Carney said it eloquently in Davos: a world in which the rest of the West raises fortresses to protect itself from China, Russia and the USA will make everyone poorer in the long run, and that includes the USA. As usual, the move fast and break things guys have no clue about the interdependencies, the complex solidariy systems, the synergies they burn down when doing their thing.
But faced with a systemic threat on their democratic systems, other countries, if they are not able to band together to maintain a residual web of liberal-minded nations, will always prefer to sacrifice some sort of well-being rather than having to face actual subjugation. Nationalism works in both ways - which is why it always leads to war.
On another not so economically note, it's fascinating how this dude has the perfect face to play a Bond villain. I mean, his whole personality exhudes from every pore of his face.
>As usual, the move fast and break things guys have no clue about the interdependencies
This is so true. The myth of the individual who has done it alone and in the process disregards everything other people have done for them is like a disease in the Silicon Valley tech elite.
It’s especially ridiculous for tech people to think this way too. Tech is founded on collaborative development. We program with languages that someone else developed, on operating systems someone else made, use code that someone else programmed, and deploy on cloud infrastructure maintained by thousands of others. Tech collapses without the community that built it.
There's so many projects that would dissapear if the idea of free software (i.e. software that's given totally to the community without any type of restriction) didn't exist that it's baffling for certain.
Were able to build so quickly because of abstraction. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time because someone else already did.
It’s a point of pride for many that everything in tech is so shareable so the individualistic attitude towards other things is interesting to say the least.
I don’t as having a discussion with some friends, yesterday. We were talking about how the US is in downfall. One of my friends brought up an observation by the comedian, Jimmy Carr, that former great empires end up finding a niche after they fall. The Roman Empire became the Vatican/Religion and the powers that entailed. The British became banking magnates. The discussion then led to pondering what the US would become. One of the friends suggested tech, and I said I didn’t think so based on exactly the reason you laid out here. The loss of geopolitical goodwill and trust is devastating for tech.
Not to mention that Tech relies on a global market (see Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, etc). Due to the US being a paraiah, threatening so much of the rest of the world and starting trade wars with most of them, we will lose those markets- it would be a much, much smaller tech market if the US was our only real tech market to sell these goods and services.
My left-field prediction is this: the US will actually split into (at least) two countries, much like the Roman Empire did. One of those countries will likely retain "tech" as a niche industry.
The other country will bring back slavery as their niche industry.
Not just the code, a lot of tech startups are about coordinating use of real world resources that already exist, for example with Amazon, the internet, roads, etc. were immense investments they rely on. Although this is true for almost any company, I think software companies have more of a tendency to want to take credit for the entirety of things.
I think you have to differentiate between the tech bros who are post Recession glorified Wall Street salesmen who moved to venture capital, from technologists.
Y'all may remember, about 12 years ago, Obama said "you didn't build that,": stating that we all use the roads that the government paves. These capitalists lost their minds.
I am concerned they genuinely do not understand what sources the modern world, and they think it their private companies that are the backbone of civilization.
Eh. There's too much of a fetishization of bureaucracy in Left circles. A lot of tech is basically just regulatory arbitrage by ignoring dumb rules. Europe's growth problems are probably downstream of a regulatory complex gone amuck.
There's a need for balance and I think we've leaned into bureaucracy. One side is bringing you 2 day delivery, a massive streaming library and a cheap RA.
The other side has delivered tech built on extremely perverse incentives, which has become incredibly unhealthy for individuals and societies as a whole. What are you on about?
Just think what would happen if Canada actually stopped exporting to the US. No potash for fertilizer, no oil for the Texas refineries, no softwood, nothing automotive, no airplanes, no steel or aluminum, no electricity and so on and so on. The amount of raw good Canada supplies US manufacturing is huge and it's all in peril because of Agent Orange.
"Hey sorry but you need to deposit $$$ in order to get synergy, even though you have deposited $$$ for decades and got synergies cause that's how synergies work."
No matter how eloquent he is, he will still need to negotiate a free trade deal with the US this year. No other countries can make up the demand provided by US consumption, especially for a country like Canada that is so integrated with the US.
They can try to diversify away, but at the end of the day, the US will remain their most important trading partner and anything that damages that, damages Canada
There’s no such thing as a free trade deal with Trump, he’s made that clear. There’s only tariff-free periods until he wants something else from you, which are short-lived. Canada is fucked either way so may as well try to open up trade elsewhere and be less fucked
And he has said he may not renew - probably just a threat.
But as you say, Canada-US trade will happen either way. The question coming to us soon is is a bad free trade deal better than no free trade deal? This could be an opportunity to massively help our own industries with a drop in power prices.
But it would be very foolish of us to count on US trade long term. Keep it going while we can diversify but prioritize out own needs and the push towards economic independence.
Just because Drumpf puts his name on something, doesn't mean he did ANYTHING other than put his name on it. This is yet another example of that very thing. USMCA = 1990's and bill clinton. NEXT!
The US has, since the first FTA, gotten the better end of the deal with Canada which is why every US government for the last nearly 40 years has pushed to keep and expand it. The US also routinely breaks the agreement when they don't like it (see softwood lumber over the last what.. 2 decades?) and routinely try to use it as leverage for manipulating Canadian policy. The US gets Canadian resources and base materials with no added cost, makes a final product and then sells it back to Canada and the rest of the world for $$$.
Yes, ending any sort of FTA will hurt both parties, and in the short term Canada more, but the difference is much of what Canada has is irreplaceable to the US, trade agreement or not they still need to buy it. As an example, there is no quick and easy potash replacement (all of Belarus supply for example doesn't replace what the US buys from Canada). Even if Venezuela gets to full capacity and by some miracle opts to allow the US to rape it's resources and supply isn't interrupted by civil unrest, the US still needs Canadian heavy crude for at least a decade. So many other industries like Canadian lumber, Canadian steel and aluminum, Canadian auto parts, Canadian electricity, the list goes on.
The US also needs Canada's market, look at the impact on tourism with just a 20-30% shift of Canadians not spending their dollars in US destinations, the impact on US alcohol, US gambling, US produce rotting on Canadian grocery shelves. You literally have US destinations now offering the Canadian dollar at par to try and get people back, that shows weakness and reliance. Alcohol producers begging to allow their product back and closing plants as a result, US governors coming on their knees to Canada pleading for them to come back. The US ambassador threatening Canada if they don't buy f35s. Now imagine that goes further as Canadians have less to spend and/or goes scorched earth on US trade. Imagine the loss of business to US services (imagine how pissed Meta or Netflix would be if Canadians en masse opted to stop using those platforms or worse, the Canadian government taxes or even bans them), or if Canada stops respecting US patents/IP laws.
Trump was never playing nice, he flat out said his goal was to crush Canada into submission through trade. His plan from day 1 was to inflict maximum pain and it wasn't benevolence that stopped him, it was rich oligarchs that pulled his strings. Carney's speech didn't somehow make it worse, Trump is already playing dirty. It will take a decade + for the US to "not need" Canada and in the meantime the US will have to hold their nose and buy Canadian or take the economic hit and rich folks lose money.
Deals with Trump aren't worth the paper they are written on. China demonstrated how to deal with Trump, give him a big fuck you, tit for tat on tariffs and once he figures out the bluster doesn't work he tacos and goes at something else more fruitful for generating headlines.
Carney’s message was super clear. The world was ok with putting up with the U.S. bullshit for 80 years because it was the least worst option. We all benefited, not as much as the US, but it was fine. More importantly and not said, the world would have put up with this for 80 more years,handing the U.S. world domination for a second century.
Trump killed all of that in 12 months. Not “temporarily shifted attention until he’s gone” not “put world trade on pause” - he killed it.
One day, he too will die. But the systems, sycophants, and gullible voters who enabled him will remain. It's tempting to place all of the blame on one man, but the problems will not disappear with him. In fact, it is a sure bet that those who benefit from the corruption and chaos will encourage the people to think things will be fine with him gone, while they continue to loot the nation.
I've always told people, I can accept that a man like Trump exists; always knew that was true. What I didn't expect was just how many people would get behind him. I really do think people hate Democrats more than they love democracy.
The US will have to codify many of the things that seemingly relied on the honor system (Presidential emergency powers, independent DOJ, open tax records for POTUS, emoluments, blind trusts for Presidential assets, Congress having control over wars and treaties, etc.) before the world can even start thinking of trusting the US again.
The constitution of the US lets the president have a lot of power regarding foreign policy. Even if Congress grows a spine or something, even if the members of the three branches of government wake up and realize they’re overseeing the fall of their empire and right the ship, the president will still have all the power needed to bully other countries and make them dance. The world noticed and will wait for big and durable change to trust the US again.
