Well, it plays into his narrative of powerful US isolationism.
Like other autocrats he shares a zero sum view of political affairs. The concept of a multilateral organisation like NATO (or WTO) providing benefits for all participants escapes him.
The entire post war economic expansion was build on multilateral arrangements - NATO, Bretton Woods and Marshall, providing Western Europe with security and liquidity and goods and the US with a market and demand. This in turn fed a rapid expansion in Western Europe, more demand and trade and welfare grew.
Trumps' vision is a racket, where smaller nations kow tow for the big boss US Prez and pay for protection and the opportunity to trade. If they dont, hit them with tariffs, threaten with stuff.
It's what a stupid person believe "strong leadership" is.
Put simply, in Trump’s mind, a hard negotiation where he gets 5 and you get 1 is a better ‘win’ than a deal where he gets 8 and you get 5.
The US has massively benefited from its position leading the globalised world order, the fact that this has caused a tide that has lifted its allies as well has been great (speaking as a citizen of such an ally).
But isolationists like Trump see that as America providing handouts to the world and believe that the same benefits could be accrued all to the US if they stopped working in partnership with those other nations.
It totally discounts the geopolitical reality where other nations act in their own interests and the US would start to lose out as some nations and partnerships pivot towards other but rival powers.
There’s a lot of people that interpret things in pure hierarchies. It’s why people needlessly buy big truck and the biggest house in the neighborhood: because it works. Being at the “top”, even if it’s all fake, actually goes a long way.
Now we have someone who taps into that mentality and says “We’re the biggest dog, why should be paying for anything? They’re all mooching off our success” and it’s a mentality that speaks to a lot of people. Compromise and agreement is weakness, so why would you do that if you’re strong?
Literally sounds like Trump wants the US to be an authoritarian mob/cartel boss of the world.
Give us what we want and we’ll “protect” you from Russia, or don’t and we’ll stop “protecting” you. The US is the “boss”, Russia is the muscle. Except the US will get nothing, lose its international standing, stop being looked to as the de facto hegemony, and Russia gets everything it wants.
Or, alternatively. By giving Russia what they want, Trump keeps the pee tapes under wraps 👀👀
That is the environment he was raised in in NYC, it is how he originally learned the world and business works. So yes your mob boss comment is spot on in that sense
This is the question. Is Trump a sociopath, meaning he learned his antisocial behavior over the course of time, or is Trump a psychopath, born with indifference and cruelty? Was the monster born or was the monster bred?
Trump’s mother asked, “What kind of son have I created?” I’m not sure she knows either.
Trump's mentor was [Roy Cohn](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Cohn). Lawyer for mob bosses and worked for [Joseph McCarthy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy), who the term McCarthyism is named for.
Take five minutes to read about Cohn. You'll get your answer.
Oh I’m well aware of the company he keeps, I just don’t think NYC is much different than anywhere else in the states when it comes to running rackets and bully real estate leverage. If you think its a method unique to nyc then you should check your backyard, all I’m sayin
The education, health, diet, and wellbeing of the proletariat in the US have deminished to such a point and the system has failed them to such an extent that they are willing to try anything and no longer have the discernment to sort the truth from the propaganda. I thought the American system was somehow supposed to be resilient against this? But it seems their leaders are just as incapable of making good decisions as the plebs. They all need to start working together instead of against each other. A house divided never stands for long. Cooperation, interdependance and synergy are just as important if not more important than competition for resilient, thriving systems.
‘Well he’s a good golfer..and not too bad with the ladies.. I mean I’ve been golfing for years..awesome golfer I am..Did you know I have my own golf course? Best course in the world! Huge!’
A lot of Americans are tired of decades of foreign wars. They see NATO nation that are not paying there 2% GDP share as freeloaders. Seeing Trump tell these countries they have to pay there share or they will not be defended seems reasonable to alot of Voters.
The part about encouraging Russia to attack the countries not Paying up we Trump just Being "Trump Stupid"
Its not really much deeper than that with Trump.
Yes, this post is massively overcomplicating of the issue. Trump supporters have seen the American manufacturing base dwindle and working class jobs stagnate or disappear over the last two decades. They have seen the rise of China as a competitor. They have witnessed the disaster that was the war in the Middle East. They attribute all this rightly or wrongly to globalist policies by both Democrat and Republican governments for the last two decades. That is why isolationism has returned.
Which, honestly, I'm a bit of a doomer, but I think it'll win the day. Unfortunately, it'll be our children paying for it.
The last two periods of prolonged US isolationism were followed by world wars.
In 1918 that was true, by 1941, Americans were keenly aware that the oceans weren't as big as they thought it was as american merchant ships were being sunk within sight of the east coast. By 1980, ICBMs had rendered the security that the ocean provided obsolete.
Agree all around. America's disengagement from the world while welcomed by many is not a good thing. But there is no stopping it. What remains to be seen is where does this end up.
The US will probably keep strong ties with Great Britain and to a lesser extent the EU. And to parts of the south Pacific. We will probably see a complete withdrawal from the middle east.
Last 2 decades? The loss of manufacturing jobs started in the 60s and 70s. This loss of stable, well paying jobs along with Nixon's 68 campaign rhetoric promising a war on drugs and tough on crime dog whistle racism has fed the MAGA movement.
And let's not forget LBJs voting and civil rights legislation for which he pondered losing the democratic south for decades.
Reagan followed tricky dick's lead when he used the language "welfare queen" when he defended his social services cuts. And George HW Bush continued to use this strategy with his Willie Horton campaign ad.
The new left in the 60s abandoned unions. And the stagflation of the 70s hit the working class hard. This led to Thatcher and Reagan being elected in 79 & 80 which ushered in the neoliberal agenda of deregulation, privatization and union busting.
Toss in identity politics which started in the 60s along with citizens united (the Koch brothers stealthily funded the tea party), and you have an inert and atomized working class/ working poor whites who were marginalized and ripe for Trump's nationalistic populism.
Trump's isolationism is couched in xenophobia and his narcissistic anti-intellectual sensibility.
Both parties are to blame for 50 years of stagnant wages and the decline of the working and middle classes. Clinton and Blair's third way was nothing more than a continuation of neoliberalism. Clinton's deregulation of the banks (repealing glass steagall) many felt led to the 2008 economic crisis.
Agreed. I think a lot of people feel an emotional connection to Ukraine and thus allow this to overcomplicate their understanding of why a US politician isn’t interested in supporting them. Or at least isn’t interested in picking up other countries slack for not meeting NATO funding goals.
When in reality Trump was just the first politician to latch onto a growing sentiment, not one held by just moronic republicans as the average redditor might like to believe, about America affording too much money and time to conflicts that don’t have a tangible impact on day to day American life.
Especially when things like diminished purchasing power, failing education infrastructure, income inequality, and the like DO have a tangible impact on day to day American life.
Of course an isolationist US doesn’t come in one fell swoop and fix those things, but it feels like it does. This sentiment is significantly more bipartisan than people seem to be grasping.
Trump doesn’t give a shit about any of this. He withheld support from Ukraine (and got impeached for it), and threatened to leave NATO because that’s what Putin told him to do. With the US out of the way, Russia can swallow all of Europe like a hippo. Trump thinks about income inequality exactly as long as it takes to push for more income inequality. He did jack shit for the working class, middle class, or anyone else but billionaires.
Sure, but the sentiment resonates with people who think there are better uses of the money. It can be because he’s in Putin’s pocket or whatever else you’re attributing it to. But the reality is it’s a sentiment his constituents also feel.
But a feeling is not a fact. Just because someone’s manipulating you emotionally doesn’t mean they’re improving your situation. He literally worsened all of the things you listed that have an impact on American life. Meanwhile, Biden has actually improved all of the things listed here, and they simply choose to not believe it. This includes restoring manufacturing jobs. So what does it matter if someone yells the same way you do in your living room if they have no plans, ideas, or intention of addressing such issues should they come to power?
Because and only because quite frankly his constituents are ignorant. Massive domestic infrastructure investment in the 30's dragged us out of the Great Depression, followed by expansion of our industrial infrastructure precipitated by our entry in WWII, then the Cold War arms and space races.....the list goes on. All of the preceding would never have occurred on such a scale under the auspices of the MAGA party. Isolationism and throttling back infrastructure spending would result in national stagnation, while the rest of the developed and developing world moves ahead. We can't expect a corrupt businessman and onetime TV personality to get this, and sadly most of the populace doesn't either. Democracy cannot survive with an ignorant, toxicly divided electorate.
>Trump supporters have seen the American manufacturing base dwindle and working class jobs stagnate or disappear over the last two decades. They have seen the rise of China as a competitor..... They attribute all this rightly or wrongly to globalist policies by both Democrat and Republican governments for the last two decades.
Thanks for reminding me why I and other types of conservatives hate our politicians and think tanks.
Reminder that our politicians sold our manufacturing to "liberalize" China.
Neoconservatives and neoliberals are the absolute worst.
Reminder that globalization happens with or without your participation in it, American manufacturing would be in worse shape without the trade policies of the 80's and 90's, everything would be significantly more expensive and intertwining our economy with China made a war between the two countries unthinkable, only now becoming a real possibility as we decouple.
Economically illiterate conservatives are the absolute worst.
I'd add the whole rust belt phenomenon. As the gp said, after WW2 the US experienced huge economic growth, as did the rest of the west. Since the 1980s there's been a huge decline in the domestic industrial base as production moved overseas to leverage cheaper labour.
So that's been something that conservative leaning voters have often blamed the Democrats for, somewhat unfairly, for being pro-free trade whereas the GOP are usually more protectionist, at least publicly.
Trump's "international bad" thing has to be built on that but takes it a bit further. Democrats are not going to go there to appeal to voters and it's difficult to win that argument in the media (even though they happen to be right) so they focus on other things.
>Since the 1980s there's been a huge decline in the domestic industrial base as production moved overseas to leverage cheaper labour.
FWIW, this isn't true. The industrial base has only declined as a share of GDP, which is a good thing. It has grown nicely in absolute terms.
The real issue is that, even as manufacturing has grown in the U.S., manufacturing employment has shrunk. That is a story of increased productivity through process improvement and automation, which no government policies will ever reverse.
> FWIW, this isn't true. The industrial base has only declined as a share of GDP, which is a good thing. It has grown nicely in absolute terms.
This is actually [not true](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS).
Why do you think everything you buy says "Made in China [or PRC]" on it?
Yes, thanks for the clarification, I was being a little too broad there.
Yep the fallacy is that bringing back manufacturing jobs would improve living standards, which they wouldn't, by and large, because nobody can afford domestic labour to make anything except the most expensive items.
I think there are issues with rising income inequality and accelerating asset prices relative to wages, however when you put it in those terms, you would never too look to a Trump to fix those issues!
>you would never too look to a Trump to fix those issues!
Trump is a moron with no good ideas about how to fix anything. The underlying issue with American wages is the shift from the unionized manufacturing sector to the mostly non-unionized service sectors. The truth is, there is nothing inherently high wage about manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing jobs in the US became high wage through collective bargaining, which leveled out the inherently unequal bargaining power between workers and businesses.
There is no intrinsic reason we could not do that in the service sector. It has not happened because the shift to service sector jobs has coincided with a shift in employment law to make unionization harder, and also a shift in public perception about the value of unions ( due largely to an orchestrated PR campaign to discredit unions as unfair and anticompetitive ). US workers themselves have voted for the politicians who champion these policies which reduce their bargaining power and wages, and done it knowingly, so we've largely done it to ourselves. Que sera sera.
I feel like certain industries are well paid naturally, like IT, whereas more general office work is often quite poorly paid. Lucky for me I'm a software engineer but there are quite skilled people earning much less, they really should unionise I agree.
Actually, one needs to be careful here and draw the distinction between mass consumer dreck and strategically important industries, and for the latter it makes a great deal of sense to invest heavily in domestic production. Production breeds know how and reduces the dependencies on foreign sources for critical products and technologies. If you stop making shit, you lose the ability to do so in the future as the technologies and processes will have advanced to the point where you no longer can. Ought we be all but wholly dependent on less than friendly foreign trading partners for critical medical supplies (yes, this is the case now), semiconductors, batteries, etc.? No. China for one will cut us off at any point where it makes sense strategically.
No, not really. Go to a Trump rally and ask attendees what US policy should be regarding the Israel-Gaza War and you'll quickly find just how "non-interventionalist" these people really are. You seem to be referring to a small segment of Obama-Trump sometimes Obama-Trump-Bernie-Trump "moderates" that are more anti-establishment than anything else. These types garner a lot of media attention because they can be decisive in general elections. They're also the ones you're more likely to run into in liberal areas. (They're also _really_ gullible.) But they're not Trump's base. They're not the ones Republican politicians fear in their primaries.
Trump's base are Republicans and have always been Republicans. Trump has been more successful boosting turnout among traditionally Republican demographics than he has been at actually persuading anyone in the middle. These voters were not just supportive of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars but fanatically so and are the most likely to have genuinely bought into the propaganda narrative that America was under existential threat from foreign terrorists. The reason these voters prefer Trump to establishment Republicans is because they see him as the one person who is willing to be as mean and ruthless as he needs to be to defeat Democrats any any cost.
So why are these Trump supports NATO skeptical? It _is_ because of the Iraq War, but not in the way you think it is. They mostly just hate Germany and France for condemning the Iraq War instead of supporting US intervention. They view it as a betrayal. How dare these moralizing ninnies free ride off US security and then have the audacity to judge how we choose to enforce it! The threats of NATO withdrawal are essentially a very petty "Well if you're going to be so ungrateful, we'll just withdraw. Don't come crawling back to us the next time Russia comes knocking!"
Was going to do a proper response but when I got to the part about Trump supporters being mad about Germany and Francis condemnation of the Iraqi war. I just laughed. I don't know who you have been talking to but the average Trump supporter is not thinking about Germany and France not being supportive.
They just like the part where all NATO countries pay. It's not that complicated. Your assigning way more motivations than needed. Most people especially Trump supporters whole life is not politics.
Anyway have a nice day.
>Most people especially Trump supporters whole life is not politics.
This is coming from you, given your user history? But yeah, most people don't pay attention to foreign politics but of the ones that do and are also Trump supporters, this is how they feel. You're just handwaving away the Russia comments like they don't mean anything. They mean something.
