It might be, but it's also pretty stupid to use that as a selling point to convince the west to welcome that play as something remotely in their best interests. It isn't.
The current US administration has been threatening two separate NATO allies with invasion and annexation.
Not even Russia, with their daily Russian last warnings of nuclear Armageddon, dare being that hostile.
Averaging over a large window while ignoring the trend is not reasonable.
Trust is a funny thing like that. You do have to do it all the time, but if you fail even once without extremely good reason you lose it all.
There is a quite long history of USA doing coups, sabotage, and so on, against its own "friends".
If we look at the military investments US did since Clinton(so, last 30 years), you'll notice a trend of looking after it's own interests before the ones of the world. An example is the lack of investment in destroyers to patrol the seas, while at the same time the focus shifted to super-carriers which are good for one thing: obliterate a single, powerful country.
This is not just Trump, but everyone after Bush Sr.
There were only 31 Spruances and 4 Kidds.
That seems like an investment in destroyers, and much more capable ones than it's predecessors at that. Argubly more capable than even the Ticonderoga.
But maybe you mean something else I'm not groking.
A country willing to cut mineral supply anytime they don’t like anything is good partner and friend of EU , lol, how delusional someone can be ?
Even current US Administration sends Patriots and military support to Ukraine, while China is sponsoring WAR, help Russia to keep up with war killing people around the world.
China can end that war in 1 week if they really want.
US spent fortune to protect collective west while countries like Germany almost dismantled their army in the past.
Very rational thinking , sure. China will wipe out entire west with technological superiority in the next decade or two without west being united.
China may potentially be able to stop the war, but at what cost? They've been licking their wounds and rebuilding their nation at breakneck speed for the past century, and it's only recently that they've finally reached a critical stage with innovations on all fronts. Going against one of their two allies now would be pretty ill-advised.
The US has also been very erratic, while China's current goals seem to be fairly consistent: reclaim everything they lost during the century of humiliation.
If that is true, perhaps the US should stop destroying the western alliance.
Other proxies are Iran with their satelites, without china neither Iran or Russia would not survive current wars they sponsor agaist west.
as much as I hate current US admin, they push to increase NATO spending etc.
how is that not "uniting" ?
You haven't been paying attention. Even to this thread.
Let me be very clear: The US proved to be a very unreliable and outright hostile partner. At this point, it is not clear whether the US is more hostile to the collective west than the likes of China.
Therefore, let the US keep their backyard TSMC. It changes nothing. It helps nothing. It is not to be trusted.
That is the wake-up call.
The EU represents 27 sovereign states. NATO has 32 members. The US population is around 75% of the population of the EU.
And now decided to break off political, diplomatic, economic and defense ties.
I don't think this fact dawned upon you people. I mean, recently the EU basically banned the US defense industry from supplying EU's armed forces, which was unthinkable only a few years ago and it takes place during a rearmament push to prevent Russia's imperialist agenda. You can't whine about isolationism and still expect partners to still consider you relevant.
Not when people are being absolutist rather than taking the situation for what it is and doing the best they can with it.
Tariffs or no the US wants back in on the construction/manufacturing industry. This is something that should be seen as a good thing. I just wish the EU was so visionary but we're worried about recycling plastics (when we don't use the plastic) or curtailing bad think (rather than open dialogue)...
The US is threatening NATO partners with invasion and annexation, not to mention the moronic tariff war, and you come here talk about "absolutist"? Pathetic.
There's plenty of opportunity that doesn't involve bowing to the petrol dollar and becoming subservient and maybe that can even be done without importing half of the developing world.
Don't call people pathetic unless you're actually equipped to engage in conversation. It's demeaning to yourself and is no better than demanding things change for your feelings.
Being absolutist is just giving up your ability to take action and control your own life. The biggest victim is yourself and it only hurts others. Take action. Do something and move on with life. Stop being paralyzed by the media left/right/alt/mainstream/pink-lizard-bunny. Go touch grass and be happy.
Tariffs can be a reasonable policy (although not when implemented like this... rejuvenating manufacturing by imposing huge tariffs on raw materials? Really?) but when people talk about the US abandoning the western democracies they're not talking exclusively or even primarily about tariffs.
Saying the equivalent of "Oh, that's just Trump talk" is nonsense. Everybody thought Trump's support for Russia was just talk. He's deployed active military on US soil. He's ignored the judiciary and is progressively neutering them. All that was "just Trump being Trump" before he did it. The man is a mad king and half of America is happy to follow him for the lolz.
Russia violates the waters and airspace of its neighbours regularly. It's almost expected. Nobody goes into the south China sea without expecting warning shots. When was the last time the US was shooting at Canada and Mexico? People scream death to America on the borders and inside the country and nobody gets rounded up and disappeared like a Hong Kong freedom fighter for that action alone.
The US isn't abandoning anyone. It's a change in position that America isn't going to pay to keep "global" peace. Which is basically as global as creating a 2+1 tier state system. Inline with US policy or a terrorist nation state + CHina.
Yes America is looking to reduce its military cost and armed persons abroad, but that's just means America is saving money and reducing it cultural influence from places where (as a non American I can STRONGLY say) we'd be better off without it (!).