"America is not like that because Trump is president. Trump is president because America is like that."
Point of correction Trump didn’t kill world trade. He’s done quite the opposite. If anything his stupid decisions has actually pushed the rest of the world to start accelerating moving beyond the US. I believe in ten years we’ll have a more vibrant world trade then before and a whole bunch of countries who followed Trump’s lead even more economically depressed. The US will be a toss up and most likely a very state by state basis.
? Of course not - what he killed was the entire first paragraph I mentioned - the part about the US setting the rules for everyone else, and the world just putting up with it because it worked
I feel sorry for the next president who shows up and says “whew, sorry about that, glad it’s over, now, as we were saying…” and everyone ignores them.
The US image is fundamentally broken. It will take decades, just to get back to “normalized” relations with most countries. Democrats believe that the world will forgive us when they get back in power. Nope. They do not see the US that way. We are a singular entity. And we screwed up. Really bad.
"We all benefited, not as much as the US, but it was fine."
Europeans keep saying this. Clearly Americans don't believe this functionally. I don't think I believe it when I look at the flow of trade and free riding by coalition members. Trump being trump doesn't absolve the rest of the Western system from not doing their part to support global public goods.
I was watching an interview last night, where this American commentator was saying people in the US had grown tired of their role in the world - like we had imposed it upon them, rather than it being 80 years of their policy.
I mean good luck fellas when the dollar stops being king and the rest of the world stops funding your huge defecits.
Imo this is what happens when education is defunded. Critical thinking skills collapse and people can't reason on through what knock on effects will be.
I would add that our inability to let go of the national myth of the "self-sufficient man that can conquer the world if he just works hard" is what equally screws us over.
We love our sense of individuality, but our refusal to rein it in for the greater national (or even local) good for even a moment is what's spelling our doom.
What I don't understand is why the party of rugged individualism is also the party of shameless abasement before the king, or why the party of fiscal restraint embraces massive debt, or why the party of law and order embraces violence, or why the party of the ordinary man elevates billionaires, or why the party of Jesus worships a creep who literally ticks every box for the Antichrist, or why the party that suspected an elite ring of pedophiles now worships an actual ring of elite pedophiles. I'm beginning to think they might not know what they are doing.
Because at the end of the day Republicans worship power above all else. And many of the contradictions you've listed are examples of that (what do you call a 'self-sufficent' man who conquered and rules all the land that he beholds? A king! And what is a Billionaire but a 'King' that rules with money instead of a sword). Why do Evangelicals profess to worship God? Its not because he's the All-Loving, it's because he's the All-Mighty, ultimate POWER and AUTHORITY manifest.
I think American exceptionalism and chauvinism in US society play a big role here as well. Of course they can go hand in hand with lack of education, but I know a few very well educated Americans who still believe incredibly exceptionalist things about their country (and by virtue of doing so, they reveal their chauvinism).
Fox news and right wing bs convinced Americans that projecting power in order to always have negotiation leverage is the same thing as having to expend resources to protect other nations and suffer chains of responsibility.
It's as if Trump were to bemoan his presidency like it was something he not only didn't seek out but was forced to do.
And these are the same guys who think they understand how power works and worship that "laws of power" grift book.
This is the same channel that convinced Americans a guy who shits himself, wears makeup and has daily tantrums is somehow the epitome of male toughness.
Remember some Vietnam protesters just did not want to die fighting a war in another country. It wasn’t a high minded protest for world peace or even America First. It was self preservation and individualism.
I keep having this conversation with a coworker. He's all about isolationism; I try to explain that isolationism will hurt us immensely because we get back far more than we put in, but he really can't think beyond the bumper sticker slogans.
Well, it depends what Americans you talk to. For the average American, the global role has been a terrible thing. The US prioritized soft power and defense spending over aiding it's own citizens
The fact that the majority of the US budget is not used on Americans is a huge reason why we don't have basic services like universal healthcare or decent social safety nets. It allowed the wealth gap to explode, which led to the current oligarchy. Even the current deficit is something we already know will be used to take what little is done for the benefit of Americans themselves away- a lot of the current government stands to benefit greatly if the economy crashes, something I think is not well understood overseas. They've accumulated wealth and have a lot outside the US for a reason. As people go bankrupt, theyll buy things cheap and start to consolidate who property owners are in the US. This will return us to an era of company towns (tech bros are renaming them "freedom cities"). It destroys upward mobility and solidifies the creation of a ruling class. You miss the point they're intentionally tanking the dollar. A ton of Americans know this and have no way to stop it. Even Trump will not help because there's a real chance Vance will be worse
The past 80 years have largely not been great for the average American. There was about 1 decade of good stability in the 90s, but honestly a lot of economic turmoil other than that. It absolutely cannot go back to how it was because that's literally what led to someone like Trump getting power. A lot of the wealthiest people, Musk being exhibit A, gained their wealth off US government contracts, especially in the defense sector that was largely due to international agreements.
But that is all down to Americans unbeaten record of electing the worst people they can possibly find to lead them.
The US spends more on health care per capita, considerably more than number two Switzerland. Trump promises to make the US isolationist, yet adds another huge chunk of defence spending. If tomorrow the US relinquishes its role as world police, not a single penny will be used to spend on Americans because Americans refuse to vote for anything other than people who hate Americans.
While I get that things are not easy for ordinary Americans, especially since 2001, it is hard to feel sympathy because without fail they keep choosing for it in the voting booth. Their problems are for a big part self-inflicted.
Not as simple. This shows me you have a poor understanding of America in general, which isn't shocking because the oligarchy doesn't want you talking to or understanding Americans. It's easier for them if you have a superficial understanding because then they can point you out to Americans who they've deliberately isolated domestically and say "see? They don't understand you, and they hate you. You can't trust them"
It actually comes down to a simple but devastating court case in Citizens United, which put the voice of corporations and money in politics above people.
That's a bit too easy honestly. Americans didn't start electing idiots in 2010, almost everything that the Trump era shows was set in motion long before that. You had Nixon and Reagan, you had Gingrich, all before Citizen United.
Before you had a money is speech problem, you had a 'hey look an abortion, please be distracted while I rob you blind problem'
I've got plenty of family members who continue to vote Republican to this day.
Yes oligarchy and Citizens United and corporate media plays a role. But American voters have plenty to be responsible for also, let's not absolve them.
American living in America. Live in a blue state. All of us fought against this shit.
Over 70 million voters voted against this. Do not insult them with your generalizations. Or fucking stay abroad because obviously you don't consider this a home worth fighting for. Got no time for expats anymore
140 million voted for, or didn't vote, AFTER seeing Trump v1.0, and AFTER all the hate he spewed in the 2024 race.
Yes the US is worth fight for, and I am donating, supporting my friends and family in the US who are fighting. But this is not all about Trump or a small number of people surrounding him, or even the oligarchs. There is a much bigger and deeper problem here. You can't ignore the 140 million.
The amount that voted against is higher than the population of many countries. Don't fucking minimize them
And when a shit ton of us are out constantly, no, you're not getting praised for doing the bare minimum. We don't need money thrown at it- the other side has more. We need non conservatives out in conservative states being visible. We need them going door to door before elections. We need them talking to their neighbors, even if it's uncomfortable. The only power left is the power of the people. We organized in my state prior to the election. We did the fucking work. We ended up being the only state where not a single county went to Trump. But we need people willing to stay and do the fucking hard work.
You don't have to like America, but it's our fucking home. If you can get out like you did, you'll fair better than the rest of us. But it does mean I respect you and your opinion less.
That's the problem when you have an insolvent government that keeps pumping cash. The most broke government in the world and Muricans complain about the world as if they do not have oligarchies for most of their products.
Americans: ''We are paying for the world''
Alright let's talk insuline. Want to guess where that is NOT coming from? USA.
Yeah, because people are so stupid here that they don't understand how the US's role in the last 80 years is what made us such a rich, successful country, and that the change that is afoot thanks to Trump will mean economic hardship for so many of us- never returning to the economic prosperity that we had enjoyed up to this point.
I think very few americans understand how critical to their economic success this global leadership really is. You have government outright saying they want weaker dollar to increase the competitiveness of US exports and americans are like "uhuh, that doesn't sound completely retarded". They don't understand that strong dollar is by far their most important export commodity and everything else is basically insignificant towards their bottom line.
Man the brits were so stupid with brexit. Anyone could have seen the problems with that. No country is going to top its idiocy in terms of squandering their success and prosperity.
Also some people made money on Brexit. There are people who would sacrifice their country to make their own lives better. If you’ve ever played a team sport you may have met that one player that sabotaged their own team just to be MVP or just look at sports betting scandals.