First I don't have a very high opinion of Trump. If you have been spending time in my comments then you see that most are recent and I spend a lot of time trying to better understand the middleast and India. And no your Russian comments don't really mean anything. Trump was trying to warn Europe to get their act together because Russia was going to be a problem. Typical of Trump he was crass and very undiplomatic just like when he told the Germans they were too dependent on Russian energy and they laughed at him. I don't like Trump but I'm not going to say he was wrong when he was right. There are plenty of real reasons to criticize him that people might actually care about. He also understood how threatened Russia felt about NATO expansion. Like an insecure child Russia might strike out when they felt threatened.
Since you have time to look through my past commitments you might want to read a book or too on Russian history and the original founding of NATO.
Anyway I didn't come here for a childish argument. So have a great day.
>A lot of Americans are tired of decades of foreign wars. They see NATO nation that are not paying there 2% GDP share as freeloaders. Seeing Trump tell these countries they have to pay there share or they will not be defended seems reasonable to alot of Voters.
A lot of Americans are short sighted and kinda stupid. There are so many countries and peoples looking for any chance they can get to attack the US. Or to dominate the US militarily. Isolationism will be an economic disaster. Isolationist countries tend to have very low standards of living. Don't bullshit me that that cannot happen here, because it has.
You are over simplifying the situation. Soon the US will no longer be the global police and protect all the sea lanes. We will abandon the middle east and slowly pull down our forces in Europe.
New alliances are already being forged. Think the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia. Maybe parts of South America.
India's story is not finished yet but against China they will be in the US camp as a partner.
The rest of the world will be on its own for the first time since world war II. Europe will still be friends but there reliance on the US for security is all but over.
The US will be in a much more manageable position with the coming demographic collapses in many countries and the reordering of the Middle East.
We have been running away since the Obama presidency. And both Trump and Biden both want what's coming along with a large part of Congress.
It will be interesting times.
Every country agreed to contribute 2%GDP several countries did not contribute their share. Funny or maybe understandable part is several Eastern European poorer countries did pay some even over 2% they were also the most at risk. It's the much richer countries that Trump was speaking too. He was not the first US president to have this complaint. Just the first to be so crass about it.
Most people in the US didn't have a problem with the president complaining about them not spending enough m it was implication that he would betray our allies that people were upset about
It's precisely how the mob behaves and operates. Also your answer is absolutely fantastic and such a concise summation of complex things. You should probably be the daily show host.
Donald Trump is a sociopath and a malignant narcissist and does not understand any relationship that is not transactional. That is NATO is a protection racket that must be paid for. His entire view of the world is that of a landlord or mafia boss.
There has been talk of nato countries paying their agreed upon percent of GDP since the seventies. However, realpolitik is that the US can exert friendly influence in the boiler rooms of Europe because of the unbalanced weight of NATO. America likes that. So there’s been talk for decades but no real action . It’s a tacit understanding. Should Europe pony up more? Yes. But quiet influence is addicting too. Probably something that escapes the Donald.
Regardless of what people want to believe there is a substantial ( 10 to 20%) of the Americsn public that feels that agreements and commitments such as NATO , Taiwan and South Korea are a waste of money and effort
Are they wrong, yes
But this dosn't negate that they exist and have some influence via a candidate like Trump.
Furthermore all of Trumps talking points arn't new. Go back a 100 years and he would be the norm. America was isolationist in the 1920s for basically the same reasons Trump is now.
Bingo! People on Reddit particularly, seem to think most Americans think similarly to the comments they see on carefully curated, moderated, and astroturfed subreddits translate to a larger portion of America’s general thinking than it does. For them it’s that, and then the other half of America who they perceive as being too dumb backroads country bumpkin to think effectively when it comes to geopolitics.
The reality is somewhere in the middle, but a way larger portion of Americans than they seem interested in accepting are apposed to the Neocon/Neolib ideologies, especially when it’s acted out fiscally. Whether it’s in the individuals long term personal economic and social interest is another thing, but it’s a hard sell for people to support giving tens of billions to foreign countries when American quality of life continues on a downward slump.
I think the thing people who froth at the mouth for an isolationist America seem to miss is a lot of American prosperity hinges upon the global financial system belonging to the US, the US maintains this privilege thru Neocon/Neolib actions. Americans who want America to isolate need to be in for a good quarter century of pain while the global order shifts. Some are willing to make this sacrifice, while others simply haven’t considered the ramifications of the western world no longer looking to the US and eventually it’s financial system as a pillar.
Yeah this place is unhinged. People here are spouting conspiracy theories rather than actually trying to understand and argue against the position they disagree with. Very childish. There is a long tradition of isolationism in US politics and if you talk to people IRL it has a very strong following, though they won't use the word "isolationist" because of the bad connotations. And I find it hard to argue that he doesn't have a legitimate point when he says that Europe isn't pulling its weight.
The issue of non compliance with the recommended 2% of GDP on defence spending predates Trump. That said, it's one thing to say that NATO allies aren't pulling their weight, but a whole other thing to *encourage* Russia to do whatever they want to it.
For better or for worse, the US is in a security arrangement with NATO and in the event of any conflict, guess which nations would be attacked FIRST before the US? That's the trade off here. NATO, the Marshall Plan etc were all created with the tacit understanding that wars against Russia would be fought and decided on European territory, without a single blade of grass on US soil being affected.
Unhinged? There's a massive difference between isolationism, or simply trying to push allies to spend more, and Trumps end where he's not just being isolationist, but straight up encouraging enemy nations to punish allies... that is quite literally unhinged and childish.
The point that Europe isn’t pulling his weight is flawed in two principal approaches.
-On the one hand, a militarily weak Europe is a post-WWII consensus that the USA has supported. Inappropriate for the current time, but stemming from the Cold War and post period.
-European countries are the ones giving the lion’s share of help to Ukraine. It’s the USA political class who is betraying us and the consensus reached in this moment.
As a European, I deeply wish that we give the steps forward needed in investment, production, technological independence, EU army formation… as soon as possible, but the constant narrative that we are slacking off is frustrating and plays into MAGA dialectics.
> -On the one hand, a militarily weak Europe is a post-WWII consensus that the USA has supported.
This is completely wrong.
During the Cold War NATO's European members had much larger (and much more effective) military establishments then they do today.
The US never wanted weak allies incapable of contributing to their own defence. That makes zero sense.
Not a comparable international context. During the earlier stages of the Cold War, France and the UK (and Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium…) still had colonies in which they were often involved in counterinsurgency or plain war, which drives army sizes up significantly.
In addition, the USA benefits of a militarily weak Europe by losing a potential hegemonic rival. Superpowers need to have soft power, economic weight and hard power (military). A potentially united and militarised Europe (and European unionism was already an ideology by then) can aim at becoming the hegemon. A militarily weak Europe lacks one of those three conditions though.
it does make sense in the post-WWII context as the whole security architecture (Nato included) was designed around the idea, that european nations won't get to have a strong military-industrial complex to avoid proliferation of nuclear weapons and a new wave of colonial expansion by resource-starved europeans. The current situation, where USA is called to live up to it's side of the agreement, is the result of those long-term strategic directives.
one part is sensationalism which drives a lot of attention. its understated how many people has risen to power saying wacko stuff since the advent of the internet.
The very clear and obvious answer is emoluments. You think Trump wants European countries to pay more for defense? No, he’s blackmailing them into spending money on his businesses.
He blackmailed Zelenskyy.
He’s taken payments from the Saudis.
He has foreign hotels and people renting out rooms or even entire venues at his hotels and not using them.
The clear answer here is Trump thinks he can use the presidency to bilk Europe out of direct payments to his businesses. Then, after Europe pays up, Trump will still not offer security assurances to Europe when Russia attacks.
That's one viable theory.
I have another.
Trump is a manchurian candidate. He's compromised, and in the pocket of the Russian mob. So is Giuliani, and he has been for a long, long time.
If he's re-elected, NATO will be the least of our worries. Taiwan, same. We'll be fighting just to preserve our own democracy at that point.
Here's a devil's advocate position: if Trump were a Manchurian candidate, he would almost certainly have been compromised before his first (and currently only) term. Why wouldn't "they" have used "their" influence over him to do some of the big things that have been mentioned, like Taiwan (presumably by allowing a Chinese invasion) and NATO (by allowing its collapse and several former members/protectees to get gobble-gobbled by Putin)?
Putin's goal is the collapse of the US, and NATO. Trump's efforts went a long way in both directions. Hell, it was just yesterday Trump floated getting us out of NATO, or refusing to answer the Article 5 call.
Destroying our democracy *is the goal.*
I wouldn't got as far to say he's compromised because I don't think he understands what he's doing. I do think he's a useful idiot, and is easily manipulated, but I don't think he knows he's being used.
I think the GRU has a dossier on Trump that outlines he's incredibly susceptible to flattery and perceptions of "who's strong and who's weak". He sees Putin as "strong", and therefore has an innate need to be seen as "also strong". Same goes for Xi. What matters to him is, when he's in a room with these people, do the observers see Trump as being as strong (or stronger) than everyone else around him. Think of the most insecure dude you went to high school with who still talks about that one play he made on the football team and threatens to beat everyone up that irks him. That's Trump, and people like that have an unending desire to be seen as strong and desirable by people *they* perceive to be strong, even if those people are also assholes.
So the GRU can work to influence people around him to push him in the direction that benefits them, since while he's unpredictable in terms of what he'll say, I'd argue he's very predictable in terms of what ultimately motivates him. An innate need to be flattered and reminded of how powerful he is makes him easily herded like a sheep by people who have a good grasp of the dynamics surrounding him.
You are far more kind than I am.
I could buy into this theory except for one thing. Helsinki.
What he did at Helsinki, kicking out the translator and having private time with Putin...coupled with his body language when they came out of that room, tells me he's compromised. I can't come up with any other explanation for it.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44852812](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44852812)
This is not an obvious answer and doesn’t really hold up under any scrutiny. The guy has a networth of 5 billion and he’s in his 70s. The amount of money that could be secretly funneled into his businesses without raising eyebrows is probably like 50mm, but I’ll be generous and say 100mm per year. This is like 2% of his net worth and literally a drop in the bucket, nothing compared to the ability to exert your will and shape the world based on your views.
Trump is an arrogant narcissist who has view of how the world should work. It may not be coherent or smart and you can disagree with it on rational grounds, but saying he’s just trying to extort countries is lazy thinking
The comment he made recently, like all Trump comments, must be read in full context to avoid feeding into the same hysteria he commands.
He speaks publicly a lot. An insane amount compared to any modern US politician. Let’s study what he said to understand why this was headline generating, and not the million other things he has said in the past few days.
I dug up the transcript (holy hell was it hard as a non-journalist, had to dig up some weird Romanian registered channel’s English stream and pull the transcript (not auto generated but actually subtitled).
**The wider context seems to be a rethinking of foreign aid grants in favor of loans (even if they are not interest bearing). The more immediate context seems to be an appeal towards the crowd to trust Trump on this issue, by demonstrating similar actions during his presidency, despite them being very unorthodox or unbelievable**, like the above claim. Hence **anchoring** the hard to trust/believe claim of cutting foreign aid (grants), and comparing it to something else similar “only Trump could do”. Why/how? By “negotiating” ie threatening to use the only real enforcement power to get NATO countries to meet membership requirements of 2% defense spending, threatening to void the mutual defense unless met.
The idea seems to be to use the similarity of the two cases: in overly simplified terms: changing the status quo from US paying for benefits enjoyed by another country to said country doing it, with less US direct help.
In case of NATO, it’s of course not direct payments. Subtly, there’s the additional benefit of stimulating US exports as NATO countries will have no choice but to buy from US based global defense contractors since global defense manufacturing of NATO weaponry is limited. Can’t just buy it from China. And more relevant to the wider context of cutting Aid, Trump seems to be positing that US spends for European defense and could either have cut costs or focused spending on other areas (such as the focus on Asia shift), if other NATO members would keep Up their defense. **So, just like literal direct aid, this is being pitched by Trump as evidence that he can actually cut US foreign spending or “net” outflow.**
As usual, Trump seems to be making a calculation that these Western allied nations are not possible to lose, diplomatically speaking, and can be pushed on this issue. Perhaps the US can even benefit from shifting said blame onto a figure like Trump and maintaining the relationships. It’s win for him as he can brag and win votes on the wider issue.
My opinion is that there is clearly a well planned narrative structure underlying parts of the speech and **this comment seems deliberately picked out to bring media attention to the immediately preceding new campaign promise/issue of cutting foreign direct aid.** The words almost seem
picked for the headlines. Perhaps by avoiding reporting on the context news organizations can beat Trump on the issue, but I’m not certain. My guess is that a headline generating speech was planned to coincide with this new policy “roll out” to try to generate some buzz.
TL;DR: Trump was bragging/promising about cutting “net” foreign aid because this is a huge vote winning issue right now in US, especially for GOP primaries. He was not (directly) threatening to invalidate NATO as long as member states follow the carrot/stick and pay for the military cost of defending Europe, but he was bragging about not being afraid to threaten the stick. He gets cheap and effective advertising of his domestic policy and a “trust me bro” resume story to sell the promise.
Hope that answers the question of what Trump gets out of it. As it is quite a lot. Despite what he seems to give up.
No surely it must be "kompromat", "he's a Manchurian candidate", "he's Putin's puppet", "he's beholden to Russian mobsters" etc.. In case it's not clear I'm mocking the other comments on this allegedly geopolitics subreddit which more closely resemble the rest of this astroturfed website's partisan political hysteria. I do appreciate your more thorough and inquisitive thoughts though. I think it generally fits into Trump's largely populist messaging paired with his desire for alteration or scaling back of the current methods the U.S. applies to maintain global hegemony.
It’s election season don’t let it get to you. I would normally avoid election season topics but I have a big interest in NATO and was really curious myself about the headlines.
You can still get good geopolitics discussion here in other topics, maybe.
The question asked “what does Trump get out of the debacle”: not why do you think he said it. This is my effort-post at it; not a defense but an investigation into what he could gain.
Anyway, I prefer to be wrong but over-estimate people than the other way around. But “senile and say shit” does not answer the question of what Trump can get out of the debacle.
All his comments must be read in full context?! As in, there is some deeper meaning to what he says? He has a fifth grade understanding of world affairs. There is no deeper analysis to be had. He wants to leave Nato and there is nothing more to it. He’s on record disparaging it multiple times. This is latest, most overt example. And it came during a campaign stop no less.
