The US bases are also pretty expensive to set up. Lots of logistic support has to be in place to let those bases function. That require a lot of support from the host country. Normally, you would expect the US to be friendly with the host countries, but that seems lost on the current administration.
What is really wrong is that it is known that russia is fighting in Ukraine with drones designed in Iran. And we have seen how hard it is for US designed weapons to deal with those drones. To the point that a lot of development is happening in Ukraine to deal with this problem.
By attacking Iran, the US has shown the world that Ukraine is the weapon supplier of choice against future drone wars.
As a US citizen, I hope more countries come to this realization and start rejecting these.
It's such a lose-lose for everyone
The establishment and maintenance of these bases cost the tax payers so much....
If only we could refocus this massive expenditure of resources to internal domestic infrastructure...
I say this as an anti-empirical leftist with no great sympathy for the effort, but for those proclaiming to put America's interests above all else it's just such an obvious and idiotic short-sighted self-own.
US farmers growing otherwise unprofitable crops with no buyer? Check. US exporters being able to export crops? Check. US Aid workers being able to give food to starving people in countries that have huge deposits of rare earth materials? Check. US intelligence apparatus having advanced knowledge of developing situations in strategically important countries? Check. US Aid workers being able deliver tremendous goodwill to countries that China or Russia would love to have their tentacles in? Check.
Everyone's happy, everyone makes money, everyone eats.
Yet Donald Trump and Elon Musk don't like it, so away it goes. And there's no adult in the room to say "no, you're not cutting it, here's why".
USAID somehow managed to get everyone paid and kept everyone happy. Who gives a shit if it was a CIA front?
I don't disagree that money should be spent here. But instead of billions spent on military contractors, using some of that money in developing countries through USAID gets us some incredible returns...such as our work in the Congo securing our rights to the largest Cobalt deposit on the planet. Or our work in Namibia giving us access to the 4th largest deposit of Uranium on the planet. The top 3 countries for Uranium exports are either under the Sino-Russian sphere of influence (Kazakhstan) or are nations that could get there due to the fact that they fucking hate the US due to the genius words of Donald Trump (Canada and Australia).
You want America's sources of Cobalt and Uranium cozying up to China and giving the US the finger?
The dollar being the world’s reserve currency gives us the ability to print dollars for infrastructure projects with relatively little consequence.
This is now being threatened by our best attempts to get everyone in the world to hate us and see us as hostile, unstable idiots and unreliable partners.
I’ll also note that the America First MAGA crowd seem to also be against funding public infrastructure projects, especially the radically socialist notion of high speed rail.
They supported USA's hegemony, extension of soft powers - essentially (not a quote) 'we trade with USA because they're our partner, they help us with defence against tyrants'. Except, when USA vote in a fascist tyrant.
Many bridges have been burned.
USA is just like a company taken over by venture capitalists, and just like such a company those capitalists look like they'll run it into the ground and make off with all the money.
European here (from Spain), and the overwhelming majority of people I know are hoping for the removal of the bases. They are worried, yes... worried that it's just grandstanding and it's not really going to get done (which is likely, because those bases have always been there mainly for the benefit of the US).
It was pushed out, by force.
Until this year, US military bases were seen as an asset. They were thought to deter attacks, and in the case of someone being crazy enough to attack the country that hosted a US military base, they sold the promise of a quick and decisive response.
But for countries in the Middle East, every base was nothing but a liability with nothing but a long list of detriments. The bases got attacked and destroyed with basically zero effort whatsoever, local militaries had to step up to defend the US bases on their own dime and with their own people putting their lives on the line, and the bases basically just served as provocation and ended up with the countries being attacked as "punishment" for letting the US military operate on their land. And the US put in the bare minimum effort, if any, to defend the countries being attacked. It was basically "that's on you. Buzz off".
Europe is now being threatened with having their US bases cut back/removed entirely and I'm not sure if people are even worried anymore. People have been using the term "paper tiger" to refer to Russia these past 4 years because their efforts at war have been absolutely embarrassing. Somehow the US has made Russia look competent, and despite being against all the BS America did in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, I didn't think America would somehow show itself to be more rotted out from the inside than Russia. I always assumed the US was competent, albeit war hungry. But somehow competence has completely vanished.
And right now, East Asian allies of the US operate under the very wrong assumption that the US will back them up if China/Russia/North Korea tries something. And now that those countries know the US won't do shit, there's a non zero chance that they've taken war plans from purely hypothetical plans to "we could actually do this" plans.