Yep. I tried reading the 2026 National Security Strategy. Normally, it’s sensible if boring stuff about where the White House plans to focus its efforts internationally. Today, it’s absolute right wing drivel written by a former morning show cohost. It blames American politicians and America’s allies and in the dumbest way fails to see how America set up the existing global order and is the reason for the developed world’s affluence and lack of wars. And how that has driven American growth for nearly a century.
The fact is, the US is currently run by a combination of ideological idiots and tech billionaires who are too blinded by their own wealth to understand how their wealth was created and sustained.
Buddy I’m Canadian, the millions who didn’t vote are lazy (and quite frankly stupid as well) and nothing I say will change that because if seeing what Trump did in his first term (and what he was spewing about during the election) didn’t get those lazy idiots off their asses to vote then nothing will.
Your continued disenfranchisement efforts are noted... and probably will continue to be successful.
edit: to the deleted comment below...
Yes, politics is important. And you all disenfranchising voters with your "otherisms" is a form of politics. You all are as bad as any foreign bad actor at sowing division in the US voting public and leading them to despise not just the GOP, but also the Dem Party.
The irony of you not paying attention to that is astounding.
You so smart with your low effort disenfranchisement comment. People that don’t vote are dumb as they come. The two parties are not the same. Politics is important and you need to pay attention.
This is the craziest part, Obama, a man who is universally respected and admired by everyone respectable broke conservative america just by being half black and having an African name.
It truly did break them. I saw it up close. They responded with Trump to say "The worst of us is better than the best of you" and proceeded to throw global hegemonic power out the window out of sheer unadulterated vengeful willful stupidity.
But democracy cannot survive with greedy self-serving corporations and politicians and people.
MAGA and TechBros and the Christian Fascist Group stole the collective effort of all Americans and tried to extort the world.
Realistically things need to change and things should not go back to the way they were because the way they were obviously doesn't work.
But with capitalism ruling the country and greed and a higher bank account being the ultimate objective.
Unless you remove wealth from politics this will happen no matter what because this is the, reoccurring moment when most civilizations and societies fall apart.
But I also blame it on people who were too weak to enforce the actual rules in place to prevent this
Obama was just a giant capper. People have been fighting about a brown person getting treated like an equal forever. Civil rights, interracial marriage, integrated education, equal pay, and on and on. The more the playing field was leveled the more uncomfortable the majority got rather than embracing the change. The results of this isn’t just losing a hegemony.
Hoe much economic game has been lost in productivity? Self owns on healthcare and education has cost us how many millions of dollars and output? Self owns on freedoms? Heck the self owns on innovation right now is going to hurt us for decades if not forever. All because the richest white person didn’t want a poor white person to gain and they in turned didn’t want a POC to gain.
Not just the Republicans either. Putin is genius to have understood that he would barely even need to control Trump to wreak this havoc on the US. Trump is naturally drawn to break things and whatever compramat that Putin has is just insurance.
"From top to bottom we may have had the best deal any country has had in history. Our decline is a series of people voting to throw that away because they cannot understand that it is a good deal."
This is a quote I saved from a fellow poster in another forum, talking about this current push against the world financial order - free trade, reserve currency, etc which the US is at the center of & benefits the most from - yet people act like it's costing the country, not profiting it.
It's also crazy just how well it parallels Russia: they had a great thing going - keep selling oil/gas, get FDI to bootstrap internal economy and just sit there growing fat and happy. But no, they just had to go and try to rebuild their shitty empire.
Imo it depends on why Russia wanted the Ukraine. If it was because 'it was ours' like China says about Taiwan, then it's dumb. If it's because of what global warming will do to Siberia and they wanted Ukranian breadbasket for food security, then it's still foolish but logic is sound and shows forward thinking.
If you read his article on the Kremlin website, in English, you'll understand..if you don't fall asleep first. It's drawn out crap, but he thinks the Ukrainian, Belarussian and Russian people are all one race. When he says that the biggest disaster was the break up of the soviet Union, he's not just talking about losing an empire, in particular he's talking about Russia losing Ukraine and Belarus. The three countries of the Rus people being separated.
"In the essay, Putin argues that Russians and Ukrainians, along with Belarusians, are one people, belonging to what has historically been known as the triune Russian nation. To support the claim, he describes in length his views on the history of Russia and Ukraine, concluding that Russians and Ukrainians share a common heritage and destiny"
The cronies want to build their technofeudal network states or make Jesus come. They want this loss of power and especially connectivity. Remember, in the nineties Republicans wanted to "starve the beast" so it could be "drowned in the bathtub". We've now come to the "drown in the bathtub" phase.
Its a generational fumble. Truly historic.
I'm not even saying it wasn't an inevitability over the next X time frame. I've read compelling pieces that argue the US was paying too much for its soft power and to reign in spending and control it would need to pull back slowly so that its costs went down but the beneficial systems in place remained as legacy's and institutional inertia carried them forward for a time (for free essentially).
But instead of a smart, methodical, slow draw down to ease spending...
Everything all at once, and more spending than Mansa Musa at a Black Friday sale.
The problem is, what needed to be reigned in- military spending- is actually being INCREASED big time, while the things that made us so great- all of these global trade partnerships and friendly alliances, are being destroyed. That will mean fewer countries buying US goods, and not getting favorable deals on imports (such as what we had with Canada)- all because of the arrogance of the Trump administration.
So we double down on the expensive parts from our "King of the world" status we had in the world, and are doing away with the good parts that actually benefit us economically. Makes no sense!
It is not one man. It is result of years of hard work on conservative side. And of democrats being centrist enablers refusing to see the threat. Of putting agenda driven men on supreme court while lying about it all. Of buying mainstream journals and having them both-side liberals must be opposed while conservatives white washed reality.
You can go on, but Trump is a logical conclusion of it all. He is not the cause.
Trumps policies are largely priject 2025 driven. This is what conservatives worked for.
I'd argue he doesn't give a shit about America getting the "most" out of anything. It's all about personal gain, power, and wealth accumulation for himself, his family, and his closest circle.
He's Russifying the USA - a resource-rich, powerful country that has decided to concentrate everything in the hands of a few oligarchs.
Disagree. American use of hard power under Trump has achieved remarkably little that will actually be lasting. Venezuela may be the exception but too early to say.
Most other measures have alienated allies, hurt the US, and achieved less than intelligent diplomacy would have.
But its not America hasn't achieved ANY of its objectives in one case (Greenland) it got a worse deal than it started out with...
Hell even the Venezuela thing hasn't worked out because oil companies are not interested because China is dumping cheep renewables onto the market undercutting them significantly
And now the EU knows it can happily to stand up to trump because the big dangerous tech card can't be played without Nuking the American economy and the recent wargame showed EU can just jailbreak the software they need to keep running until everyone migrates off ...
Im pissed off that paper hasn't been posted online yet...
That's not why us oil companies are hesitant to go to Venezuela. In 2007, venezuela nationalized oil prod facilities that were owned by us companies.
It costs literal billions to set up and maintain these facilities along with minimum 3+ year timelines. It's simply not worth the risk for us companies to go there.
Tens of billions if not closer to 100 billion. All to compete against themselves and their Canadian oil sands operations by driving down the price of heavy crude.
Venezuelan oil is still in the ground.. it’s not easy to get hold of and it is vulnerable to any gorilla attack.
Which would be highly likely if the local people believe that they are being ripped off.
Which will undoubtedly happen.
The United States is the only country on earth that is keeping itself based on oil and not renewable energy.
China has access to Russia.
They share a massive border and don’t have issues in protecting it.
Look at Mexico and Canada.
Canada would split itself away if it could.
People will probably start going the other way at the Mexican border.
Safer in Mexico.
Have to be the worse time to be an American since the civil war.
Perhaps you can elaborate on that considering the companies across the US are suffering from a drop in income, with performance limited to the Mag 6 which hasn’t been affected yet.
"Correctly calculated" my ass.
An insane person robbing people at gunpoint can get what they want using "hard power" in the short term. It's just a very SHORT term, and everyone is worse off for it.
The only thing he's calculating correctly is the odds of him facing any real repercussions before he croaks. The USA are supposed to last a little bit longer than that though.
'Soft power' and the "whole "West" eating out of its hand" strikes me as a rather rose-tinted view. Americans and the US weren't universally admired and liked pre-Trump, even amongst their allies. In fact, I don't even really recall hearing soft power mentioned in the context of the US prior to now.
"Founded in 1952...". Yes, that sort of soft power, along with the likes of Coca-Cola, was prevalent and effective in the post-war period, a long time ago, not so much in recent decades.
Given Merkel was from the East, the wonders of the capitalist West were probably more enticing to her. Regardless, she's 70-odd and retired.