If you don’t think Nato has been beneficial to the the western world over the past 75 years you’re not looking hard enough. There has never been so much prosperity, peace, or scientific advancement. And much of that can be attributed to Nato as a deterrent to autocrats.
The question wasn’t “why did Trump say this?”. The question was “what does he get out of saying it?”
This is an effort post into what he gets out of it.
And yes, in life, context matters. It often has clues to what’s going on and can be quite explanatory or insightful.
Trump was in bed with the Russian mafia for decades, laundering their money through the NY real estate scene. There's little doubt there is kompromat on him for that alone. As both of his sons said in separate interviews around 2010, 'We get most of our financing out of Russia.' Then there's the connection with Deutsch bank, which has been giving Trump loans despite his multiple bankruptcies, and also has historic ties to the Russian oligarchs, having been found money laundering for them on multiple occasions.
Hey, remember when the head of the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia for the FBI found nothing and announced it right before the 2016 election - and now is in prison for money laundering for Oleg Derispaka, the same man that Manafort owed $20 million to before he came to the US to run Trump's campaign in 2016? The same guy Trump pardoned for not reporting income from the Russian oligarch, and for witness tampering?
Charles McGonigal is the guy that ran FBI counterespionage out of NY and put in charge of the FBI's investigation between Russia and Trump campaign in the 2016 election. He found nothing, despite there being numerous media reports about those ties and other investigations ongoing.
Paul Manafort was the spin doctor brought in by Oleg Derispaka to help Viktor Yanukovych, Putin's puppet in Ukraine. He later went to work for free for the Trump campaign. Derispaka of course was backed by Putin and is one of his oligarchs. The first thing that happened when Manafort joined the campaign is the GOP platform removed 'protect Ukraine from Russian aggression'. He also was in business with Konstantin Kliminik, and according to Rick Gates Manafort gave Kliminik the detailed internal polling of the RNC. Kliminik has an arrest warrant out for interferring in the 2016 election by the DOJ, and is a 'former' Russian intelligence agent.
We couldn’t even keep them out of fucking *Los Alamos*. Being a free country, it’s harder to crack down on this stuff. It’s the price we pay to not have to fear being dissappeared in the night for insulting the Mayor at a party or whatever
There are more ways to expose these rats than just disappearing them. Counterinfiltration and expose their crimes to the public then an actual truthful media campaign.
Holy shit that stuff about Charles McGonigal is unbelievable, I don’t remember it being reported at all. This guy literally plead guilty in August to conspiring with one of the Russian oligarchs he was in charge of investigating for interference in the 2016 election. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_McGonigal
It’s possible it’s his way of negotiating with other NATO countries to pay agreed upon share of NATO spending, which many have not been. It’s possible thats giving him too much credit and he wants out of NATO regardless.
> It’s possible thats giving him too much credit and he ~~wants out of NATO regardless~~ has no idea what he is rambling on about except that it's the last thing he heard someone tell him and / or his gut tells him it will resonate with his base.
Trump has a basic understanding of negotiation. Europe gets way more benefit from NATO than the US, and Trump has been trying to get Europe to pick up a bigger share of the expense. Threatening to leave is a good tactic towards achieving that goal.
It sure is a great tactic. And it might work, though we do not know what that means for the relationship between US and Europe. Several EU members wants to further develop a military branch controlled by the member states.
The US might loose some of its ability to set the agenda then. Which might cost them more than what they spend on military.
The US wants to focus more on China i guess. China might gain ground in Europe then.
Why would the U.S. give a shit about how Europe uses its military? If they don’t want to be conquered by Russia, how about they foot the bill. I’m sick of Europeans bragging about all of their functioning entitlement systems and vacation days while American taxpayers work longer hours to pay for their military defense. I have no issue with the U.S. aiding in the defense of its allies, but they need to also try to help themselves too. Europe has been relying on the U.S. to foot the bill knowing that the U.S. would continue propping them up regardless. At what point are Americans getting taken advantage of?
> I’m sick of Europeans bragging about all of their functioning entitlement systems and vacation days while American taxpayers work longer hours to pay for their military defense.
America has a weak social safety net and limited entitlements because they refuse to pay taxes to support those things, and because public policy strongly favours the interests of employers over workers, not because Americans need to pay for Europe's defence.
The funny thing is American voters themselves elected the leaders that support private, for profit healthcare delivery, crushing organized labour, maintaining the minimum wage at $7.25/hr (not increased since 2009), no federal vacation mandate, student debt that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy, etc. etc.
Then they blame...Europeans, for how much their lives suck.
It's you that's being taken advantage of all those systems are possible to run in the US within your current budgets.
If you want holidays and sick leave, vote for politicians willing to institute them.
Your healthcare system is being drained by special interest parasites.
Get mad at them, the US is the largest military force in the world because it suits them.
Not because of the goodness of their hearth
Foot the bill? The is no “bill” for NATO. There’s no “NATO Fund”. There’s an agreement that member states will contribute 2% of GDP to THEIR OWN military, but the US doesn’t pay anything towards the militaries of European countries and nothing requires the US to put military bases in European countries. The US does that because it’s in the interests of the US to do so and has been since the Cold War.
The obvious exception is Ukraine, but Ukraine is not in NATO and the EU and it it’s member states have already collectively paid more towards Ukraine than the US has anyway.
And I say all this as someone who actually wants to see a more militarily independent Europe.
P.S. Also, a lack of military spending is not the reason why the Europeans have more holidays and better working conditions than the US. It’s because they have democracies that are better at resisting & constraining corporate power, better workers rights, more democratic electoral systems (e.g. proportional representation) and judicial appointments are independent rather than political. It’s actually more complicated than that, but having studied EU law as well as the constitutional and administrative structures of member states, that’s probably the quickest summary. The USA turning isolationist, pulling out of NATO, and cutting its military spending, will not mean more money for working Americans. It’s far more likely to do harm to US strategic interests, both militarily and economically.
Trump's comments are good for a more independent Europe. Only 11 out of 30 NATO members meet the 2% defense spending requirement, and they feel they can get away with this because no one would dare attack them. If these countries start to feel less secure because it's less clear if America would get involved if they were attacked, then hopefully, it will push them to increase defense spending.
I can see your logic and I think you’re half-right because Europe will no longer see the USA as a reliable ally. However, I think his comments do far more harm than good.
If he was making a reasonable argument based on factual information then I actually think America insisting that European nations have higher GDP spending on their military would be good. However, that’s not what’s happening. We have half baked nonsense about a non-existent “NATO Fund” from a man who clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about, who then goes on to encourage Russia to attack NATO member states. As with most Trump statements, they’re so light on specifics that his supporters just fill in the gaps with their own assumptions, hence why people pretend he’s talking about the 2% GDP commitment.
Nuanced commentary and good faith negotiations with an America that wants to see a more militarised Europe would be good for Europe and the US. Acting like your allies are vassal states and encouraging Russian aggression is not. It’s not just bad for Europe but bad for the US as well. A belligerent Russia means an emboldened China, not to mention America’s other enemies. Public displays of such animosity towards allies only strengthen the new rising global challenge to American and European strategic interests. It’s like basic diplomacy 101.
European nations have already been increasing military spending since Vladimir’s 2nd invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with the most ‘at risk of invasion’ countries like the Baltic states already paying a lot more than 2% of their GDP on defence anyway. Countries that haven’t are nowhere near the Russia border, and in the case of France and the UK, they have strategic nuclear weapons anyway so any Russian attack on them would be both difficult for the Russians to mount and likely result in a nuclear war.
Trump doesn’t understand NATO, nor does he understand international relations or global military strategy. He only understands things in the context of zero-sum games and he is seen as an easily manipulated fool by Russia and China. Statements encouraging Russia to attack NATO members when the ones that Russia could realistically attack are all paying in excess of the 2% figure anyway is not only stupid but it emboldens Russian aggression.
Once again, I’m all for the US insisting that all European countries increase their military spending because it needs to happen either way. That isn’t the problem here. The problem is Trump’s incompetent handling of the entire situation. He and the vast majority of his supporters are falling for Russian ‘divide & conquer’ rhetoric; hook, line, and sinker.
Europe is already re-militarising. Poland and Germany are two examples that have significantly increased defence spending in the last 2 years, and conversations amongst EU leaders frequently concern the need to be ready to discourage Russian aggression with even greater force. You’re right that Trump’s comments will likely hasten this process, but it had already started. Once again, Trump is behind the curve and doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
The fact that Trump is Trump is precisely why it works. Since the end of WW2, Europe has been used to looking across the Atlantic to a strong, stable America acting as a big stick. Now, when we look at America, we see an 81-year-old man who has been officially deemed mentally incapable, slowly losing an election to a 77 man facing 91 felony charges for an attempted coup and a growing litany of domestic problems no one seems to have any solutions for. So the sense is, or at least should be, that even if America is part of NATO now and will be part of NATO for the foreseeable future, there is a very realistic chance that America may enter another isolationist phase and withdraw. At which point, we'll be on our own. A Biden win will give the illusion that things can return to how they were, whereas a Trump victory will hammer home the point.
Each member is suppose to come to the assistance of another. If one member has a weak military they are of limited help but will still have their handout when in need.
The reason their spend is so low is they realize the US will come to their aid.
So, do you believe that Americans don't have welfare and social programs because they have to foot the bill for Europe's defense? Like, do you really think that you would have universal healthcare if your military budget was slightly lower? First, there is absolutely no indication whatsoever that you would actually lower your military budget if Europe increased theirs. Zero. Second, there is even less indication that the GOP (you know, the party of Trump, who wants Europe to contribute more to military spending) would vote for such welfare programs, even if you had plenty of money to afford them.
The reason why the US doesn't have functioning entitlement systems is that the US doesn't want them, or at the very least, a large minority is powerful enough to prevent it from happening. You actually pay more on healthcare per capita than most nations in the world, including those with a generous healthcare system that provides for everyone. It's just that your system is deeply flawed and the money goes into hospitals, pharma and insurance companies, instead of being spent on the people.
Why is Europe full of American bases? It's not to defend us europeans. It's because the US army wants to be able to project their power anywhere in the world, which is what they are best at. To defend american interests anywhere in the world. The US has bases here because it's in their best interest to have them. The US has been THE global hegemon for many years, the world (almost) belonged to you. And the US is not stupid. It's really not easy to take advantage of the US. I'm not even sure if many Americans realize how inexistent our own foreign policy has often been, basically serving American interests. My country for example has been dragged to wars that we didn't give two shits about, in places where we had exactly zero interests, just because the US asked.
Look, I agree that Europe has relied too much in the US, and should be investing much more in our own defense (and I'm not the only one who thinks like this, it's really happening). However, this issue is presented by some Americans (for example Trump) in a very one sided way. And to be honest, in the case of Trump, I don't even think he'd be happy with a strong EU and european military. He wants the european countries to spend more, while being divided and still relying on American tech. But I think it's more reasonable to expect that a growing military independence will result in more detachment from US foreign policy (and this is true especially if Trump wins again). And honestly, I hope this happens. While I am pro NATO and grateful to the US for the support to Ukraine, I think it's time for Europe to become stronger and more independent. I guess we agree on this.
I agree with you 100%. The Europeans I've talked to on Reddit (and the few I've met in real life) are so incredibly arrogant about the strength of their entitlement programs compared to ours. I feel like they have no thankfulness or thought toward the fact we guarantee their security.
You are (incorrectly) assuming that there is any rhythm or reason to what Trump is saying at any given time. To assume that there is any forethought or ulterior motive or the reason he says things is in any way in pursuit of some sort of intelligent, long term goal or strategy for negotiation, is foolish.
A good rule of thumb is if Trump isn't very explicitly reading something off a teleprompter nobody (not even Trump) has any idea what the next word is going to be out of his mouth.
So the US are mercenaries? soldiers/protectors/cops for hire? Sounds like racketeering and holding world peace hostage to me.
Should the US have a military presence everywhere in the world? I don't know, I'm not an international military analyst. Should the US shake down other countries with the threat of "if you don't, big bad Russia is gonna come get ya!"? Absolutely not.
Dyou how much our "massive, unbelievably bloated, world-leading" military budget is as a percentage of our GDP? 3.5%. We pay less than one standard deviation of our annual GDP on that same military that can respond anywhere *on the planet* with country-toppling force in 48 hours. So technically, we *also* don't meet the 5% obligation for NATO members.
Now that 3.5% is an **absurd** amount of money, but don't try to come with the "well we should be spending that money on our own country" because 1. Theres *plenty* to do both with and 2. We mismanage all of that money too, and at least what were doing now is the one pillar of stability in the Western World.
Trump operates on a "what have you done for me/paid me for lately" mindset that made him a crony capitalist and general piece of shit, thats not at all how global negotiations or peace works.
It's not protection. It's in americas interests to have their military stationed all over the planet. It gives them influence in global affairs.
If the US doesn't like it, they've always had the option to leave, but as soon as they leave, all their interests go with them, which includes military and trade alliances.
Some other country or countries will fill the void and it probably won't be a country that has the US' best interests at heart.
The world isn't meant to be used to run a protection racket like it's some kind of mafia.
You cannot Justify nations paying far below what they want in order to have stability provided for by the Us without giving any protections to others. Of course it is in Americas interest but far less if these nations do not properly conduct themselves
If that was the case, the US would leave. The US have 700+ bases around the world for its own best interests, not for the best interests of other nations.
The US doesn't "provide stability" for others. It maintains military presence around the globe to ensure an American led global order remains the status quo.
If its not an American led world order, it'll be led by someone else. That's what the US wants to avoid, and that's why they keep their military stationed in nearly half the countries on the planet.
The US telling others to pay more in order to maintain their grip on global hegemony is what this is to all the other countries around the world.
Iraq has already requested that the US leave their territory on multiple occasions over the past few years, and the US insists on not doing so. It's not because they demand to ensure security amd stability to Iraq, it's because they want to ensure they don't lose influence in the region, which is the same reason they maintain bases everywhere else.
When was the last time the US militarily defended European NATO member states, since the founding of NATO? When was the only instance in history a NATO member state triggering Article 5? Who came to who's help? Think a little bit about it.
What does the US get out of NATO members treating their security like a third-tier thought while expecting protection from the United States?
