Wait till you hear about Saudi Arabia.

I mean, this is just the inevitable outcome with autocracies/absolute monarchies. I think we should just assume that countries that are not liberal democracies are poor trading partners and not aligned with the interests of oter liberal democracies.

What about our relationship with the Saudis says "poor trading partner"?

> The United States was told last year that Saudi security forces were shooting, shelling and abusing groups of migrants, but it chose not to raise the issue publicly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/26/world/middleeast/saudi-ki...

So? I'm talking about unfriendly countries. The fact that the Saudis abuse and kill migrants doesn't make them unfriendly to the West.

Are you trying to make a point? Make a point.

The person I was talking to was moralizing. My point was that it's power politics, and the moralizing is for suckers.

The point is the U.S. never cared about Democratic countries, and often destroyed them(CIA backed coups and so on.

This isn’t true, they always preferred them. They did a number of misguided things in the name of containing communism but all of that was

1. over fifty years ago or more at this point

2. Unpopular with the public

so it doesn’t seem like a good faith stance to pretend that’s current Us doctrine. It’s an ignorant whataboutism used by defenders of brutal regimes.

As if 2. Changes anything.

Heck they even did a coup not too long ago because a country rich with lithium elected a socialist government.

Is it possible that the US continues to interfere in foreign elections but we don’t know about it because we are subject to propaganda? 50 years ago, do you think the US populace was aware of their governments complicity in overthrowing democratically elected governments? Or did they only come to light 20-30 years later?

They are still doing it. They are still overthrowing governments they don't like.

https://theintercept.com/2020/07/23/the-u-s-supported-coup-i...

What does Saudi Arabia have to do with the fact that the Russian and Chinese governments decided to become unfriendly by threatening their neighbors?

Because Saudi Arabia is actively commiting brutal genocide on Yemeni people and US governemnt is actually supporting and taking part in that due to SA being US ally.