Age is not the criticism, time is. Coke (a-Cola), Cadillacs, Hollywood, Freedom, Fast food were all aspirational and exciting. Guantanamo Bay, poor quality consumer goods, manufactured pop-bands, McDonald's pink slime and school shootings have rather dulled the appeal in recent decades.
Where does that leave the US? Declining. Rapidly increasing under Trump.
It's not backfiring: the isolation and dismantling of the United States is the main goal of this administration. Personal financial gain comes second, which is easily done through insider trading on the former, because most people keep thinking that the insane policies are some kind of game of chicken that will end sooner or later. It won't: the USD and the US government are not meant to survive this at all.
I don't think personal financial gain is the imperative for anyone outside of Trump. They all want power now without the constraints of government. They want to be feudal lords which no amount of money could buy if the government continued to be effective and enforce laws. They have more money than they could possibly know what to do with so they are moving on to the very last thing, total control.
It is remarkable how this American news article seems so late, frankly, in picking up on common knowledge elsewhere. The lag in recognition is remarkable.
No one in the U.S. has recognized it. No one. People are mad about the Minnesota shootings (which I’m glad for), but absolutely no one is talking about how Trump has destroyed the U.S. economy for the next 100 years.
Del American First al American Only...Los demás ya saben qué significa para Trump ser aliado, básicamente ser un vasallo. Y ese tiempo se acabó. Europa, entre otros, irá comprando menos productos eeuu y dejando de ser tan dependiente.
But you don't understand, He is putting America First!!1!
I habe yet to get an actual answer about how Trump is putting America first when I question Trump supporters, jusy lots of handwaving about how He is putting America First. If we have to explain it to you, you just couldn't understand. Sometimes with a side of why do you hate America
Yes the Trump regime’s lack of understanding that the entire post WW2 / post Cold War global order centered around the USA, while requiring the USA to take on responsibilities and make investments, benefited the USA the most, is predictably backfiring. The entire second Trump administration is a giant self own by the American voters.
As a Canadian, most Americans had no idea how good they had it. We bought literally everything from them. All our resource money flowed back south while we provided the raw materials to them cheep. Every business that got big enough moved south. Every expert, musician, and specialist, and doctor considered working in the US first.
But now the priority is anything but USA, and there is policy to prevent being overly dependent on the USA being made every day. Those things stick, and increased canadian and allied capabilities due to domestic investment mean less and less outsourcing to the US every year.
They had it so good, and folded a royal flush to bluff a pair of 2's.
YOU THINK?! brother. From the outside looking it is a fucking dumpsterfire. Your nation is beyond fucked. I am not even exaggerating if i say that generations not even born yet will curse out Trump and everything he has destroyed for your nation.
The conservatives are still in denial of this, but everyone with a brain is well aware. I do think a lot of people think that things can ‘go back’ to the way they were, which is… not going to happen.
our allies aren’t going it alone. They are going with all our other allies and the other economic powers on the planet and leaving us with Trump wanking lone in the bathroom rage tweeting.
Rabid xenophobic isolationism causing America to become isolated. Who could possibly have guessed?
Global trade wars, telling allies that you want to have hot wars and conquer them. Violating treaties and alliances. Snubbing every international organization that we used to be a member of.
Of course it is, as Canadians, we largely went along with the US policy. Then Canada got stabbed in the back by the orange pedo. Trump did what he does, used leverage to exploit. This is his life motto in everything...i mean everything.
So now we are forging our own path, trying diversify and reduce our dependence on the compromised administration to the south. 12 new deals, from 4 continents in 6 months. That's what Carney is working on. We will come out of this more resilient and have learned the US can't be trusted. It's democracy is flawed and its population too prone to misinformation and grifts.
As someone who didn’t vote for “America First”, I’d say so, especially if you look at a country like China. They want to world to back the Yuan, they’re extra vocal now. America is all talk about isolationism, doing less humanitarian work globally, our maga agenda. If America wants to focus on itself, that only leaves room for other countries to take the lead. I’d say this is what they asked for but a bunch of them can’t seem to even agree on what “America First” even means. I trust the trump quote, where he said it means whatever he wants. That’s why the plan is backfiring, that’s not a plan lol.
I'm starting to think that whoever is the Democratic candidate should choose a slogan like "Stronger Together." It's snappy and can apply to both domestic and foreign relations.
It's not even "America First" really. We still let Americans starve in the streets and gut the education system. We still let Americans pay a bazillion dollars for healthcare. We don't punish businesses monetarily for outsourcing jobs or hiring illegal immigrants. We still let lots of foreigners take American jobs through work Visas, although that's not inherently bad cause they can stay and become Americans. We still give a shit ton of money to Israel. We still get involved in foreign conflicts that our citizens don't want anything to do with. We're not restricting generative AI even though the art that comes from this country is why America has had cultural dominance for generations. What is "America First" about any of what we're doing right now other than yelling "me me me"?
If we're just saying "America First" as a name for his tariffs and foreign policy, obviously it's not fucking working. Americans are still paying more and more for shit. We keep flip flopping and threatening our allies and the dollar is weakening in favor of metals because of it. It's getting to the point where I'm beginning to wonder if Trump has a literal mountain of gold somewhere and he's purposely trying to tank the dollar so his gold stockpile becomes more valuable.
US might look fine now, but the rich will devour the poor. There will only be more hostilities and divide as the inequality increases. Eventually, the economy will collapse after the rest of the world moves onto new trade partners. Default on debt. A death spiral to follow.
I fail to see how anybody who can read and write would think it would turn out any differently. There are myriad examples in the past of how this whole inanity will turn out.
America’s long term global supremacy was predicated on its international ties. It being the world’s reserve currency and dominant voice in foreign affairs was contingent on the US being consistent and trustworthy from administration to administration. None of that can be true if we might elect xenophobic morons every four years.
It started some time ago, but the World gave us a repreive from 2020 to 2024 when we rejected Trumpism. Now there's no coming back - nobody is going to trust the USA again because they know we're capable of electing moronic psychopaths at every level of Government, psycho's who swear to NOT respect any promises we may have preveiously made. Trump has done for the US what he previously did for the Trump Ogranization and doing for Americans what he already did to his employees.
>Is ‘America First’ starting to backfire as Washington’s allies go it alone?
Is mis-framed.
In the context of Canada, the president of the US has said explicitly and REPEATEDLY that the US doesn't need anything from Canada. In between saying how perfectly reasonable it would be if Canada were to be annexed.
So the question about 'allies going it alone' is more like "Allies? You think you still have allies?"
Oh, you poor sweet child. That ship has sailed, and you don't even recognize that you missed the boat.
For countries, trust is built over decades, but in this case was destroyed in less than a single year. But at least relations with Putin improved, so I guess there's that.
They’re not going it alone, they’re leaving the US behind. Americans seem to have no idea how trade works, as well as soft power. It’s bizarre watching them throw it all away for literally nothing.
It's backfiring because it isn't "America first." The policies are all "American ultra wealthy and their cronies first." It's never been about America, that's just how they packaged the dog shit so maga dopes would vote for eating it as if it was chocolate.
Leaders aren’t doing “America first”, they are doing Israel and Billionaires First. America First doesn’t leave trade partnerships, or productive relationships. It is supposed to focus attention on helping American lives and the American infrastructure. That is not happening.
It is not America First that is backfiring, it is the utter lack of any steady hand upon the tiller.
Some degree of economic independence is good for America's leverage, job opportunities for people who are not necessarily all going to have masters' degrees and PhDs, and (more importantly) its nonquantifiable sense of self-worth. But that requires a well-laid plan spanning more than one presidential term, and not randomly shutting down energy projects or imposing 100% tariffs on some country because Fox News said one night that you should dislike them.
It’s a problem that didn’t exist before Trump. A completely manufactured and unnecessary problem that harms hundreds of millions of people. A problem that will cease to exist once he’s gone.
Maybe I’m feeling optimistic but i really doubt one presidency is the death knell for this country. Meh, maybe its unpleasant. Maybe this is going to be hard to undo. But its certainly not the end of 250 years of development. This is a hiccup on the road to something even better. A last gasp of a way of thinking that will never exist again. Just a problem we need to deal with for a little longer until things go back to normal unfortunately.
It isn't one presidency though. America tried to convince the world that Trump was an aberration and then we elected him again. It would be insane for any country to trust American voters to not elect another crazy person intent on tearing up every agreement the US is involved in.
DramaticSimple4315 | 21 hours ago
Carney said it eloquently in Davos: a world in which the rest of the West raises fortresses to protect itself from China, Russia and the USA will make everyone poorer in the long run, and that includes the USA. As usual, the move fast and break things guys have no clue about the interdependencies, the complex solidariy systems, the synergies they burn down when doing their thing.