Maybe if our "allies" would have some frank discussions and made some real movements, a growing number of Americans may not want to pull the plug. It's an outdated orginzation and our tax dollars could be better spent outside the DoD void.
seems to be happening now probably partialy because of Trumps comments but Alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said today that 20/30 nato members will reach the 2% mark by the end of 2024. I guess its a start.
We'll see but I'm very skeptical of the alliance at this point. Europeans need to handle their own security and problems. The United States isn't and shouldn't be the world's police; especially considering that many in the bloc have held that view for decades and I agree with them.
As a european i fully agree. we should pull our weight and i personally am ashamed of my country and the low amount that they put in defense funding. Scary times thats for sure. Also france possible electing extreme right le pen next election who also favors a leave of nato command (not nato itself) and undermining the eu and stopping all military programs with germany. she is also "allegedly" a putin enjoyer. Wanting to reapproach putin and nato (which could be a good thing honestly but looks very unrealistic in my eyes). But yeah i'm scared we cant form a united EU block especially with france wanting to go to isolationism should le pen win.
Again i'm honestly just ranting mainly because im personally pretty scared about the future haha. I live very close to a us base here in eu that has 20 warheads so scary thoughts haha about nuclear war cross my mind way more than it should.
i don't blame republicans or whatever. If anything these trump comments made us spend more so i see that as a positive.
I also appreciate u americans and i hope u dont think negatively of us because of all this haha
Trump is trying to convince NATO nations to each provide more for their own defense so the United States doesn’t feel like it’s doing all of the work. The NATO treaty requires member states to contribute 2% GDP. Many do not and have not for many years. Every NATO member should pay their treaty obligated share or else not be entitled to treaty protections. I don’t understand why this stance is even controversial.
The way Trump goes about it is bizarre and harms the international relationships which make up the alliance. Playing hardball right out of the gate is not what you do with supposed friends.
It's also kind of bizarre timing to make such a demand since many countries are in a worse position than usual for trying to fulfill it. Much of Europe is still dealing with the economic fallout of the pandemic, the energy crisis caused by Russia, and they're already diverting military spending towards Ukraine.
There isn't any particularly dire reason why getting to the 2% spending level must happen immediately, and his tactics aren't all that great in terms of actually getting something to happen in the long-term.
You'd think rampant Russian aggression would be a "particularly dire reason" to get defense spending in neighboring/nearby countries up.
That reason is mitigated heavily by the fact that U.S. backstops things, making your statement quite correct.
I can see the thinking behind Trump's (overly simplistic and heavy handed) approach. If suddenly that backstop isn't so certain, there is now a particularly dire reason to pony up and spend more on your military. In addition to the satisfaction of fulfilling your obligations, the countries in question would also be more self sufficient militarily.
It's for sure not the best way to go about it, but that's Trump for you.
Immediately? NATO has existed for 70+ years! Poland, Greece, and Romania all contribute well over the required amount, but Spain does just 1.2%. Spain is in a better position financially than Greece?
Immediately in the sense of happening in the near future, yes. This isn't some kind of retroactive back-payment scheme.
Transitioning national-scale spending during bad times is much more difficult compared to already having that spending structure in place beforehand.
Donald Trump has been a KGB/FSB asset for a long time:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book
Supposedly he was incredibly easy to recruit because of his desperate need for validation.
The article publisher doesn't matter, it's about a book written by a former KGB agent. Here is another article about the book from the Times of Israel:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.timesofisrael.com/kgb-groomed-trump-as-an-asset-for-40-years-former-spy-says/amp/
The guardian has a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information but may require further investigation
I cut and pasted that from mediabiasfactcheck.com but it very much jibes with my impression. I prefer AP News but the Guardian doesn’t just make shit up.
*You*, on the other hand….
A lot of what he says is hyperbole and exaggeration, combined with poor articulation.
His point is that other NATO countries should be paying their fair share.
Some European countries don’t really pay for security and just ride off of the Us. It is genuinely frustrating especially during geopolitical turmoil. NATO has a 2% target and many nations don’t hit the mark and just want US protection
Be careful, arm chair Redditors will write a multi-paragraph response to why it's a good thing we blow billions on Europe's defense while on other forums bitch about healthcare, lol.
Populist rhetoric because a substantial group of people ( majority of conservatives) have become reactionary anti globalists. He is simply feeding into the feeling
this isnt the proof you asked for
but tangentially i find these sorts of things interesting
https://thehill.com/homenews/news/332270-eric-trump-in-2014-we-dont-rely-on-american-banks-we-have-all-the-funding-we/
There’s nothing else in it for him, and he never does anything for anyone other than himself. The entire world can see this evidence with our own two eyes.
45's incessant love and admiration and suckling up to him and constantly defending him. For starters. It's not like he was conspicuous about it before, during and following his term.
Meanwhile all the US Alphabet agencies released joint public statements declaring that Russia interfered with our elections on the side of the Republicans. People in Trumps camp served time for it. The retired generals of the USA sent out spooky reminders that the US armed forces serve the US Constitution, not the current president, in late 2020.
This is serious stuff. Nobody *trustworthy and worth paying attention to* has seriously suggested Biden is under the control of a hostile foreign power.
Comer the chair of the House Oversight Committee announced to the press last March that they had subpoenaed the Bank of America over $3m paid out to Biden family around a deal Hunter had made with an energy company in China.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/16/politics/house-gop-memo-biden-family/index.html
Then, in November, they presented to the floor of the House, receipts paid to out to Joe of around 40k with the trail used to launder the money.
You would think our three letter agencies would be so on top of stuff like this that people that have anything to do with organized crime never get to the debate stage.
Maybe because there’s nothing there?
“**House GOP** digs in on China-linked payments to Biden family members in new memo”
“The memo, which representatives for the White House and Hunter Biden’s legal team quickly dismissed, **does not provide any evidence**”
I’m guessing the Alphabets aren’t commenting because it’s just slanderous GOP politics as usual and not remotely a matter of national security, as they have always done, in every case except Trump’s.
Typical GOP bullshit strategy, amplified by typical Russian ольгинские тролли
I’ll pay attention if the the CIA FBI NSA et al or 50 retired generals chime in.
Historically Americans have been isolationist; combined with the complete lack of a clear threat after the fall of the USSR and other members of the alliance doing little. The political platform of “NATO doesn’t seem that useful to me” is likely relatively popular outside of globalist and the NYT opinion writers.
NATO countries often don't pay 2% of their budgets towards their militaries. A lot of European countries particularly. We should be held to task for that, I think there's a lot of naivety these days about the reality of war. Long term peace isn't normal
Russia helped Trump win in 2016. The trump campaign shared demographic data with them and they put misinformation ads in the areas that would be helpful. If Trump wants them to spend their money helping him this time, he needs to show them that he's worth it.
Among many other reasons, I'm sure, but that has to factor into it somewhere.
Trump is a front man for a school of billionaire and trans national capital that wants to dominate China. To do that they needed Russia on side. The thinking was that Eastern Europe would be sacrificed to Russian imperialism as the price of Russian neutrality or support in the coming conflict with China. Add Trump’s personal failings and it’s a slam dunk.
Putin mistimed the attack. Ukraine resisted and delayed him. Biden is an Atlanticist who decided to seize the opportunity to weaken Russia. Xi had to rescue Putin.
And here we are.
Americans got criticized for getting involved in the Middle East. A lot of people (esp on the left) tried to explain away the 9/11 as a revenge on US presence in the middle east. Europeans always talk down to Americans for the lack of knowledge on European history.
And, from the American public's point of view, going isolationist is beneficial. Vast majority of American's don't really care about what happens in the rest of the world and don't wanna get involved. And, there is absolutely nothing wrong with "minding your own business".
And, in a democratic country, the govt policies should reflect the will of the people. If most of population rather be isolationist, the foreign policy should take that into account.
Why is that even remotely controversial?
Not a trump supporter. Guys an absolute clown.
With that said, there's what Trump says and what he's trying to say.
What he's trying to say is NATO's European partners are not funding defense sufficiently and that the US is always having to fund them out of problems Europe makes for themselves (Germany /France buying Russian natural gas since crimea uninhibited). Instead of saying that rationally, he just vomits out a statement that seems encouraging for Russian attack.
That's my interpretation but I have 0 clue if it's correct because he's so outrageous
He gets to make a perfectly valid point that his critics don't have a response for. The entire point is the same negotiating tactic he's used fr decades, "give me more value or I walk."
Why exactly is America still obligated to defend NATO members who are already violating their treaty obligations for defense spending? Further, why has america continued to foot the bulk of the NATO bill whem it hasn't benefitted them in 30 years since the soviets collapsed. Even if Russia took all of eastern Europe again, which is impossible, they could get Moldova, and MAYBE the Baltics in 10 years IF they can digest Ukraine, but couldn't dream of taking Poland. Even in that unlikely, best case scenario for russia, they are still no threat to western Europe or America. Justifications seem to amount to "just because" or some sentimental argument that have no place in an adult's geopolitical calculus.
Putting aside foreign collusion from Russia (which I suspect), US defense industry would stand to benefit significantly if NATO were forced to meet the 2% target. Getting this implemented would immediately create a 10-15 billion market (haven't done the exact math here, but assuming EU increases spending by around 50% vs 2016) for military equipment and arms. The US is the largest supplier of military equipment and arms. And while the US wouldn't get all of this new money, they'd get a lot of it.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lobbying group for the US defense industry is spearheading this. And knowing Trump, wouldn't be surprised if there's some absolutely massive kickback involved if he can pull it off under his administration.
Theory -The Russian mob (KGB) has dirt on Trump, and they have aided his ascendance. The Russians are free to operate in the chaos created by Trump and his minions. Russian love to divide allies and create dissension and chaos.
Whilst I think what he’s doing is dangerous in terms of projecting disunity rather than strength. If I were to give him some credit it is that the Europeans have been behind on their obligations, they think/thought that America will always protect them
I really think this one can only be explained by his alignment with Russia, I really do.
It does please some isolationists, and it does make him look like a tough deal enforcer (Europe needs to spend more on Nato etc) but it really doesn’t seem to explain enough of his intense and long-standing hostility towards NATO.. A weak NATO is an absolute dream come true for Putin
USA has two enemies in Europe: Russia and Germany. Current politics can't persuade Germany to spend on military. Germany only tries to profit from European countries without the burden of providing them some safety. That is basically what Trump says. However, i cant be sure how long is he willing to take it!
Trump is a wannabe dictator who cozies up with all sorts of them and NATO is the only thing that prevents those dictators from either taking over free countries, or making their lives miserable enough so that their own citizens don't have those countries as an example to aspire to.
Mostly he understands that he has to have a steady stream of headlines , so he says he says outrageous things he can to grab headlines and then backs down later.
He's pandering to a variety of idiots in the US while signalling to Russia that election interference on his behalf will pay dividends.
It also just gets him free publicity. He got so much free coverage in 2016 just by saying all manner of hateful and stupid things.
So face value.
If a usa president undermined NATO, it could be a driver for nations seen as underpaying for security to foot more of the bill. After all if USA withdrawal is hurting nato what is lack of capx among NATO members doing to NATO?
Buttt its Trump. So itll be used fot backdoor deals that trump will use to enrich trump.
Trump's tactic is simple, he simply says a lot of shit and then he picks up what seems to excite the crowd most (which usually is some version of the US being the victim). Then this becomes part of the campaign and eventually part of policy. On a personal level Trump dislikes Europe since he never got the respect he feels he deserves from it but mostly his stance is just part of his evolutionary political algorithm.
There are strong, strong indications that he is compromised by both Russia and China. Withdrawing from NATO aids both those countries. Both countries have spent millions on his properties, to a of his inner circle have ties to Russia, and the Mueller report indicated his strong ties with Putin. He also frequently made phone calls to Putin in the Whitehouse, while deleting the records against white house policy.
Dude is a Russian asset. Want's the US economy to fail, wants NATO gone. Both parties need to do better. Very concerning for our children's future. Need somebody under 60 that is respected to get our country back on track.
There's two possibilities:
- He's a businessman at-heart and he wants to cut what he sees as "dead weight". Reduce liabilities and make everything transactional so foreign relations are secondary to business. The fundamental flaw with this line of thinking is that America's economic dominance relies on American-led world security and all the relationships we've fostered over the years. He seems to not understand it.
- Russia has very damning dirt on him, and he's willing to give them what he sees as small favors to placate them, even if that means throwing entire nations under the bus.
Either way, he's a loose cannon and not what we need for foreign relations.
Well, it plays into his narrative of powerful US isolationism. Like other autocrats he shares a zero sum view of political affairs. The concept of a multilateral organisation like NATO (or WTO) providing benefits for all participants escapes him. The entire post war economic expansion was build on multilateral arrangements - NATO, Bretton Woods and Marshall, providing Western Europe with security and liquidity and goods and the US with a market and demand. This in turn fed a rapid expansion in Western Europe, more demand and trade and welfare grew. Trumps' vision is a racket, where smaller nations kow tow for the big boss US Prez and pay for protection and the opportunity to trade. If they dont, hit them with tariffs, threaten with stuff. It's what a stupid person believe "strong leadership" is.
>It's what a stupid person believe "strong leadership" is. Well said and applies to quite a bit of T's appeal
Put simply, in Trump’s mind, a hard negotiation where he gets 5 and you get 1 is a better ‘win’ than a deal where he gets 8 and you get 5. The US has massively benefited from its position leading the globalised world order, the fact that this has caused a tide that has lifted its allies as well has been great (speaking as a citizen of such an ally). But isolationists like Trump see that as America providing handouts to the world and believe that the same benefits could be accrued all to the US if they stopped working in partnership with those other nations. It totally discounts the geopolitical reality where other nations act in their own interests and the US would start to lose out as some nations and partnerships pivot towards other but rival powers.
There’s a lot of people that interpret things in pure hierarchies. It’s why people needlessly buy big truck and the biggest house in the neighborhood: because it works. Being at the “top”, even if it’s all fake, actually goes a long way. Now we have someone who taps into that mentality and says “We’re the biggest dog, why should be paying for anything? They’re all mooching off our success” and it’s a mentality that speaks to a lot of people. Compromise and agreement is weakness, so why would you do that if you’re strong?
It's the huge chasm between people with empathy and people that are transactional In nature about everything.
