget production.
So a decision to deny US interests would both have a huge upside and be popular with the majority of voters.
There are a lot of decision-making processes in governance that involves a lot more than 'we don't like the current president'.
What the US seems to expect is other countries to side with the US over their own interests.
Given how the EU allowed Russia to steamroll the Ukraine, why would the Chinese regime's attacks on Hong Kong would deserve more attention.
China is systemically stealing IP from European companies, research from European universities, and forcing labor into a race to the bottom. Europeans would be wise to stand with Trump on this.
There is nothing wise about "standing with Trump" on any issue. His impact on allies is a kin of a moped doing figure 8s on a pigsty.
And no country stands with Trump on anything. At most they stand with the current US administration, which happens to be presided by Trump. Trump the citizen is repellent and has no redeeming qualities.
And by the way, Europe has its best interests in mind, and the current US administration already made it quite clear that the US under the Trump administration is a highly unreliable ally, and even a potential liability that's compromised by Europe's current biggest threat.
Why is it dumb? Could you expand?
Because the person you've replied to has given a good argument and explained their way of thinking? What have you done?
What?! His comment is 100% opinion, with no supporting evidence. I guess that’s all hackernews needs, so long as it fits the Orange Man Bad narrative.
Then you certainly didn't headed Trump's threats to pull the US out of NATO.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/02/nato-donald-tr...
That's your high bar on Trump's reliability with regard to EU's vital interests.
I don't need to explain the sheer idiocy of complaining about the EU's... skeptical attitude towards the Trump administration in general, and Trump specifically.
> complained about the defence spending of European allies who committed less than the agreed 2% to defence, particularly Germany
The US wants the alliance, it’s the Europeans who feel they don’t need it (since they aren’t fulfilling their obligations).
Certainly you don’t listen to Trumps speeches.
My point here is that most of these issues look easy from the outside, but it's still difficult to do the right thing once you are involved.
https://www.politico.eu/article/josep-borrell-chinas-move-in...
Netherlands is a founding NATO member. It boggles my mind how this is even a question to anyone.