But faced with a systemic threat on their democratic systems, other countries, if they are not able to band together to maintain a residual web of liberal-minded nations, will always prefer to sacrifice some sort of well-being rather than having to face actual subjugation. Nationalism works in both ways - which is why it always leads to war.
On another not so economically note, it's fascinating how this dude has the perfect face to play a Bond villain. I mean, his whole personality exhudes from every pore of his face.
McOmghall | 21 hours ago
>As usual, the move fast and break things guys have no clue about the interdependencies
This is so true. The myth of the individual who has done it alone and in the process disregards everything other people have done for them is like a disease in the Silicon Valley tech elite.
jeewest | 18 hours ago
It’s especially ridiculous for tech people to think this way too. Tech is founded on collaborative development. We program with languages that someone else developed, on operating systems someone else made, use code that someone else programmed, and deploy on cloud infrastructure maintained by thousands of others. Tech collapses without the community that built it.
McOmghall | 18 hours ago
There's so many projects that would dissapear if the idea of free software (i.e. software that's given totally to the community without any type of restriction) didn't exist that it's baffling for certain.
Illustrious-Lime-878 | 16 hours ago
It does seem like a lot of software is essentially exploiting anticompetitive control, like "lock in" for example.
SoulShatter | 13 hours ago
https://xkcd.com/2347/
theprodigalslouch | 16 hours ago
Were able to build so quickly because of abstraction. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time because someone else already did.
It’s a point of pride for many that everything in tech is so shareable so the individualistic attitude towards other things is interesting to say the least.
bailtail | 15 hours ago
I don’t as having a discussion with some friends, yesterday. We were talking about how the US is in downfall. One of my friends brought up an observation by the comedian, Jimmy Carr, that former great empires end up finding a niche after they fall. The Roman Empire became the Vatican/Religion and the powers that entailed. The British became banking magnates. The discussion then led to pondering what the US would become. One of the friends suggested tech, and I said I didn’t think so based on exactly the reason you laid out here. The loss of geopolitical goodwill and trust is devastating for tech.
Aggressive-Paper8673 | 14 hours ago
Probably military technology aka modern warlords or mercenaries who sell the best weapon systems $$$ can buy imo
jm31828 | 12 hours ago
Not to mention that Tech relies on a global market (see Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, etc). Due to the US being a paraiah, threatening so much of the rest of the world and starting trade wars with most of them, we will lose those markets- it would be a much, much smaller tech market if the US was our only real tech market to sell these goods and services.
tincartofdoom | 11 hours ago
My left-field prediction is this: the US will actually split into (at least) two countries, much like the Roman Empire did. One of those countries will likely retain "tech" as a niche industry.
The other country will bring back slavery as their niche industry.
Illustrious-Lime-878 | 16 hours ago
Not just the code, a lot of tech startups are about coordinating use of real world resources that already exist, for example with Amazon, the internet, roads, etc. were immense investments they rely on. Although this is true for almost any company, I think software companies have more of a tendency to want to take credit for the entirety of things.
improvthismoment | 14 hours ago
Also ridiculous to hear how Jobs and others from that era (and now) were supposedly so influenced by Zen and meditation
Appropriate_Mess_350 | 13 hours ago
Clearing their minds to fully focus on world domination and the enslavement of the underclass.
substandardgaussian | 11 hours ago
Steve Jobs selected himself out by going woo-woo with his cancer treatment.
I approve of his decision to do his own thing and ignore experts, like the true pioneer he was.
improvthismoment | 11 hours ago
Zen certainly does not ask people to ignore science.
Zen is also not about hyper individualism and greed.
So ironic.
epochwin | 15 hours ago
I think you have to differentiate between the tech bros who are post Recession glorified Wall Street salesmen who moved to venture capital, from technologists.
kent_eh | 12 hours ago
Not only tech.
All progress in all fields is built "standing on the shoulders of giants".
SeveralPrinciple5 | 4 hours ago
So many of these tech bros made it in govt funded and developed networks that thousands of people contributed to for decades.
meatspace | 8 hours ago
Y'all may remember, about 12 years ago, Obama said "you didn't build that,": stating that we all use the roads that the government paves. These capitalists lost their minds.
I am concerned they genuinely do not understand what sources the modern world, and they think it their private companies that are the backbone of civilization.
Meandering_Cabbage | 10 hours ago
Eh. There's too much of a fetishization of bureaucracy in Left circles. A lot of tech is basically just regulatory arbitrage by ignoring dumb rules. Europe's growth problems are probably downstream of a regulatory complex gone amuck.
There's a need for balance and I think we've leaned into bureaucracy. One side is bringing you 2 day delivery, a massive streaming library and a cheap RA.
diskoid | 9 hours ago
The other side has delivered tech built on extremely perverse incentives, which has become incredibly unhealthy for individuals and societies as a whole. What are you on about?
McOmghall | 8 hours ago
Who the fuck has mentioned bureaucracy.
r2k-in-the-vortex | 15 hours ago
I don't recall any Bond villain wearing makeup and shitting his pants, he is more like out of some cartoon.
iNsAnEHAV0C | 12 hours ago
Okay okay. Austin Powers villain
synester302 | 15 hours ago
It’s easier to destroy than to build
big_beetroot | 21 hours ago
Beautifully put.
Beneficial_Split_649 | 13 hours ago
Think of it this way, if Trump takes CA we could elect Carney to be our President.
All roads lead to the new world order and Carneyism. I cannot wait.
shadowpawn | 12 hours ago
donnie not thinking that far in advance
belsaurn | 7 hours ago
Just think what would happen if Canada actually stopped exporting to the US. No potash for fertilizer, no oil for the Texas refineries, no softwood, nothing automotive, no airplanes, no steel or aluminum, no electricity and so on and so on. The amount of raw good Canada supplies US manufacturing is huge and it's all in peril because of Agent Orange.
JitteryJoes1986 | 7 hours ago
"Hey sorry but you need to deposit $$$ in order to get synergy, even though you have deposited $$$ for decades and got synergies cause that's how synergies work."
Does anybody realize how crazy that sounds? lmao
dacommie323 | 21 hours ago
No matter how eloquent he is, he will still need to negotiate a free trade deal with the US this year. No other countries can make up the demand provided by US consumption, especially for a country like Canada that is so integrated with the US.
They can try to diversify away, but at the end of the day, the US will remain their most important trading partner and anything that damages that, damages Canada
Cdnraven | 20 hours ago
There’s no such thing as a free trade deal with Trump, he’s made that clear. There’s only tariff-free periods until he wants something else from you, which are short-lived. Canada is fucked either way so may as well try to open up trade elsewhere and be less fucked
dacommie323 | 20 hours ago
There remains the USMCA under which most trade still occurs.
ScottyBoneman | 17 hours ago
And he has said he may not renew - probably just a threat.
But as you say, Canada-US trade will happen either way. The question coming to us soon is is a bad free trade deal better than no free trade deal? This could be an opportunity to massively help our own industries with a drop in power prices.
dacommie323 | 17 hours ago
Exactly this!
No matter what Donny Dumba$$ thinks, trade with Canada and Mexico is the most important for the US, and vice versa.
ScottyBoneman | 16 hours ago
But it would be very foolish of us to count on US trade long term. Keep it going while we can diversify but prioritize out own needs and the push towards economic independence.
dacommie323 | 16 hours ago
My only contention here is that independence is impossible, similarly to Brexit making the UK economically independent of the EU.
cmack | 18 hours ago
Just because Drumpf puts his name on something, doesn't mean he did ANYTHING other than put his name on it. This is yet another example of that very thing. USMCA = 1990's and bill clinton. NEXT!
dacommie323 | 17 hours ago
What kind of circle-jerk comment is this? Would you prefer if I called it NAFTA instead of USMCA?
It doesn't change the fact the majority of US/Canada trade still occurs under this agreement
frozen-icecube | 19 hours ago
The US has, since the first FTA, gotten the better end of the deal with Canada which is why every US government for the last nearly 40 years has pushed to keep and expand it. The US also routinely breaks the agreement when they don't like it (see softwood lumber over the last what.. 2 decades?) and routinely try to use it as leverage for manipulating Canadian policy. The US gets Canadian resources and base materials with no added cost, makes a final product and then sells it back to Canada and the rest of the world for $$$.
Yes, ending any sort of FTA will hurt both parties, and in the short term Canada more, but the difference is much of what Canada has is irreplaceable to the US, trade agreement or not they still need to buy it. As an example, there is no quick and easy potash replacement (all of Belarus supply for example doesn't replace what the US buys from Canada). Even if Venezuela gets to full capacity and by some miracle opts to allow the US to rape it's resources and supply isn't interrupted by civil unrest, the US still needs Canadian heavy crude for at least a decade. So many other industries like Canadian lumber, Canadian steel and aluminum, Canadian auto parts, Canadian electricity, the list goes on.