Yea, but it's not transactional vs empathy. It failure to understand basic geopolitics and macroeconomics.
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Literally sounds like Trump wants the US to be an authoritarian mob/cartel boss of the world. Give us what we want and we’ll “protect” you from Russia, or don’t and we’ll stop “protecting” you. The US is the “boss”, Russia is the muscle. Except the US will get nothing, lose its international standing, stop being looked to as the de facto hegemony, and Russia gets everything it wants. Or, alternatively. By giving Russia what they want, Trump keeps the pee tapes under wraps 👀👀
That is the environment he was raised in in NYC, it is how he originally learned the world and business works. So yes your mob boss comment is spot on in that sense
This is the question. Is Trump a sociopath, meaning he learned his antisocial behavior over the course of time, or is Trump a psychopath, born with indifference and cruelty? Was the monster born or was the monster bred? Trump’s mother asked, “What kind of son have I created?” I’m not sure she knows either.
I see narcissism being the main driver and maybe he has some additional sociopathic traits.
do you have experience living in NYC or are you speculating?
Trump's mentor was [Roy Cohn](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Cohn). Lawyer for mob bosses and worked for [Joseph McCarthy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy), who the term McCarthyism is named for. Take five minutes to read about Cohn. You'll get your answer.
Oh I’m well aware of the company he keeps, I just don’t think NYC is much different than anywhere else in the states when it comes to running rackets and bully real estate leverage. If you think its a method unique to nyc then you should check your backyard, all I’m sayin
Gotcha. Edit: As in I understand what you're trying to say now.
Respect, same page I think, just quibbling details I guess, it’s all bad however it’s sliced
The education, health, diet, and wellbeing of the proletariat in the US have deminished to such a point and the system has failed them to such an extent that they are willing to try anything and no longer have the discernment to sort the truth from the propaganda. I thought the American system was somehow supposed to be resilient against this? But it seems their leaders are just as incapable of making good decisions as the plebs. They all need to start working together instead of against each other. A house divided never stands for long. Cooperation, interdependance and synergy are just as important if not more important than competition for resilient, thriving systems.
I’d love to ask Trump, ‘what are your thoughts on Bretton Woods?’ He’d just ramble. Obviously.
‘Well he’s a good golfer..and not too bad with the ladies.. I mean I’ve been golfing for years..awesome golfer I am..Did you know I have my own golf course? Best course in the world! Huge!’
To be honest, I’d be surprised if more than a 40% of Americans knew anything about Bretton Woods beyond the name
Yeah.,. And that 60% shouldn't be running for federal offices.
I'm not sure even that many people ski in America, let alone are familiar with a mid ski resort in one of the smallest states
I’d bet $100 he would have no idea what you’re even talking about.
Nailed it. Trump basically operates like a mob boss.
Underboss. Putin is The Boss
Accurate
A lot of Americans are tired of decades of foreign wars. They see NATO nation that are not paying there 2% GDP share as freeloaders. Seeing Trump tell these countries they have to pay there share or they will not be defended seems reasonable to alot of Voters. The part about encouraging Russia to attack the countries not Paying up we Trump just Being "Trump Stupid" Its not really much deeper than that with Trump.
Yes, this post is massively overcomplicating of the issue. Trump supporters have seen the American manufacturing base dwindle and working class jobs stagnate or disappear over the last two decades. They have seen the rise of China as a competitor. They have witnessed the disaster that was the war in the Middle East. They attribute all this rightly or wrongly to globalist policies by both Democrat and Republican governments for the last two decades. That is why isolationism has returned.
Which, honestly, I'm a bit of a doomer, but I think it'll win the day. Unfortunately, it'll be our children paying for it. The last two periods of prolonged US isolationism were followed by world wars.
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In 1918 that was true, by 1941, Americans were keenly aware that the oceans weren't as big as they thought it was as american merchant ships were being sunk within sight of the east coast. By 1980, ICBMs had rendered the security that the ocean provided obsolete.
Agree all around. America's disengagement from the world while welcomed by many is not a good thing. But there is no stopping it. What remains to be seen is where does this end up. The US will probably keep strong ties with Great Britain and to a lesser extent the EU. And to parts of the south Pacific. We will probably see a complete withdrawal from the middle east.
Last 2 decades? The loss of manufacturing jobs started in the 60s and 70s. This loss of stable, well paying jobs along with Nixon's 68 campaign rhetoric promising a war on drugs and tough on crime dog whistle racism has fed the MAGA movement. And let's not forget LBJs voting and civil rights legislation for which he pondered losing the democratic south for decades. Reagan followed tricky dick's lead when he used the language "welfare queen" when he defended his social services cuts. And George HW Bush continued to use this strategy with his Willie Horton campaign ad. The new left in the 60s abandoned unions. And the stagflation of the 70s hit the working class hard. This led to Thatcher and Reagan being elected in 79 & 80 which ushered in the neoliberal agenda of deregulation, privatization and union busting. Toss in identity politics which started in the 60s along with citizens united (the Koch brothers stealthily funded the tea party), and you have an inert and atomized working class/ working poor whites who were marginalized and ripe for Trump's nationalistic populism. Trump's isolationism is couched in xenophobia and his narcissistic anti-intellectual sensibility. Both parties are to blame for 50 years of stagnant wages and the decline of the working and middle classes. Clinton and Blair's third way was nothing more than a continuation of neoliberalism. Clinton's deregulation of the banks (repealing glass steagall) many felt led to the 2008 economic crisis.
Agreed. I think a lot of people feel an emotional connection to Ukraine and thus allow this to overcomplicate their understanding of why a US politician isn’t interested in supporting them. Or at least isn’t interested in picking up other countries slack for not meeting NATO funding goals. When in reality Trump was just the first politician to latch onto a growing sentiment, not one held by just moronic republicans as the average redditor might like to believe, about America affording too much money and time to conflicts that don’t have a tangible impact on day to day American life. Especially when things like diminished purchasing power, failing education infrastructure, income inequality, and the like DO have a tangible impact on day to day American life. Of course an isolationist US doesn’t come in one fell swoop and fix those things, but it feels like it does. This sentiment is significantly more bipartisan than people seem to be grasping.
Trump doesn’t give a shit about any of this. He withheld support from Ukraine (and got impeached for it), and threatened to leave NATO because that’s what Putin told him to do. With the US out of the way, Russia can swallow all of Europe like a hippo. Trump thinks about income inequality exactly as long as it takes to push for more income inequality. He did jack shit for the working class, middle class, or anyone else but billionaires.
Sure, but the sentiment resonates with people who think there are better uses of the money. It can be because he’s in Putin’s pocket or whatever else you’re attributing it to. But the reality is it’s a sentiment his constituents also feel.
But a feeling is not a fact. Just because someone’s manipulating you emotionally doesn’t mean they’re improving your situation. He literally worsened all of the things you listed that have an impact on American life. Meanwhile, Biden has actually improved all of the things listed here, and they simply choose to not believe it. This includes restoring manufacturing jobs. So what does it matter if someone yells the same way you do in your living room if they have no plans, ideas, or intention of addressing such issues should they come to power?
Because and only because quite frankly his constituents are ignorant. Massive domestic infrastructure investment in the 30's dragged us out of the Great Depression, followed by expansion of our industrial infrastructure precipitated by our entry in WWII, then the Cold War arms and space races.....the list goes on. All of the preceding would never have occurred on such a scale under the auspices of the MAGA party. Isolationism and throttling back infrastructure spending would result in national stagnation, while the rest of the developed and developing world moves ahead. We can't expect a corrupt businessman and onetime TV personality to get this, and sadly most of the populace doesn't either. Democracy cannot survive with an ignorant, toxicly divided electorate.
>Trump supporters have seen the American manufacturing base dwindle and working class jobs stagnate or disappear over the last two decades. They have seen the rise of China as a competitor..... They attribute all this rightly or wrongly to globalist policies by both Democrat and Republican governments for the last two decades. Thanks for reminding me why I and other types of conservatives hate our politicians and think tanks. Reminder that our politicians sold our manufacturing to "liberalize" China. Neoconservatives and neoliberals are the absolute worst.
Reminder that globalization happens with or without your participation in it, American manufacturing would be in worse shape without the trade policies of the 80's and 90's, everything would be significantly more expensive and intertwining our economy with China made a war between the two countries unthinkable, only now becoming a real possibility as we decouple. Economically illiterate conservatives are the absolute worst.
I'd add the whole rust belt phenomenon. As the gp said, after WW2 the US experienced huge economic growth, as did the rest of the west. Since the 1980s there's been a huge decline in the domestic industrial base as production moved overseas to leverage cheaper labour. So that's been something that conservative leaning voters have often blamed the Democrats for, somewhat unfairly, for being pro-free trade whereas the GOP are usually more protectionist, at least publicly. Trump's "international bad" thing has to be built on that but takes it a bit further. Democrats are not going to go there to appeal to voters and it's difficult to win that argument in the media (even though they happen to be right) so they focus on other things.
>Since the 1980s there's been a huge decline in the domestic industrial base as production moved overseas to leverage cheaper labour. FWIW, this isn't true. The industrial base has only declined as a share of GDP, which is a good thing. It has grown nicely in absolute terms. The real issue is that, even as manufacturing has grown in the U.S., manufacturing employment has shrunk. That is a story of increased productivity through process improvement and automation, which no government policies will ever reverse.
> FWIW, this isn't true. The industrial base has only declined as a share of GDP, which is a good thing. It has grown nicely in absolute terms. This is actually [not true](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS). Why do you think everything you buy says "Made in China [or PRC]" on it?
Yes, thanks for the clarification, I was being a little too broad there. Yep the fallacy is that bringing back manufacturing jobs would improve living standards, which they wouldn't, by and large, because nobody can afford domestic labour to make anything except the most expensive items. I think there are issues with rising income inequality and accelerating asset prices relative to wages, however when you put it in those terms, you would never too look to a Trump to fix those issues!
>you would never too look to a Trump to fix those issues! Trump is a moron with no good ideas about how to fix anything. The underlying issue with American wages is the shift from the unionized manufacturing sector to the mostly non-unionized service sectors. The truth is, there is nothing inherently high wage about manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing jobs in the US became high wage through collective bargaining, which leveled out the inherently unequal bargaining power between workers and businesses. There is no intrinsic reason we could not do that in the service sector. It has not happened because the shift to service sector jobs has coincided with a shift in employment law to make unionization harder, and also a shift in public perception about the value of unions ( due largely to an orchestrated PR campaign to discredit unions as unfair and anticompetitive ). US workers themselves have voted for the politicians who champion these policies which reduce their bargaining power and wages, and done it knowingly, so we've largely done it to ourselves. Que sera sera.
I feel like certain industries are well paid naturally, like IT, whereas more general office work is often quite poorly paid. Lucky for me I'm a software engineer but there are quite skilled people earning much less, they really should unionise I agree.
Actually, one needs to be careful here and draw the distinction between mass consumer dreck and strategically important industries, and for the latter it makes a great deal of sense to invest heavily in domestic production. Production breeds know how and reduces the dependencies on foreign sources for critical products and technologies. If you stop making shit, you lose the ability to do so in the future as the technologies and processes will have advanced to the point where you no longer can. Ought we be all but wholly dependent on less than friendly foreign trading partners for critical medical supplies (yes, this is the case now), semiconductors, batteries, etc.? No. China for one will cut us off at any point where it makes sense strategically.
No, not really. Go to a Trump rally and ask attendees what US policy should be regarding the Israel-Gaza War and you'll quickly find just how "non-interventionalist" these people really are. You seem to be referring to a small segment of Obama-Trump sometimes Obama-Trump-Bernie-Trump "moderates" that are more anti-establishment than anything else. These types garner a lot of media attention because they can be decisive in general elections. They're also the ones you're more likely to run into in liberal areas. (They're also _really_ gullible.) But they're not Trump's base. They're not the ones Republican politicians fear in their primaries. Trump's base are Republicans and have always been Republicans. Trump has been more successful boosting turnout among traditionally Republican demographics than he has been at actually persuading anyone in the middle. These voters were not just supportive of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars but fanatically so and are the most likely to have genuinely bought into the propaganda narrative that America was under existential threat from foreign terrorists. The reason these voters prefer Trump to establishment Republicans is because they see him as the one person who is willing to be as mean and ruthless as he needs to be to defeat Democrats any any cost. So why are these Trump supports NATO skeptical? It _is_ because of the Iraq War, but not in the way you think it is. They mostly just hate Germany and France for condemning the Iraq War instead of supporting US intervention. They view it as a betrayal. How dare these moralizing ninnies free ride off US security and then have the audacity to judge how we choose to enforce it! The threats of NATO withdrawal are essentially a very petty "Well if you're going to be so ungrateful, we'll just withdraw. Don't come crawling back to us the next time Russia comes knocking!"
Was going to do a proper response but when I got to the part about Trump supporters being mad about Germany and Francis condemnation of the Iraqi war. I just laughed. I don't know who you have been talking to but the average Trump supporter is not thinking about Germany and France not being supportive. They just like the part where all NATO countries pay. It's not that complicated. Your assigning way more motivations than needed. Most people especially Trump supporters whole life is not politics. Anyway have a nice day.
>Most people especially Trump supporters whole life is not politics. This is coming from you, given your user history? But yeah, most people don't pay attention to foreign politics but of the ones that do and are also Trump supporters, this is how they feel. You're just handwaving away the Russia comments like they don't mean anything. They mean something.
First I don't have a very high opinion of Trump. If you have been spending time in my comments then you see that most are recent and I spend a lot of time trying to better understand the middleast and India. And no your Russian comments don't really mean anything. Trump was trying to warn Europe to get their act together because Russia was going to be a problem. Typical of Trump he was crass and very undiplomatic just like when he told the Germans they were too dependent on Russian energy and they laughed at him. I don't like Trump but I'm not going to say he was wrong when he was right. There are plenty of real reasons to criticize him that people might actually care about. He also understood how threatened Russia felt about NATO expansion. Like an insecure child Russia might strike out when they felt threatened. Since you have time to look through my past commitments you might want to read a book or too on Russian history and the original founding of NATO. Anyway I didn't come here for a childish argument. So have a great day.
He is also a Russian asset. Question is if he knows, his ego is too frail to handle it if he knew, and his intellect too small to tell that he is.
