I wish them luck chasing after their citizens connecting to local websites from Kazakhstan or Chile etc., heh.
This is well documented, see for example the first result I found: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/19/...
Ditto for Europeans.
For criminal matters, possibly yes, depending on the circumstances.
For civil matters, arguably not. The US government can ask a foreign government to spy on you, but the results of the spying can't be admitted in a civil lawsuit. Whereas, an American ISP, the plaintiff can get a subpoena, the ISP has to comply, and the evidence is admissible in court. Also, with a civil lawsuit, even if it is possible for the plaintiff to get an order from a foreign court, the added difficulty and expense may make them decide to abandon the suit altogether.
> They can legally spy on their own people via foreign governments.
What if you used a Russian VPN company with a server in Russia? Of course, merely signing up for such a thing is likely to attract the attention of intelligence agencies. But, if the US government asks the Russian government to spy on you, I doubt the Russian government is going to say "yes", unless you are something like a terrorist.
Your own government can very easily do things to harm you, like throw you in prison or allow private actors to use tort/defamation/etc law to destroy you financially. A government on the other side of the planet - especially a country which doesn’t get along with your own - has far less motivation to do so. Your local ISP has to comply with local government and court orders - a VPN provider on the other side of the planet may have zero motivation for doing so. They’d have to comply with their own country’s orders, but their government/courts may lack the motivation to do that for your country’s government/courts