Having boots on the ground to stop an invasion probably make sense in the 1950s/1960s but we've been in a world where anyone could deploy thousands of boots on the ground in just hours for over 30yr+ now and the internet means you're not going to sneak 50 tanks into the centre of Berlin unnoticed. The old cold war military stance is wasteful and can be optimized whilst still providing adequate deterrent. Unless you think the US is incapable of such deployments? (Not winning, deploying and keeping an invader bogged down)
America has not supported Russia. If that's your position I will just sit and judge because now we're either quoting bitchute or into imaginary territory. Trump has better relations than Putin and Putin still has the ability to turn Kiev into a parking lot. Clearly neither are actually happening but that's the Ukraine conflict it's more ideology and situational (corrupt) than a 30s soundbite can deliver. Yes Russia is the aggressor. Yes Russia should pay for rebuilding. Yes Russia started the current round of shooting. But. Yes the west supported a corrupt regime. Yes the west armed a corrupt regime on Russia's border. Yes America had connections between a fanatical right wing party in said nation and US high ranking members of congress and the whitehouse. Yes certain groups within Western nations wanted Ukraine to become a defacto NATO state. Yes none of that means Russia should have shot first or invaded, but it's all true and all on record. And that's before we start asking questions about the previous administration which are a little over hyped.
Er mah ger orange man drumpf deployed us thing in us space to do a thing in the US.
I thought this was a discussion about us foreign policy. I'm not going to get dragged into how the US conducts itself inside kids borders. If we're going this direction let's look at the Iranian, Israeli and Saudi regimes and then report back. (And no the be explicit that is NOT an invitation to take the conversation into irrelevant waters)
This is like moaning if Moscow nukes itself. You can claim it's dum but they almost have a right to do it (outside of that act being closer to an act of genocide than peace keeping).
If you're so caught up about what he says how about the numerous Biden quotes, on record mind, about him being happy to receive "the negro vote"? Obviously words matter but frankly can we get past _false_ outrage and get back to doing stuff. Being called names in the school ground is different than getting your teeth knocked out. And the fact I'm using schoolyard analogies shows how adolescent the level of discourse is when we resort to false outrage.
You don't threaten to invade sovereign nations and then brush it off with "oh, ya know, Trump being Trump", especially when Trump being Trump already includes crossing all sorts of lines nobody thought he would cross.
It's clear you would happily murder any Canadian or Dane you were ordered to, as long as you were given the order by Trump. I'm done responding, you're the enemy of my country and my family.
It's clear here would enforce tariffs he made it clear he would and did it to China and certain countries that decided to not engage.
Let me guess the EU is now evil because they engaged? This is as much Canada's fault as trump is (mis-)using American influence.
If you decide to double down and pretend he won't do it off course he's going to do it. If Canada had engaged rather than pretending he's all bluff they'd be in the same situation as Mexico. Besides after the damage that guy did to the UK economy you're welcome to him you voted him in. He's short cited and focused more on posturing and keeping those close to him happy than fixing anything. At least you can't accuse trump of just keeping people happy. If that were true musk wouldn't still be acting salty. (Obviously the works richest man still has influence but that's different to being invited into the oval office regularly)
I do not feel united. And, echoing you, how is that not unreliable?
The current US administration directly and very overtly threatens two NATO members with invasion and annexation.
I personally can't interpret Trump administration's insistence on supporting Russia on all fronts alongside its enthusiastic push to completely cut military support for Ukraine as anything other than something far more damaging to the collective west's protection than whatever support China or even North Korea is providing to Russia.
There is no way to spin this: the US is the biggest threat to the collective west, not only by reneging on their obligations towards their allies in general and NATO in particular but also by it's clear and very overt threats.
> Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the European Union’s top diplomat that Beijing can’t accept Russia losing its war against Ukraine as this could allow the United States to turn its full attention to China, an official briefed on the talks said, contradicting Beijing’s public position of neutrality in the conflict. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/04/europe/china-ukraine-eu-w...
The Trump administration is overtly cutting support from Ukraine while pressuring Ukraine to capitulate to Russia. At the same time it's also pushing for sanctions to be lifted and economic times with Russia to be normalized. Trump went to the extreme of pressuring the G7 to admit back Russia.
What do you call that?
China supporting glorified golf cars doesn't hold a candle to the damage that the US has done to peace in Europe and the collective west's interests in security.
You also underestimate the Chinese support. The war would have been over in 2023 if it wasn't for China.
> The discovery of a Russian decoy drone made up entirely of Chinese parts is another indication of the growing wartime relationship between Moscow and Beijing. ... Beyond components, China appears to have provided Russia with at least some complete weapons systems. In May, we reported that Russia was using a new Chinese laser system to shoot down Ukrainian drones. https://www.twz.com/news-features/new-russian-drone-made-com...
Rossiya-1 viewer/bot sighted
> It would be the cost of granting the US a leverage against the collective west.
Bad faith argument. “Collective west” as if the entire west aside from the US is a united bloc. Laughable.
No, that is not the cost of keeping "the value" within western economies. It would be the cost of granting the US a leverage against the collective west. The US proved to be a very unreliable and outright hostile partner. At this point, it is not clear whether the US is more hostile to the collective west than the likes of China.