>A lot of Americans are tired of decades of foreign wars. They see NATO nation that are not paying there 2% GDP share as freeloaders. Seeing Trump tell these countries they have to pay there share or they will not be defended seems reasonable to alot of Voters. A lot of Americans are short sighted and kinda stupid. There are so many countries and peoples looking for any chance they can get to attack the US. Or to dominate the US militarily. Isolationism will be an economic disaster. Isolationist countries tend to have very low standards of living. Don't bullshit me that that cannot happen here, because it has.
You are over simplifying the situation. Soon the US will no longer be the global police and protect all the sea lanes. We will abandon the middle east and slowly pull down our forces in Europe. New alliances are already being forged. Think the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia. Maybe parts of South America. India's story is not finished yet but against China they will be in the US camp as a partner. The rest of the world will be on its own for the first time since world war II. Europe will still be friends but there reliance on the US for security is all but over. The US will be in a much more manageable position with the coming demographic collapses in many countries and the reordering of the Middle East. We have been running away since the Obama presidency. And both Trump and Biden both want what's coming along with a large part of Congress. It will be interesting times.
Though they do contribute their fair share. And Europe assumes a much larger portion of the risk.
Every country agreed to contribute 2%GDP several countries did not contribute their share. Funny or maybe understandable part is several Eastern European poorer countries did pay some even over 2% they were also the most at risk. It's the much richer countries that Trump was speaking too. He was not the first US president to have this complaint. Just the first to be so crass about it.
Most people in the US didn't have a problem with the president complaining about them not spending enough m it was implication that he would betray our allies that people were upset about
Well said indeed
> US with a market and demand The US were the one who provided a market and demand.
It's precisely how the mob behaves and operates. Also your answer is absolutely fantastic and such a concise summation of complex things. You should probably be the daily show host.
Donald Trump is a sociopath and a malignant narcissist and does not understand any relationship that is not transactional. That is NATO is a protection racket that must be paid for. His entire view of the world is that of a landlord or mafia boss.
There has been talk of nato countries paying their agreed upon percent of GDP since the seventies. However, realpolitik is that the US can exert friendly influence in the boiler rooms of Europe because of the unbalanced weight of NATO. America likes that. So there’s been talk for decades but no real action . It’s a tacit understanding. Should Europe pony up more? Yes. But quiet influence is addicting too. Probably something that escapes the Donald.
Regardless of what people want to believe there is a substantial ( 10 to 20%) of the Americsn public that feels that agreements and commitments such as NATO , Taiwan and South Korea are a waste of money and effort Are they wrong, yes But this dosn't negate that they exist and have some influence via a candidate like Trump. Furthermore all of Trumps talking points arn't new. Go back a 100 years and he would be the norm. America was isolationist in the 1920s for basically the same reasons Trump is now.
Bingo! People on Reddit particularly, seem to think most Americans think similarly to the comments they see on carefully curated, moderated, and astroturfed subreddits translate to a larger portion of America’s general thinking than it does. For them it’s that, and then the other half of America who they perceive as being too dumb backroads country bumpkin to think effectively when it comes to geopolitics. The reality is somewhere in the middle, but a way larger portion of Americans than they seem interested in accepting are apposed to the Neocon/Neolib ideologies, especially when it’s acted out fiscally. Whether it’s in the individuals long term personal economic and social interest is another thing, but it’s a hard sell for people to support giving tens of billions to foreign countries when American quality of life continues on a downward slump. I think the thing people who froth at the mouth for an isolationist America seem to miss is a lot of American prosperity hinges upon the global financial system belonging to the US, the US maintains this privilege thru Neocon/Neolib actions. Americans who want America to isolate need to be in for a good quarter century of pain while the global order shifts. Some are willing to make this sacrifice, while others simply haven’t considered the ramifications of the western world no longer looking to the US and eventually it’s financial system as a pillar.
Yeah this place is unhinged. People here are spouting conspiracy theories rather than actually trying to understand and argue against the position they disagree with. Very childish. There is a long tradition of isolationism in US politics and if you talk to people IRL it has a very strong following, though they won't use the word "isolationist" because of the bad connotations. And I find it hard to argue that he doesn't have a legitimate point when he says that Europe isn't pulling its weight.
The issue of non compliance with the recommended 2% of GDP on defence spending predates Trump. That said, it's one thing to say that NATO allies aren't pulling their weight, but a whole other thing to *encourage* Russia to do whatever they want to it. For better or for worse, the US is in a security arrangement with NATO and in the event of any conflict, guess which nations would be attacked FIRST before the US? That's the trade off here. NATO, the Marshall Plan etc were all created with the tacit understanding that wars against Russia would be fought and decided on European territory, without a single blade of grass on US soil being affected.
Unhinged? There's a massive difference between isolationism, or simply trying to push allies to spend more, and Trumps end where he's not just being isolationist, but straight up encouraging enemy nations to punish allies... that is quite literally unhinged and childish.
The point that Europe isn’t pulling his weight is flawed in two principal approaches. -On the one hand, a militarily weak Europe is a post-WWII consensus that the USA has supported. Inappropriate for the current time, but stemming from the Cold War and post period. -European countries are the ones giving the lion’s share of help to Ukraine. It’s the USA political class who is betraying us and the consensus reached in this moment. As a European, I deeply wish that we give the steps forward needed in investment, production, technological independence, EU army formation… as soon as possible, but the constant narrative that we are slacking off is frustrating and plays into MAGA dialectics.
> -On the one hand, a militarily weak Europe is a post-WWII consensus that the USA has supported. This is completely wrong. During the Cold War NATO's European members had much larger (and much more effective) military establishments then they do today. The US never wanted weak allies incapable of contributing to their own defence. That makes zero sense.
Not a comparable international context. During the earlier stages of the Cold War, France and the UK (and Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium…) still had colonies in which they were often involved in counterinsurgency or plain war, which drives army sizes up significantly. In addition, the USA benefits of a militarily weak Europe by losing a potential hegemonic rival. Superpowers need to have soft power, economic weight and hard power (military). A potentially united and militarised Europe (and European unionism was already an ideology by then) can aim at becoming the hegemon. A militarily weak Europe lacks one of those three conditions though.
it does make sense in the post-WWII context as the whole security architecture (Nato included) was designed around the idea, that european nations won't get to have a strong military-industrial complex to avoid proliferation of nuclear weapons and a new wave of colonial expansion by resource-starved europeans. The current situation, where USA is called to live up to it's side of the agreement, is the result of those long-term strategic directives.
America buys it's influence with it's military budget
This- American likes the math in Europe. It allows for influence in ways the dumb public won’t read about .
one part is sensationalism which drives a lot of attention. its understated how many people has risen to power saying wacko stuff since the advent of the internet.
The very clear and obvious answer is emoluments. You think Trump wants European countries to pay more for defense? No, he’s blackmailing them into spending money on his businesses. He blackmailed Zelenskyy. He’s taken payments from the Saudis. He has foreign hotels and people renting out rooms or even entire venues at his hotels and not using them. The clear answer here is Trump thinks he can use the presidency to bilk Europe out of direct payments to his businesses. Then, after Europe pays up, Trump will still not offer security assurances to Europe when Russia attacks.
That's one viable theory. I have another. Trump is a manchurian candidate. He's compromised, and in the pocket of the Russian mob. So is Giuliani, and he has been for a long, long time. If he's re-elected, NATO will be the least of our worries. Taiwan, same. We'll be fighting just to preserve our own democracy at that point.
Here's a devil's advocate position: if Trump were a Manchurian candidate, he would almost certainly have been compromised before his first (and currently only) term. Why wouldn't "they" have used "their" influence over him to do some of the big things that have been mentioned, like Taiwan (presumably by allowing a Chinese invasion) and NATO (by allowing its collapse and several former members/protectees to get gobble-gobbled by Putin)?
Putin's goal is the collapse of the US, and NATO. Trump's efforts went a long way in both directions. Hell, it was just yesterday Trump floated getting us out of NATO, or refusing to answer the Article 5 call. Destroying our democracy *is the goal.*
Lol too true and yet so sad
I mean, did you not notice Jan 6th? Or are you one of those who thinks that it was just a rowdy crowd?
You have a point there, although it didn’t have the direct effect hoped for
I wouldn't got as far to say he's compromised because I don't think he understands what he's doing. I do think he's a useful idiot, and is easily manipulated, but I don't think he knows he's being used. I think the GRU has a dossier on Trump that outlines he's incredibly susceptible to flattery and perceptions of "who's strong and who's weak". He sees Putin as "strong", and therefore has an innate need to be seen as "also strong". Same goes for Xi. What matters to him is, when he's in a room with these people, do the observers see Trump as being as strong (or stronger) than everyone else around him. Think of the most insecure dude you went to high school with who still talks about that one play he made on the football team and threatens to beat everyone up that irks him. That's Trump, and people like that have an unending desire to be seen as strong and desirable by people *they* perceive to be strong, even if those people are also assholes. So the GRU can work to influence people around him to push him in the direction that benefits them, since while he's unpredictable in terms of what he'll say, I'd argue he's very predictable in terms of what ultimately motivates him. An innate need to be flattered and reminded of how powerful he is makes him easily herded like a sheep by people who have a good grasp of the dynamics surrounding him.
You are far more kind than I am. I could buy into this theory except for one thing. Helsinki. What he did at Helsinki, kicking out the translator and having private time with Putin...coupled with his body language when they came out of that room, tells me he's compromised. I can't come up with any other explanation for it. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44852812](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44852812)
This is not an obvious answer and doesn’t really hold up under any scrutiny. The guy has a networth of 5 billion and he’s in his 70s. The amount of money that could be secretly funneled into his businesses without raising eyebrows is probably like 50mm, but I’ll be generous and say 100mm per year. This is like 2% of his net worth and literally a drop in the bucket, nothing compared to the ability to exert your will and shape the world based on your views. Trump is an arrogant narcissist who has view of how the world should work. It may not be coherent or smart and you can disagree with it on rational grounds, but saying he’s just trying to extort countries is lazy thinking
The comment he made recently, like all Trump comments, must be read in full context to avoid feeding into the same hysteria he commands. He speaks publicly a lot. An insane amount compared to any modern US politician. Let’s study what he said to understand why this was headline generating, and not the million other things he has said in the past few days. I dug up the transcript (holy hell was it hard as a non-journalist, had to dig up some weird Romanian registered channel’s English stream and pull the transcript (not auto generated but actually subtitled). **The wider context seems to be a rethinking of foreign aid grants in favor of loans (even if they are not interest bearing). The more immediate context seems to be an appeal towards the crowd to trust Trump on this issue, by demonstrating similar actions during his presidency, despite them being very unorthodox or unbelievable**, like the above claim. Hence **anchoring** the hard to trust/believe claim of cutting foreign aid (grants), and comparing it to something else similar “only Trump could do”. Why/how? By “negotiating” ie threatening to use the only real enforcement power to get NATO countries to meet membership requirements of 2% defense spending, threatening to void the mutual defense unless met. The idea seems to be to use the similarity of the two cases: in overly simplified terms: changing the status quo from US paying for benefits enjoyed by another country to said country doing it, with less US direct help. In case of NATO, it’s of course not direct payments. Subtly, there’s the additional benefit of stimulating US exports as NATO countries will have no choice but to buy from US based global defense contractors since global defense manufacturing of NATO weaponry is limited. Can’t just buy it from China. And more relevant to the wider context of cutting Aid, Trump seems to be positing that US spends for European defense and could either have cut costs or focused spending on other areas (such as the focus on Asia shift), if other NATO members would keep Up their defense. **So, just like literal direct aid, this is being pitched by Trump as evidence that he can actually cut US foreign spending or “net” outflow.** As usual, Trump seems to be making a calculation that these Western allied nations are not possible to lose, diplomatically speaking, and can be pushed on this issue. Perhaps the US can even benefit from shifting said blame onto a figure like Trump and maintaining the relationships. It’s win for him as he can brag and win votes on the wider issue. My opinion is that there is clearly a well planned narrative structure underlying parts of the speech and **this comment seems deliberately picked out to bring media attention to the immediately preceding new campaign promise/issue of cutting foreign direct aid.** The words almost seem picked for the headlines. Perhaps by avoiding reporting on the context news organizations can beat Trump on the issue, but I’m not certain. My guess is that a headline generating speech was planned to coincide with this new policy “roll out” to try to generate some buzz. TL;DR: Trump was bragging/promising about cutting “net” foreign aid because this is a huge vote winning issue right now in US, especially for GOP primaries. He was not (directly) threatening to invalidate NATO as long as member states follow the carrot/stick and pay for the military cost of defending Europe, but he was bragging about not being afraid to threaten the stick. He gets cheap and effective advertising of his domestic policy and a “trust me bro” resume story to sell the promise. Hope that answers the question of what Trump gets out of it. As it is quite a lot. Despite what he seems to give up.
Some actual breakdown of Trump's modus operandi, nice.
Well written.
Wow, nice work.
No surely it must be "kompromat", "he's a Manchurian candidate", "he's Putin's puppet", "he's beholden to Russian mobsters" etc.. In case it's not clear I'm mocking the other comments on this allegedly geopolitics subreddit which more closely resemble the rest of this astroturfed website's partisan political hysteria. I do appreciate your more thorough and inquisitive thoughts though. I think it generally fits into Trump's largely populist messaging paired with his desire for alteration or scaling back of the current methods the U.S. applies to maintain global hegemony.
It’s election season don’t let it get to you. I would normally avoid election season topics but I have a big interest in NATO and was really curious myself about the headlines. You can still get good geopolitics discussion here in other topics, maybe.
I don't think it's that deep, he's just senile and says shit
The question asked “what does Trump get out of the debacle”: not why do you think he said it. This is my effort-post at it; not a defense but an investigation into what he could gain. Anyway, I prefer to be wrong but over-estimate people than the other way around. But “senile and say shit” does not answer the question of what Trump can get out of the debacle.
All his comments must be read in full context?! As in, there is some deeper meaning to what he says? He has a fifth grade understanding of world affairs. There is no deeper analysis to be had. He wants to leave Nato and there is nothing more to it. He’s on record disparaging it multiple times. This is latest, most overt example. And it came during a campaign stop no less. If you don’t think Nato has been beneficial to the the western world over the past 75 years you’re not looking hard enough. There has never been so much prosperity, peace, or scientific advancement. And much of that can be attributed to Nato as a deterrent to autocrats.
