it’s like you believe you can tariff them expecting they won’t do the same. Why do you believe the rest of the world is not going to retaliate and why do you believe America can prosper without the rest of the world?
What’s the point of having a military alliance with countries you puts tariffs on? That’s unfriendly to say the least.
The thing is, it’s not total rubbish. The problems are real - rust belt decline, life is harder for Americans than it was in the past. America is more protected from Russian aggression than Europe. He doesn’t seem to realise or care that the reason for that is because we trusted that the US would have our back and its not like the us wasn’t getting anything in return.
It’s just that these truths are mixed in with lies - immigrants are the problem, tariffs will fix anything, that if america abandons it’s allies and its promises (over protecting Ukraine after they gave up their nukes), this will lead to a better long term outcome for America.
Trump is too dumb to understand subtlety and he’s being played by multiple bad actors, domestic and foreign.
Thing is, what the USA was buying with its expensive umbrella over Europe was a disarmed Europe. At the time, the USA felt it was in their interest for EU to be weak.
For a variety of reasons, the rise of China perhaps being at the forefront, the USA no longer believes its in their interest to keep EU toothless.
I guess they’re right about that. They’re feeling tough now but I doubt the US will like to lose the perks of being our daddy. If this shit continues I’d stop sharing Intel, remove US bases from Europe, make new treaties (including nuclear) covering Europe’s allies and trading partners and give the US the freeze until a sane administration is in power and they can keep their house in order. This is actually a positive since the west has been complacent. No more involvement in shitty US conflicts has to be a bonus. You know, in Europe we haven’t been at war for almost the whole of our history like the US. We grew out of that long ago and only followed our ally the US into their asshole conflicts. They did enough good in the world that the evil was kinda balanced at least. Yeah, that’s over.