The US also needs Canada's market, look at the impact on tourism with just a 20-30% shift of Canadians not spending their dollars in US destinations, the impact on US alcohol, US gambling, US produce rotting on Canadian grocery shelves. You literally have US destinations now offering the Canadian dollar at par to try and get people back, that shows weakness and reliance. Alcohol producers begging to allow their product back and closing plants as a result, US governors coming on their knees to Canada pleading for them to come back. The US ambassador threatening Canada if they don't buy f35s. Now imagine that goes further as Canadians have less to spend and/or goes scorched earth on US trade. Imagine the loss of business to US services (imagine how pissed Meta or Netflix would be if Canadians en masse opted to stop using those platforms or worse, the Canadian government taxes or even bans them), or if Canada stops respecting US patents/IP laws.
Trump was never playing nice, he flat out said his goal was to crush Canada into submission through trade. His plan from day 1 was to inflict maximum pain and it wasn't benevolence that stopped him, it was rich oligarchs that pulled his strings. Carney's speech didn't somehow make it worse, Trump is already playing dirty. It will take a decade + for the US to "not need" Canada and in the meantime the US will have to hold their nose and buy Canadian or take the economic hit and rich folks lose money.
Secure-Television541 | 19 hours ago
The US can’t provide the demand of US consumption.
All trump has done is make inputs to that system more expensive while alienating customers.
Old-Buffalo-5151 | 20 hours ago
He doesn't
This is exact point of the article the free nations are more than happy to go without rather than risk losing independence
more so when the rival nation has made it clear they want to be an institution rather than an empire.
Put simply the world can safely ignore America and every day this drags out it just gives people more time to do gracefully...
cmack | 18 hours ago
THe Nazi Republican Trump Tax.
r2k-in-the-vortex | 15 hours ago
Deals with Trump aren't worth the paper they are written on. China demonstrated how to deal with Trump, give him a big fuck you, tit for tat on tariffs and once he figures out the bluster doesn't work he tacos and goes at something else more fruitful for generating headlines.
joe-re | 21 hours ago
It's amazing how fast US lost soft power under Trump.
US had the whole "West" eating out of its hand, and squandered it all by the stupidity of one man (and an army of cronies).
FlappyBored | 21 hours ago
The USA literally threw away their global hegemony and superpower status because they couldn’t handle having a black guy as president.
It has to be up there with the most stupid and moronic of all superpowers losing their hegemony.
Fuddle | 19 hours ago
Carney’s message was super clear. The world was ok with putting up with the U.S. bullshit for 80 years because it was the least worst option. We all benefited, not as much as the US, but it was fine. More importantly and not said, the world would have put up with this for 80 more years,handing the U.S. world domination for a second century.
Trump killed all of that in 12 months. Not “temporarily shifted attention until he’s gone” not “put world trade on pause” - he killed it.
Street_Barracuda1657 | 17 hours ago
Because
Everything. Trump. Touches. Dies.
Saephon | 12 hours ago
One day, he too will die. But the systems, sycophants, and gullible voters who enabled him will remain. It's tempting to place all of the blame on one man, but the problems will not disappear with him. In fact, it is a sure bet that those who benefit from the corruption and chaos will encourage the people to think things will be fine with him gone, while they continue to loot the nation.
I've always told people, I can accept that a man like Trump exists; always knew that was true. What I didn't expect was just how many people would get behind him. I really do think people hate Democrats more than they love democracy.
kent_eh | 11 hours ago
> But the systems, sycophants, and gullible voters who enabled him will remain
One can only hope that those will crumble as the struggle for control and infighting escalates when Trump finally meets the Grim reaper.
DoubtInternational23 | 7 hours ago
The US will have to codify many of the things that seemingly relied on the honor system (Presidential emergency powers, independent DOJ, open tax records for POTUS, emoluments, blind trusts for Presidential assets, Congress having control over wars and treaties, etc.) before the world can even start thinking of trusting the US again.
PetitRorqualMtl | 6 hours ago
The constitution of the US lets the president have a lot of power regarding foreign policy. Even if Congress grows a spine or something, even if the members of the three branches of government wake up and realize they’re overseeing the fall of their empire and right the ship, the president will still have all the power needed to bully other countries and make them dance. The world noticed and will wait for big and durable change to trust the US again.
"America is not like that because Trump is president. Trump is president because America is like that."
baronmunchausen2000 | 8 hours ago
Truth be told, this is mostly on the Republicans and the Heritage Foundation. He is just a useful idiot.
BrogenKlippen | 19 hours ago
But at least the libs were owned
colorfort | 16 hours ago
We can haz mch pwn.
joepez | 15 hours ago
Point of correction Trump didn’t kill world trade. He’s done quite the opposite. If anything his stupid decisions has actually pushed the rest of the world to start accelerating moving beyond the US. I believe in ten years we’ll have a more vibrant world trade then before and a whole bunch of countries who followed Trump’s lead even more economically depressed. The US will be a toss up and most likely a very state by state basis.
Fuddle | 15 hours ago
? Of course not - what he killed was the entire first paragraph I mentioned - the part about the US setting the rules for everyone else, and the world just putting up with it because it worked
paternoster | 13 hours ago
Trump just wants to make money for himself and his family. He doesn't give a fuck about anyone or anything else.
Well, revenge also, but mostly grifting as much as possible at all cost until his time runs out.
baronmunchausen2000 | 8 hours ago
THIS!
solarpanzer | 13 hours ago
Let's be fair. His first term gave him quite a headstart for the second.
wongl888 | 12 hours ago
The sign has been taken down by several counties. More will follow.
AustinBike | 4 hours ago
I feel sorry for the next president who shows up and says “whew, sorry about that, glad it’s over, now, as we were saying…” and everyone ignores them.
The US image is fundamentally broken. It will take decades, just to get back to “normalized” relations with most countries. Democrats believe that the world will forgive us when they get back in power. Nope. They do not see the US that way. We are a singular entity. And we screwed up. Really bad.
Meandering_Cabbage | 10 hours ago
"We all benefited, not as much as the US, but it was fine."
Europeans keep saying this. Clearly Americans don't believe this functionally. I don't think I believe it when I look at the flow of trade and free riding by coalition members. Trump being trump doesn't absolve the rest of the Western system from not doing their part to support global public goods.
ogbrien | 14 hours ago
Checked the S&P 500 recently?
You'd think with the sentiment of this comment that we devolved into a third world country in the middle of a recession if you didn't know better.
tke71709 | 14 hours ago
One of the world's worst performing major indexes in the world S&P 500? That index? And fluffed up by the AI bubble?
Also stock markets are not good proxies for economic success, especially in a K shaped economy.
Accomplished_Comb601 | 13 hours ago
Checked other countries indexes recently?
It’s growing faster than the S&P 500.
Also, when the USD goes down, the S&P 500 goes up.
Fine_Cauliflower3075 | 19 hours ago
I was watching an interview last night, where this American commentator was saying people in the US had grown tired of their role in the world - like we had imposed it upon them, rather than it being 80 years of their policy.
I mean good luck fellas when the dollar stops being king and the rest of the world stops funding your huge defecits.
Z3r0sama2017 | 18 hours ago
Imo this is what happens when education is defunded. Critical thinking skills collapse and people can't reason on through what knock on effects will be.
Fine_Cauliflower3075 | 18 hours ago
It's like they're doing a global Brexit.
wongl888 | 12 hours ago
Love this analogy. Usexit!
Zombie_Cool | 16 hours ago
I would add that our inability to let go of the national myth of the "self-sufficient man that can conquer the world if he just works hard" is what equally screws us over.
We love our sense of individuality, but our refusal to rein it in for the greater national (or even local) good for even a moment is what's spelling our doom.
GeneralOrder24 | 16 hours ago
What I don't understand is why the party of rugged individualism is also the party of shameless abasement before the king, or why the party of fiscal restraint embraces massive debt, or why the party of law and order embraces violence, or why the party of the ordinary man elevates billionaires, or why the party of Jesus worships a creep who literally ticks every box for the Antichrist, or why the party that suspected an elite ring of pedophiles now worships an actual ring of elite pedophiles. I'm beginning to think they might not know what they are doing.
Zombie_Cool | 16 hours ago
Because at the end of the day Republicans worship power above all else. And many of the contradictions you've listed are examples of that (what do you call a 'self-sufficent' man who conquered and rules all the land that he beholds? A king! And what is a Billionaire but a 'King' that rules with money instead of a sword). Why do Evangelicals profess to worship God? Its not because he's the All-Loving, it's because he's the All-Mighty, ultimate POWER and AUTHORITY manifest.
shatureg | 10 hours ago
I think American exceptionalism and chauvinism in US society play a big role here as well. Of course they can go hand in hand with lack of education, but I know a few very well educated Americans who still believe incredibly exceptionalist things about their country (and by virtue of doing so, they reveal their chauvinism).