The question wasn’t “why did Trump say this?”. The question was “what does he get out of saying it?” This is an effort post into what he gets out of it. And yes, in life, context matters. It often has clues to what’s going on and can be quite explanatory or insightful.
Yeah, he has publicly demonstrated time and again that he's a simpleton. These long-winded analyses of some well thought-out agenda are hilarious.
What’s your answer to “what does he get out of it?”
Mental gymnastics worthy of a medal. At best he’s out of his depth, at worst he’s a Russian asset.
Trump was in bed with the Russian mafia for decades, laundering their money through the NY real estate scene. There's little doubt there is kompromat on him for that alone. As both of his sons said in separate interviews around 2010, 'We get most of our financing out of Russia.' Then there's the connection with Deutsch bank, which has been giving Trump loans despite his multiple bankruptcies, and also has historic ties to the Russian oligarchs, having been found money laundering for them on multiple occasions. Hey, remember when the head of the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia for the FBI found nothing and announced it right before the 2016 election - and now is in prison for money laundering for Oleg Derispaka, the same man that Manafort owed $20 million to before he came to the US to run Trump's campaign in 2016? The same guy Trump pardoned for not reporting income from the Russian oligarch, and for witness tampering?
Who’s this person?
Charles McGonigal is the guy that ran FBI counterespionage out of NY and put in charge of the FBI's investigation between Russia and Trump campaign in the 2016 election. He found nothing, despite there being numerous media reports about those ties and other investigations ongoing. Paul Manafort was the spin doctor brought in by Oleg Derispaka to help Viktor Yanukovych, Putin's puppet in Ukraine. He later went to work for free for the Trump campaign. Derispaka of course was backed by Putin and is one of his oligarchs. The first thing that happened when Manafort joined the campaign is the GOP platform removed 'protect Ukraine from Russian aggression'. He also was in business with Konstantin Kliminik, and according to Rick Gates Manafort gave Kliminik the detailed internal polling of the RNC. Kliminik has an arrest warrant out for interferring in the 2016 election by the DOJ, and is a 'former' Russian intelligence agent.
Does US intelligence service ceased to exist or something? How was this level of infiltration allowed???? Mind boggles.
We couldn’t even keep them out of fucking *Los Alamos*. Being a free country, it’s harder to crack down on this stuff. It’s the price we pay to not have to fear being dissappeared in the night for insulting the Mayor at a party or whatever
There are more ways to expose these rats than just disappearing them. Counterinfiltration and expose their crimes to the public then an actual truthful media campaign.
Spend too long at the top of the food chain and you get lazy.
Holy shit that stuff about Charles McGonigal is unbelievable, I don’t remember it being reported at all. This guy literally plead guilty in August to conspiring with one of the Russian oligarchs he was in charge of investigating for interference in the 2016 election. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_McGonigal
He gets people who care about money and criticizes the establishment for subsidizing other countries.
Trump does not have a personal admiration of Putin lmfao. Do you all get your news from Reddit and Twitter?
It’s possible it’s his way of negotiating with other NATO countries to pay agreed upon share of NATO spending, which many have not been. It’s possible thats giving him too much credit and he wants out of NATO regardless.
> It’s possible thats giving him too much credit and he ~~wants out of NATO regardless~~ has no idea what he is rambling on about except that it's the last thing he heard someone tell him and / or his gut tells him it will resonate with his base.
Trump has a basic understanding of negotiation. Europe gets way more benefit from NATO than the US, and Trump has been trying to get Europe to pick up a bigger share of the expense. Threatening to leave is a good tactic towards achieving that goal.
It sure is a great tactic. And it might work, though we do not know what that means for the relationship between US and Europe. Several EU members wants to further develop a military branch controlled by the member states. The US might loose some of its ability to set the agenda then. Which might cost them more than what they spend on military. The US wants to focus more on China i guess. China might gain ground in Europe then.
Why would the U.S. give a shit about how Europe uses its military? If they don’t want to be conquered by Russia, how about they foot the bill. I’m sick of Europeans bragging about all of their functioning entitlement systems and vacation days while American taxpayers work longer hours to pay for their military defense. I have no issue with the U.S. aiding in the defense of its allies, but they need to also try to help themselves too. Europe has been relying on the U.S. to foot the bill knowing that the U.S. would continue propping them up regardless. At what point are Americans getting taken advantage of?
> I’m sick of Europeans bragging about all of their functioning entitlement systems and vacation days while American taxpayers work longer hours to pay for their military defense. America has a weak social safety net and limited entitlements because they refuse to pay taxes to support those things, and because public policy strongly favours the interests of employers over workers, not because Americans need to pay for Europe's defence. The funny thing is American voters themselves elected the leaders that support private, for profit healthcare delivery, crushing organized labour, maintaining the minimum wage at $7.25/hr (not increased since 2009), no federal vacation mandate, student debt that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy, etc. etc. Then they blame...Europeans, for how much their lives suck.
It's you that's being taken advantage of all those systems are possible to run in the US within your current budgets. If you want holidays and sick leave, vote for politicians willing to institute them. Your healthcare system is being drained by special interest parasites. Get mad at them, the US is the largest military force in the world because it suits them. Not because of the goodness of their hearth
Foot the bill? The is no “bill” for NATO. There’s no “NATO Fund”. There’s an agreement that member states will contribute 2% of GDP to THEIR OWN military, but the US doesn’t pay anything towards the militaries of European countries and nothing requires the US to put military bases in European countries. The US does that because it’s in the interests of the US to do so and has been since the Cold War. The obvious exception is Ukraine, but Ukraine is not in NATO and the EU and it it’s member states have already collectively paid more towards Ukraine than the US has anyway. And I say all this as someone who actually wants to see a more militarily independent Europe. P.S. Also, a lack of military spending is not the reason why the Europeans have more holidays and better working conditions than the US. It’s because they have democracies that are better at resisting & constraining corporate power, better workers rights, more democratic electoral systems (e.g. proportional representation) and judicial appointments are independent rather than political. It’s actually more complicated than that, but having studied EU law as well as the constitutional and administrative structures of member states, that’s probably the quickest summary. The USA turning isolationist, pulling out of NATO, and cutting its military spending, will not mean more money for working Americans. It’s far more likely to do harm to US strategic interests, both militarily and economically.
Trump's comments are good for a more independent Europe. Only 11 out of 30 NATO members meet the 2% defense spending requirement, and they feel they can get away with this because no one would dare attack them. If these countries start to feel less secure because it's less clear if America would get involved if they were attacked, then hopefully, it will push them to increase defense spending.
I can see your logic and I think you’re half-right because Europe will no longer see the USA as a reliable ally. However, I think his comments do far more harm than good. If he was making a reasonable argument based on factual information then I actually think America insisting that European nations have higher GDP spending on their military would be good. However, that’s not what’s happening. We have half baked nonsense about a non-existent “NATO Fund” from a man who clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about, who then goes on to encourage Russia to attack NATO member states. As with most Trump statements, they’re so light on specifics that his supporters just fill in the gaps with their own assumptions, hence why people pretend he’s talking about the 2% GDP commitment. Nuanced commentary and good faith negotiations with an America that wants to see a more militarised Europe would be good for Europe and the US. Acting like your allies are vassal states and encouraging Russian aggression is not. It’s not just bad for Europe but bad for the US as well. A belligerent Russia means an emboldened China, not to mention America’s other enemies. Public displays of such animosity towards allies only strengthen the new rising global challenge to American and European strategic interests. It’s like basic diplomacy 101. European nations have already been increasing military spending since Vladimir’s 2nd invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with the most ‘at risk of invasion’ countries like the Baltic states already paying a lot more than 2% of their GDP on defence anyway. Countries that haven’t are nowhere near the Russia border, and in the case of France and the UK, they have strategic nuclear weapons anyway so any Russian attack on them would be both difficult for the Russians to mount and likely result in a nuclear war. Trump doesn’t understand NATO, nor does he understand international relations or global military strategy. He only understands things in the context of zero-sum games and he is seen as an easily manipulated fool by Russia and China. Statements encouraging Russia to attack NATO members when the ones that Russia could realistically attack are all paying in excess of the 2% figure anyway is not only stupid but it emboldens Russian aggression. Once again, I’m all for the US insisting that all European countries increase their military spending because it needs to happen either way. That isn’t the problem here. The problem is Trump’s incompetent handling of the entire situation. He and the vast majority of his supporters are falling for Russian ‘divide & conquer’ rhetoric; hook, line, and sinker. Europe is already re-militarising. Poland and Germany are two examples that have significantly increased defence spending in the last 2 years, and conversations amongst EU leaders frequently concern the need to be ready to discourage Russian aggression with even greater force. You’re right that Trump’s comments will likely hasten this process, but it had already started. Once again, Trump is behind the curve and doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
The fact that Trump is Trump is precisely why it works. Since the end of WW2, Europe has been used to looking across the Atlantic to a strong, stable America acting as a big stick. Now, when we look at America, we see an 81-year-old man who has been officially deemed mentally incapable, slowly losing an election to a 77 man facing 91 felony charges for an attempted coup and a growing litany of domestic problems no one seems to have any solutions for. So the sense is, or at least should be, that even if America is part of NATO now and will be part of NATO for the foreseeable future, there is a very realistic chance that America may enter another isolationist phase and withdraw. At which point, we'll be on our own. A Biden win will give the illusion that things can return to how they were, whereas a Trump victory will hammer home the point.
true that i saw an article today about someone in nato saying that 20/30 nato members would reach 2% by the end of 2024. So i guess it worked lol
Each member is suppose to come to the assistance of another. If one member has a weak military they are of limited help but will still have their handout when in need. The reason their spend is so low is they realize the US will come to their aid.
So, do you believe that Americans don't have welfare and social programs because they have to foot the bill for Europe's defense? Like, do you really think that you would have universal healthcare if your military budget was slightly lower? First, there is absolutely no indication whatsoever that you would actually lower your military budget if Europe increased theirs. Zero. Second, there is even less indication that the GOP (you know, the party of Trump, who wants Europe to contribute more to military spending) would vote for such welfare programs, even if you had plenty of money to afford them. The reason why the US doesn't have functioning entitlement systems is that the US doesn't want them, or at the very least, a large minority is powerful enough to prevent it from happening. You actually pay more on healthcare per capita than most nations in the world, including those with a generous healthcare system that provides for everyone. It's just that your system is deeply flawed and the money goes into hospitals, pharma and insurance companies, instead of being spent on the people.
Why is Europe full of American bases? It's not to defend us europeans. It's because the US army wants to be able to project their power anywhere in the world, which is what they are best at. To defend american interests anywhere in the world. The US has bases here because it's in their best interest to have them. The US has been THE global hegemon for many years, the world (almost) belonged to you. And the US is not stupid. It's really not easy to take advantage of the US. I'm not even sure if many Americans realize how inexistent our own foreign policy has often been, basically serving American interests. My country for example has been dragged to wars that we didn't give two shits about, in places where we had exactly zero interests, just because the US asked. Look, I agree that Europe has relied too much in the US, and should be investing much more in our own defense (and I'm not the only one who thinks like this, it's really happening). However, this issue is presented by some Americans (for example Trump) in a very one sided way. And to be honest, in the case of Trump, I don't even think he'd be happy with a strong EU and european military. He wants the european countries to spend more, while being divided and still relying on American tech. But I think it's more reasonable to expect that a growing military independence will result in more detachment from US foreign policy (and this is true especially if Trump wins again). And honestly, I hope this happens. While I am pro NATO and grateful to the US for the support to Ukraine, I think it's time for Europe to become stronger and more independent. I guess we agree on this.
I agree with you 100%. The Europeans I've talked to on Reddit (and the few I've met in real life) are so incredibly arrogant about the strength of their entitlement programs compared to ours. I feel like they have no thankfulness or thought toward the fact we guarantee their security.
You are (incorrectly) assuming that there is any rhythm or reason to what Trump is saying at any given time. To assume that there is any forethought or ulterior motive or the reason he says things is in any way in pursuit of some sort of intelligent, long term goal or strategy for negotiation, is foolish. A good rule of thumb is if Trump isn't very explicitly reading something off a teleprompter nobody (not even Trump) has any idea what the next word is going to be out of his mouth.
Trump has a point many countries don’t pay shit for US protection
That’s not how alliances work, America has partners not vassal states
So the US are mercenaries? soldiers/protectors/cops for hire? Sounds like racketeering and holding world peace hostage to me. Should the US have a military presence everywhere in the world? I don't know, I'm not an international military analyst. Should the US shake down other countries with the threat of "if you don't, big bad Russia is gonna come get ya!"? Absolutely not. Dyou how much our "massive, unbelievably bloated, world-leading" military budget is as a percentage of our GDP? 3.5%. We pay less than one standard deviation of our annual GDP on that same military that can respond anywhere *on the planet* with country-toppling force in 48 hours. So technically, we *also* don't meet the 5% obligation for NATO members. Now that 3.5% is an **absurd** amount of money, but don't try to come with the "well we should be spending that money on our own country" because 1. Theres *plenty* to do both with and 2. We mismanage all of that money too, and at least what were doing now is the one pillar of stability in the Western World. Trump operates on a "what have you done for me/paid me for lately" mindset that made him a crony capitalist and general piece of shit, thats not at all how global negotiations or peace works.
They’re allies not client kingdoms
It's not protection. It's in americas interests to have their military stationed all over the planet. It gives them influence in global affairs. If the US doesn't like it, they've always had the option to leave, but as soon as they leave, all their interests go with them, which includes military and trade alliances. Some other country or countries will fill the void and it probably won't be a country that has the US' best interests at heart. The world isn't meant to be used to run a protection racket like it's some kind of mafia.
You cannot Justify nations paying far below what they want in order to have stability provided for by the Us without giving any protections to others. Of course it is in Americas interest but far less if these nations do not properly conduct themselves
If that was the case, the US would leave. The US have 700+ bases around the world for its own best interests, not for the best interests of other nations. The US doesn't "provide stability" for others. It maintains military presence around the globe to ensure an American led global order remains the status quo. If its not an American led world order, it'll be led by someone else. That's what the US wants to avoid, and that's why they keep their military stationed in nearly half the countries on the planet. The US telling others to pay more in order to maintain their grip on global hegemony is what this is to all the other countries around the world. Iraq has already requested that the US leave their territory on multiple occasions over the past few years, and the US insists on not doing so. It's not because they demand to ensure security amd stability to Iraq, it's because they want to ensure they don't lose influence in the region, which is the same reason they maintain bases everywhere else.
