It feels good to say things like the EU and Canada should just ban whatever, but the US can just ban imports of critical goods from Europe too and harm European industries (I’m not in favor of this but it’s certainly an option).
So if the EU can cozy up to China, well we can drop the whole Taiwan issue and cozy up to China too. If Europeans don’t care about democracy in Taiwan maybe we shouldn’t either. Oh and by the way, China is helping Russia prosecute its war against Ukraine (just like Iran and North Korea) but I guess Trump sent some mean tweets so NATO is over, all the alliances are over, the EU and Canada will cozy up to China, and ban all American products. Things that can be easily discarded by both sides aren’t worth much.
Besides we can just distill Chinese modules and release open weights like they do now.
Of course the US not going to war over these areas may not shed American lives, but I think it would be immature to suggest that European, Saudi, Taiwanese, or other blood wouldn't be spilt in war. For example as we cede our supreme global power without bloodshed, as you prefer, we would obviously withdraw from NATO and move all US forces from Europe (except maybe the UK) and so Russia would then mobilize forces, attack the Baltics, and so forth. But I guess if that's the best you'd hope for that's on you - I'm surprised you are aligned so closely with MAGA foreign policy but you find all sorts of viewpoints on the internet.
By the way, isn't Germany losing 10,000 manufacturing jobs per month? I hope Europeans enjoy further ceding economic power to them and losing industrial capacity.
I'd generally rather be number 1, but hey being number 2 with roughly the same standard of living, a lot less expenses and criticism, and less hatred seems OK to me.
I think Poland alone could defeat Russia, if it even still exists in the current form in a few years -- add the finances of France and Germany and it's even more one sided.
losing that #1 status also means you have to work for a living, rather than just printing dollars and debt. see: britain
everyone in the west except the US already has to deal with that, so we'll be fine
The important thing when dealing with Americans is to pay no attention to what they say as that is all "PR", you only need to observe what they do. Most Americans dont know this even about themselves, which is why they end up with a guy like Donald Trump
that's a weird example to give about it being lies from the beginning when he spent 4 years not being at active war with iran
Remove that the trade is fairly balanced.
It’s insane that the US administration (said as an American) doesn’t continue to treasure a values-aligned, peaceful, stable, independent neighbor along a massive unprotected border.
But I don’t understand this energy carve-out argument.
That is the ironic part.
The US trade deficit is mostly balanced out by service (often not counted) and investment flows. The US could theoretically end most of its trade deficits if it balanced its budget, thus reducing demand for treasuries. However, that would come with other pitfalls. It would either entail tax increases, spending cuts, or both at the government level and it would then bleed into the standard of living of most Americans as foreign investment slowed down.
It doesn’t surprise me at all to see yields go up as foreigners invest less into the US as they get dinged sending goods here. So maybe that’s ironic…