MoreOfAnOvalJerk | 18 hours ago
Fox news and right wing bs convinced Americans that projecting power in order to always have negotiation leverage is the same thing as having to expend resources to protect other nations and suffer chains of responsibility.
It's as if Trump were to bemoan his presidency like it was something he not only didn't seek out but was forced to do.
And these are the same guys who think they understand how power works and worship that "laws of power" grift book.
Street_Barracuda1657 | 17 hours ago
This is the same channel that convinced Americans a guy who shits himself, wears makeup and has daily tantrums is somehow the epitome of male toughness.
Quick1711 | 17 hours ago
What blows my mind is that the majority of people supporting him were Vietnam hippies and protesters. It’s like they forgot who they were
senador | 15 hours ago
Remember some Vietnam protesters just did not want to die fighting a war in another country. It wasn’t a high minded protest for world peace or even America First. It was self preservation and individualism.
Jolly_Platypus6378 | 18 hours ago
“Becoming tired of their role.” I guess they became tired of being the leader of the largest free world country.
BadmiralHarryKim | 17 hours ago
"Needles hurt and I've forgotten what polio is."
Cdub7791 | 13 hours ago
I keep having this conversation with a coworker. He's all about isolationism; I try to explain that isolationism will hurt us immensely because we get back far more than we put in, but he really can't think beyond the bumper sticker slogans.
whichwitch9 | 15 hours ago
Well, it depends what Americans you talk to. For the average American, the global role has been a terrible thing. The US prioritized soft power and defense spending over aiding it's own citizens
The fact that the majority of the US budget is not used on Americans is a huge reason why we don't have basic services like universal healthcare or decent social safety nets. It allowed the wealth gap to explode, which led to the current oligarchy. Even the current deficit is something we already know will be used to take what little is done for the benefit of Americans themselves away- a lot of the current government stands to benefit greatly if the economy crashes, something I think is not well understood overseas. They've accumulated wealth and have a lot outside the US for a reason. As people go bankrupt, theyll buy things cheap and start to consolidate who property owners are in the US. This will return us to an era of company towns (tech bros are renaming them "freedom cities"). It destroys upward mobility and solidifies the creation of a ruling class. You miss the point they're intentionally tanking the dollar. A ton of Americans know this and have no way to stop it. Even Trump will not help because there's a real chance Vance will be worse
The past 80 years have largely not been great for the average American. There was about 1 decade of good stability in the 90s, but honestly a lot of economic turmoil other than that. It absolutely cannot go back to how it was because that's literally what led to someone like Trump getting power. A lot of the wealthiest people, Musk being exhibit A, gained their wealth off US government contracts, especially in the defense sector that was largely due to international agreements.
Admirable_Scene_5066 | 13 hours ago
But that is all down to Americans unbeaten record of electing the worst people they can possibly find to lead them.
The US spends more on health care per capita, considerably more than number two Switzerland. Trump promises to make the US isolationist, yet adds another huge chunk of defence spending. If tomorrow the US relinquishes its role as world police, not a single penny will be used to spend on Americans because Americans refuse to vote for anything other than people who hate Americans.
While I get that things are not easy for ordinary Americans, especially since 2001, it is hard to feel sympathy because without fail they keep choosing for it in the voting booth. Their problems are for a big part self-inflicted.
whichwitch9 | 12 hours ago
Not as simple. This shows me you have a poor understanding of America in general, which isn't shocking because the oligarchy doesn't want you talking to or understanding Americans. It's easier for them if you have a superficial understanding because then they can point you out to Americans who they've deliberately isolated domestically and say "see? They don't understand you, and they hate you. You can't trust them"
It actually comes down to a simple but devastating court case in Citizens United, which put the voice of corporations and money in politics above people.
Admirable_Scene_5066 | 12 hours ago
That's a bit too easy honestly. Americans didn't start electing idiots in 2010, almost everything that the Trump era shows was set in motion long before that. You had Nixon and Reagan, you had Gingrich, all before Citizen United.
Before you had a money is speech problem, you had a 'hey look an abortion, please be distracted while I rob you blind problem'
improvthismoment | 12 hours ago
American living abroad here.
I grew up in a red state.
I've got plenty of family members who continue to vote Republican to this day.
Yes oligarchy and Citizens United and corporate media plays a role. But American voters have plenty to be responsible for also, let's not absolve them.
whichwitch9 | 9 hours ago
American living in America. Live in a blue state. All of us fought against this shit.
Over 70 million voters voted against this. Do not insult them with your generalizations. Or fucking stay abroad because obviously you don't consider this a home worth fighting for. Got no time for expats anymore
improvthismoment | 9 hours ago
70 million voted against
140 million voted for, or didn't vote, AFTER seeing Trump v1.0, and AFTER all the hate he spewed in the 2024 race.
Yes the US is worth fight for, and I am donating, supporting my friends and family in the US who are fighting. But this is not all about Trump or a small number of people surrounding him, or even the oligarchs. There is a much bigger and deeper problem here. You can't ignore the 140 million.
whichwitch9 | 9 hours ago
The amount that voted against is higher than the population of many countries. Don't fucking minimize them
And when a shit ton of us are out constantly, no, you're not getting praised for doing the bare minimum. We don't need money thrown at it- the other side has more. We need non conservatives out in conservative states being visible. We need them going door to door before elections. We need them talking to their neighbors, even if it's uncomfortable. The only power left is the power of the people. We organized in my state prior to the election. We did the fucking work. We ended up being the only state where not a single county went to Trump. But we need people willing to stay and do the fucking hard work.
You don't have to like America, but it's our fucking home. If you can get out like you did, you'll fair better than the rest of us. But it does mean I respect you and your opinion less.
goofyboi | 9 hours ago
So who voted in nixon and reagan?
andreicde | 13 hours ago
That's the problem when you have an insolvent government that keeps pumping cash. The most broke government in the world and Muricans complain about the world as if they do not have oligarchies for most of their products.
Americans: ''We are paying for the world''
Alright let's talk insuline. Want to guess where that is NOT coming from? USA.
jm31828 | 12 hours ago
Yeah, because people are so stupid here that they don't understand how the US's role in the last 80 years is what made us such a rich, successful country, and that the change that is afoot thanks to Trump will mean economic hardship for so many of us- never returning to the economic prosperity that we had enjoyed up to this point.
r2k-in-the-vortex | 9 hours ago
I think very few americans understand how critical to their economic success this global leadership really is. You have government outright saying they want weaker dollar to increase the competitiveness of US exports and americans are like "uhuh, that doesn't sound completely retarded". They don't understand that strong dollar is by far their most important export commodity and everything else is basically insignificant towards their bottom line.
ChZakalwe | 9 hours ago
Not trump.
Americans. Trump didn't happen in a vacuum.
The fact that he was elected again clearly signified yhat the american people couldnt be trusted not to do somethjng stupid again.
MoreOfAnOvalJerk | 18 hours ago
Man the brits were so stupid with brexit. Anyone could have seen the problems with that. No country is going to top its idiocy in terms of squandering their success and prosperity.
America: "hold my beer"
Caughtyalookin69 | 17 hours ago
Brexit was funded by the same dark agencies that put Trump and MAGA into power. They are currently still funding Farage and Reform party
google_fu_is_whatIdo | 15 hours ago
Russia. Putin. Not 'dark agencies'.
senador | 14 hours ago
Also some people made money on Brexit. There are people who would sacrifice their country to make their own lives better. If you’ve ever played a team sport you may have met that one player that sabotaged their own team just to be MVP or just look at sports betting scandals.
ForwardAd4643 | 14 hours ago
Pretty sure a big part of Brexit was to set up a tax haven in a place rich people actually wanted to live
senador | 14 hours ago
So rich people cratered an economy to save money on taxes? Pretty, standard operating procedure.
wbruce098 | 17 hours ago
Yep. I tried reading the 2026 National Security Strategy. Normally, it’s sensible if boring stuff about where the White House plans to focus its efforts internationally. Today, it’s absolute right wing drivel written by a former morning show cohost. It blames American politicians and America’s allies and in the dumbest way fails to see how America set up the existing global order and is the reason for the developed world’s affluence and lack of wars. And how that has driven American growth for nearly a century.
The fact is, the US is currently run by a combination of ideological idiots and tech billionaires who are too blinded by their own wealth to understand how their wealth was created and sustained.
TimeFantastic600 | 13 hours ago
Do you mean the 26 NDS? NSS was 2025.