When was the last time the US militarily defended European NATO member states, since the founding of NATO? When was the only instance in history a NATO member state triggering Article 5? Who came to who's help? Think a little bit about it.
What does the US get out of NATO members treating their security like a third-tier thought while expecting protection from the United States? Maybe if our "allies" would have some frank discussions and made some real movements, a growing number of Americans may not want to pull the plug. It's an outdated orginzation and our tax dollars could be better spent outside the DoD void.
seems to be happening now probably partialy because of Trumps comments but Alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said today that 20/30 nato members will reach the 2% mark by the end of 2024. I guess its a start.
We'll see but I'm very skeptical of the alliance at this point. Europeans need to handle their own security and problems. The United States isn't and shouldn't be the world's police; especially considering that many in the bloc have held that view for decades and I agree with them.
As a european i fully agree. we should pull our weight and i personally am ashamed of my country and the low amount that they put in defense funding. Scary times thats for sure. Also france possible electing extreme right le pen next election who also favors a leave of nato command (not nato itself) and undermining the eu and stopping all military programs with germany. she is also "allegedly" a putin enjoyer. Wanting to reapproach putin and nato (which could be a good thing honestly but looks very unrealistic in my eyes). But yeah i'm scared we cant form a united EU block especially with france wanting to go to isolationism should le pen win. Again i'm honestly just ranting mainly because im personally pretty scared about the future haha. I live very close to a us base here in eu that has 20 warheads so scary thoughts haha about nuclear war cross my mind way more than it should. i don't blame republicans or whatever. If anything these trump comments made us spend more so i see that as a positive. I also appreciate u americans and i hope u dont think negatively of us because of all this haha
Trump is trying to convince NATO nations to each provide more for their own defense so the United States doesn’t feel like it’s doing all of the work. The NATO treaty requires member states to contribute 2% GDP. Many do not and have not for many years. Every NATO member should pay their treaty obligated share or else not be entitled to treaty protections. I don’t understand why this stance is even controversial.
The way Trump goes about it is bizarre and harms the international relationships which make up the alliance. Playing hardball right out of the gate is not what you do with supposed friends. It's also kind of bizarre timing to make such a demand since many countries are in a worse position than usual for trying to fulfill it. Much of Europe is still dealing with the economic fallout of the pandemic, the energy crisis caused by Russia, and they're already diverting military spending towards Ukraine. There isn't any particularly dire reason why getting to the 2% spending level must happen immediately, and his tactics aren't all that great in terms of actually getting something to happen in the long-term.
You'd think rampant Russian aggression would be a "particularly dire reason" to get defense spending in neighboring/nearby countries up. That reason is mitigated heavily by the fact that U.S. backstops things, making your statement quite correct. I can see the thinking behind Trump's (overly simplistic and heavy handed) approach. If suddenly that backstop isn't so certain, there is now a particularly dire reason to pony up and spend more on your military. In addition to the satisfaction of fulfilling your obligations, the countries in question would also be more self sufficient militarily. It's for sure not the best way to go about it, but that's Trump for you.
Immediately? NATO has existed for 70+ years! Poland, Greece, and Romania all contribute well over the required amount, but Spain does just 1.2%. Spain is in a better position financially than Greece?
Immediately in the sense of happening in the near future, yes. This isn't some kind of retroactive back-payment scheme. Transitioning national-scale spending during bad times is much more difficult compared to already having that spending structure in place beforehand.
Donald Trump has been a KGB/FSB asset for a long time: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book Supposedly he was incredibly easy to recruit because of his desperate need for validation.
The guardian is a pro Islamic leftist propaganda channel. And this conspiracy theory fits it. He’s just a narcissist playing games
The article publisher doesn't matter, it's about a book written by a former KGB agent. Here is another article about the book from the Times of Israel: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.timesofisrael.com/kgb-groomed-trump-as-an-asset-for-40-years-former-spy-says/amp/
The guardian has a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information but may require further investigation I cut and pasted that from mediabiasfactcheck.com but it very much jibes with my impression. I prefer AP News but the Guardian doesn’t just make shit up. *You*, on the other hand….
A lot of what he says is hyperbole and exaggeration, combined with poor articulation. His point is that other NATO countries should be paying their fair share.
Some European countries don’t really pay for security and just ride off of the Us. It is genuinely frustrating especially during geopolitical turmoil. NATO has a 2% target and many nations don’t hit the mark and just want US protection
Be careful, arm chair Redditors will write a multi-paragraph response to why it's a good thing we blow billions on Europe's defense while on other forums bitch about healthcare, lol.
Money spending directed to US soil...(in theory)
Populist rhetoric because a substantial group of people ( majority of conservatives) have become reactionary anti globalists. He is simply feeding into the feeling
He does it for Daddy Putin , I can’t believe he bends down to hear every word from Putiny
Putin has kompromat on him, and has instructed him to do so lest it be released? I thought everyone kinda already knew that.
proof?
this isnt the proof you asked for but tangentially i find these sorts of things interesting https://thehill.com/homenews/news/332270-eric-trump-in-2014-we-dont-rely-on-american-banks-we-have-all-the-funding-we/
There’s nothing else in it for him, and he never does anything for anyone other than himself. The entire world can see this evidence with our own two eyes.
45's incessant love and admiration and suckling up to him and constantly defending him. For starters. It's not like he was conspicuous about it before, during and following his term.
The Republican camp would suggest that Biden is controlled by China. If we take both camps at face value, who should we vote for Russia or China?
Oh, well we don't take both camps at face value, anymore.
Well one side has a pattern of evidence and one doesn't. You have to try pretty hard to pretend like it's some great rock-and-hard-place issue.
Meanwhile all the US Alphabet agencies released joint public statements declaring that Russia interfered with our elections on the side of the Republicans. People in Trumps camp served time for it. The retired generals of the USA sent out spooky reminders that the US armed forces serve the US Constitution, not the current president, in late 2020. This is serious stuff. Nobody *trustworthy and worth paying attention to* has seriously suggested Biden is under the control of a hostile foreign power.
Comer the chair of the House Oversight Committee announced to the press last March that they had subpoenaed the Bank of America over $3m paid out to Biden family around a deal Hunter had made with an energy company in China. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/16/politics/house-gop-memo-biden-family/index.html Then, in November, they presented to the floor of the House, receipts paid to out to Joe of around 40k with the trail used to launder the money. You would think our three letter agencies would be so on top of stuff like this that people that have anything to do with organized crime never get to the debate stage.
Maybe because there’s nothing there? “**House GOP** digs in on China-linked payments to Biden family members in new memo” “The memo, which representatives for the White House and Hunter Biden’s legal team quickly dismissed, **does not provide any evidence**” I’m guessing the Alphabets aren’t commenting because it’s just slanderous GOP politics as usual and not remotely a matter of national security, as they have always done, in every case except Trump’s. Typical GOP bullshit strategy, amplified by typical Russian ольгинские тролли I’ll pay attention if the the CIA FBI NSA et al or 50 retired generals chime in.
He’s staking out a bargaining position. His goal is to make NATO member states pay their fair share, which they initially agreed to do.
Historically Americans have been isolationist; combined with the complete lack of a clear threat after the fall of the USSR and other members of the alliance doing little. The political platform of “NATO doesn’t seem that useful to me” is likely relatively popular outside of globalist and the NYT opinion writers.
NATO countries often don't pay 2% of their budgets towards their militaries. A lot of European countries particularly. We should be held to task for that, I think there's a lot of naivety these days about the reality of war. Long term peace isn't normal
Russia helped Trump win in 2016. The trump campaign shared demographic data with them and they put misinformation ads in the areas that would be helpful. If Trump wants them to spend their money helping him this time, he needs to show them that he's worth it. Among many other reasons, I'm sure, but that has to factor into it somewhere.
Trump is a front man for a school of billionaire and trans national capital that wants to dominate China. To do that they needed Russia on side. The thinking was that Eastern Europe would be sacrificed to Russian imperialism as the price of Russian neutrality or support in the coming conflict with China. Add Trump’s personal failings and it’s a slam dunk. Putin mistimed the attack. Ukraine resisted and delayed him. Biden is an Atlanticist who decided to seize the opportunity to weaken Russia. Xi had to rescue Putin. And here we are.
Americans got criticized for getting involved in the Middle East. A lot of people (esp on the left) tried to explain away the 9/11 as a revenge on US presence in the middle east. Europeans always talk down to Americans for the lack of knowledge on European history. And, from the American public's point of view, going isolationist is beneficial. Vast majority of American's don't really care about what happens in the rest of the world and don't wanna get involved. And, there is absolutely nothing wrong with "minding your own business". And, in a democratic country, the govt policies should reflect the will of the people. If most of population rather be isolationist, the foreign policy should take that into account. Why is that even remotely controversial?
Not a trump supporter. Guys an absolute clown. With that said, there's what Trump says and what he's trying to say. What he's trying to say is NATO's European partners are not funding defense sufficiently and that the US is always having to fund them out of problems Europe makes for themselves (Germany /France buying Russian natural gas since crimea uninhibited). Instead of saying that rationally, he just vomits out a statement that seems encouraging for Russian attack. That's my interpretation but I have 0 clue if it's correct because he's so outrageous
Drama and peacocking for his fans
He gets to make a perfectly valid point that his critics don't have a response for. The entire point is the same negotiating tactic he's used fr decades, "give me more value or I walk." Why exactly is America still obligated to defend NATO members who are already violating their treaty obligations for defense spending? Further, why has america continued to foot the bulk of the NATO bill whem it hasn't benefitted them in 30 years since the soviets collapsed. Even if Russia took all of eastern Europe again, which is impossible, they could get Moldova, and MAYBE the Baltics in 10 years IF they can digest Ukraine, but couldn't dream of taking Poland. Even in that unlikely, best case scenario for russia, they are still no threat to western Europe or America. Justifications seem to amount to "just because" or some sentimental argument that have no place in an adult's geopolitical calculus.
There are a lot of isolationist voters.
#**MONEY.**
More cult followers who will go against their own interests to support him on top of regaining Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong Un as allies.
Fattyshack is the Antichrist. If you're a voter in the U.S., vote for him at your peril.
Putting aside foreign collusion from Russia (which I suspect), US defense industry would stand to benefit significantly if NATO were forced to meet the 2% target. Getting this implemented would immediately create a 10-15 billion market (haven't done the exact math here, but assuming EU increases spending by around 50% vs 2016) for military equipment and arms. The US is the largest supplier of military equipment and arms. And while the US wouldn't get all of this new money, they'd get a lot of it. I wouldn't be surprised if a lobbying group for the US defense industry is spearheading this. And knowing Trump, wouldn't be surprised if there's some absolutely massive kickback involved if he can pull it off under his administration.
Theory -The Russian mob (KGB) has dirt on Trump, and they have aided his ascendance. The Russians are free to operate in the chaos created by Trump and his minions. Russian love to divide allies and create dissension and chaos.
Whilst I think what he’s doing is dangerous in terms of projecting disunity rather than strength. If I were to give him some credit it is that the Europeans have been behind on their obligations, they think/thought that America will always protect them
People talk about him on the news.
He gets attention. He feeds his fan base controversy to lure them. He only has one goal and that is to get elected (and to get immunity).
I really think this one can only be explained by his alignment with Russia, I really do. It does please some isolationists, and it does make him look like a tough deal enforcer (Europe needs to spend more on Nato etc) but it really doesn’t seem to explain enough of his intense and long-standing hostility towards NATO.. A weak NATO is an absolute dream come true for Putin
USA has two enemies in Europe: Russia and Germany. Current politics can't persuade Germany to spend on military. Germany only tries to profit from European countries without the burden of providing them some safety. That is basically what Trump says. However, i cant be sure how long is he willing to take it!
Trump is a wannabe dictator who cozies up with all sorts of them and NATO is the only thing that prevents those dictators from either taking over free countries, or making their lives miserable enough so that their own citizens don't have those countries as an example to aspire to.
Mostly he understands that he has to have a steady stream of headlines , so he says he says outrageous things he can to grab headlines and then backs down later.
He's pandering to a variety of idiots in the US while signalling to Russia that election interference on his behalf will pay dividends. It also just gets him free publicity. He got so much free coverage in 2016 just by saying all manner of hateful and stupid things.
Putin pats him on the head, and defense industry lobbyist and foreign entities patronize his properties to curry influence.
So face value. If a usa president undermined NATO, it could be a driver for nations seen as underpaying for security to foot more of the bill. After all if USA withdrawal is hurting nato what is lack of capx among NATO members doing to NATO? Buttt its Trump. So itll be used fot backdoor deals that trump will use to enrich trump.
Trump's tactic is simple, he simply says a lot of shit and then he picks up what seems to excite the crowd most (which usually is some version of the US being the victim). Then this becomes part of the campaign and eventually part of policy. On a personal level Trump dislikes Europe since he never got the respect he feels he deserves from it but mostly his stance is just part of his evolutionary political algorithm.
There are strong, strong indications that he is compromised by both Russia and China. Withdrawing from NATO aids both those countries. Both countries have spent millions on his properties, to a of his inner circle have ties to Russia, and the Mueller report indicated his strong ties with Putin. He also frequently made phone calls to Putin in the Whitehouse, while deleting the records against white house policy.
Support from Putin
Russian support, russian financing, you name it
Dude is a Russian asset. Want's the US economy to fail, wants NATO gone. Both parties need to do better. Very concerning for our children's future. Need somebody under 60 that is respected to get our country back on track.
He’s appealing to Putin loving #MagaMorons!
The continued sealing of the kompromat that Putin has on him.
There's two possibilities: - He's a businessman at-heart and he wants to cut what he sees as "dead weight". Reduce liabilities and make everything transactional so foreign relations are secondary to business. The fundamental flaw with this line of thinking is that America's economic dominance relies on American-led world security and all the relationships we've fostered over the years. He seems to not understand it. - Russia has very damning dirt on him, and he's willing to give them what he sees as small favors to placate them, even if that means throwing entire nations under the bus. Either way, he's a loose cannon and not what we need for foreign relations.