I enjoyed in the NDS all of the photos included Hegseth lol
justanotherbot12345 | 17 hours ago
You giving a pass to 70 million dummies that could not see that Trump is a fraud.
Ice_Solid | 16 hours ago
140 million can't forget those who were too lazy to vote
anti-torque | 16 hours ago
The Dems actively eschewed them. Who's lazy?
Frosty_Maple_Syrup | 15 hours ago
The millions who didn’t vote are lazy
anti-torque | 15 hours ago
Your continued disenfranchisement efforts are noted... and probably will continue to be successful.
Frosty_Maple_Syrup | 15 hours ago
Buddy I’m Canadian, the millions who didn’t vote are lazy (and quite frankly stupid as well) and nothing I say will change that because if seeing what Trump did in his first term (and what he was spewing about during the election) didn’t get those lazy idiots off their asses to vote then nothing will.
anti-torque | 15 hours ago
Your continued disenfranchisement efforts are noted... and probably will continue to be successful.
edit: to the deleted comment below...
Yes, politics is important. And you all disenfranchising voters with your "otherisms" is a form of politics. You all are as bad as any foreign bad actor at sowing division in the US voting public and leading them to despise not just the GOP, but also the Dem Party.
The irony of you not paying attention to that is astounding.
justanotherbot12345 | 14 hours ago
You so smart with your low effort disenfranchisement comment. People that don’t vote are dumb as they come. The two parties are not the same. Politics is important and you need to pay attention.
Tango_D | 17 hours ago
This is the craziest part, Obama, a man who is universally respected and admired by everyone respectable broke conservative america just by being half black and having an African name.
It truly did break them. I saw it up close. They responded with Trump to say "The worst of us is better than the best of you" and proceeded to throw global hegemonic power out the window out of sheer unadulterated vengeful willful stupidity.
New_Home_4519 | 21 hours ago
It's literally project 2025, this is all entirely planned.
And everything that's about to come
Freud-Network | 15 hours ago
Since you've apparently read it enough to discuss it here, what comes next? What's the agenda after the US Dollar fails?
New_Home_4519 | 12 hours ago
Dollar is replaced with crypto
Consistent-Web-351 | 14 hours ago
Not of all Americans voted for this
But democracy cannot survive with greedy self-serving corporations and politicians and people.
MAGA and TechBros and the Christian Fascist Group stole the collective effort of all Americans and tried to extort the world.
Realistically things need to change and things should not go back to the way they were because the way they were obviously doesn't work.
But with capitalism ruling the country and greed and a higher bank account being the ultimate objective.
Unless you remove wealth from politics this will happen no matter what because this is the, reoccurring moment when most civilizations and societies fall apart.
But I also blame it on people who were too weak to enforce the actual rules in place to prevent this
joepez | 15 hours ago
Obama was just a giant capper. People have been fighting about a brown person getting treated like an equal forever. Civil rights, interracial marriage, integrated education, equal pay, and on and on. The more the playing field was leveled the more uncomfortable the majority got rather than embracing the change. The results of this isn’t just losing a hegemony.
Hoe much economic game has been lost in productivity? Self owns on healthcare and education has cost us how many millions of dollars and output? Self owns on freedoms? Heck the self owns on innovation right now is going to hurt us for decades if not forever. All because the richest white person didn’t want a poor white person to gain and they in turned didn’t want a POC to gain.
Harbinger2001 | 12 hours ago
It’s kind of poetic though that America’s original sin is what ultimately brought it to ruin.
Old-Buffalo-5151 | 20 hours ago
I was gunna say it's not just trump. It took the entire republican admin to make this happen
If any of the houses had stood up to him you guys would still be number 1 rather than looking at a 20 year painful decline
Its also why when trump goes things are not going to get magically better as no-one will trust you to not fuck it up again
Icy-Ad-7767 | 18 hours ago
I’d say Britain is a case study in this, but remember a failing empire is a very dangerous thing
Old-Buffalo-5151 | 14 hours ago
While true English empire really only collapsed after WW2 because it didn't have the funds or manpower to maintain it anymore
Which is a vastly difficult thing to what's happening in America currently
The UK also rebounded strongly in terms of basically every metric in the following 100 years.
saltyjello | 18 hours ago
Not just the Republicans either. Putin is genius to have understood that he would barely even need to control Trump to wreak this havoc on the US. Trump is naturally drawn to break things and whatever compramat that Putin has is just insurance.
cmack | 18 hours ago
The Nazi Republican could have ended this madness a DECADE AGO.
kilkenny99 | 19 hours ago
"From top to bottom we may have had the best deal any country has had in history. Our decline is a series of people voting to throw that away because they cannot understand that it is a good deal."
This is a quote I saved from a fellow poster in another forum, talking about this current push against the world financial order - free trade, reserve currency, etc which the US is at the center of & benefits the most from - yet people act like it's costing the country, not profiting it.
Wyciorek | 19 hours ago
It's also crazy just how well it parallels Russia: they had a great thing going - keep selling oil/gas, get FDI to bootstrap internal economy and just sit there growing fat and happy. But no, they just had to go and try to rebuild their shitty empire.
Z3r0sama2017 | 18 hours ago
Imo it depends on why Russia wanted the Ukraine. If it was because 'it was ours' like China says about Taiwan, then it's dumb. If it's because of what global warming will do to Siberia and they wanted Ukranian breadbasket for food security, then it's still foolish but logic is sound and shows forward thinking.
SicilyMalta | 18 hours ago
Putin does have a thing about bringing back the Great Empire.
Allydarvel | 15 hours ago
If you read his article on the Kremlin website, in English, you'll understand..if you don't fall asleep first. It's drawn out crap, but he thinks the Ukrainian, Belarussian and Russian people are all one race. When he says that the biggest disaster was the break up of the soviet Union, he's not just talking about losing an empire, in particular he's talking about Russia losing Ukraine and Belarus. The three countries of the Rus people being separated.
"In the essay, Putin argues that Russians and Ukrainians, along with Belarusians, are one people, belonging to what has historically been known as the triune Russian nation. To support the claim, he describes in length his views on the history of Russia and Ukraine, concluding that Russians and Ukrainians share a common heritage and destiny"
Spinoza42 | 18 hours ago
The cronies want to build their technofeudal network states or make Jesus come. They want this loss of power and especially connectivity. Remember, in the nineties Republicans wanted to "starve the beast" so it could be "drowned in the bathtub". We've now come to the "drown in the bathtub" phase.
throwaway-priv75 | 19 hours ago
Its a generational fumble. Truly historic. I'm not even saying it wasn't an inevitability over the next X time frame. I've read compelling pieces that argue the US was paying too much for its soft power and to reign in spending and control it would need to pull back slowly so that its costs went down but the beneficial systems in place remained as legacy's and institutional inertia carried them forward for a time (for free essentially).
But instead of a smart, methodical, slow draw down to ease spending...
Everything all at once, and more spending than Mansa Musa at a Black Friday sale.
jm31828 | 12 hours ago
The problem is, what needed to be reigned in- military spending- is actually being INCREASED big time, while the things that made us so great- all of these global trade partnerships and friendly alliances, are being destroyed. That will mean fewer countries buying US goods, and not getting favorable deals on imports (such as what we had with Canada)- all because of the arrogance of the Trump administration.
So we double down on the expensive parts from our "King of the world" status we had in the world, and are doing away with the good parts that actually benefit us economically. Makes no sense!
dynamitehacker | 16 hours ago
It's much easier to break things than to build them.
unsafeideas | 13 hours ago
It is not one man. It is result of years of hard work on conservative side. And of democrats being centrist enablers refusing to see the threat. Of putting agenda driven men on supreme court while lying about it all. Of buying mainstream journals and having them both-side liberals must be opposed while conservatives white washed reality.
You can go on, but Trump is a logical conclusion of it all. He is not the cause.
Trumps policies are largely priject 2025 driven. This is what conservatives worked for.
Captobvious75 | 16 hours ago
Who would have thought a WH ran by a slimy billionaire and his fascist advisors would result in this
kent_eh | 11 hours ago
> all by the stupidity of one man (and an army of cronies).
And a few puppeteers who have been manipulating that one man for a very long time.
cocksherpa2 | 5 hours ago
When you say eating out of our hand, what you mean is 'on the payroll'. This is better.
[OP] 1-randomonium | 21 hours ago
Unfortunately, Trump has correctly calculated that in the short term at least America can get most of what it wants using hard power alone.
The_Dutch_Fox | 21 hours ago
I'd argue he doesn't give a shit about America getting the "most" out of anything. It's all about personal gain, power, and wealth accumulation for himself, his family, and his closest circle.
He's Russifying the USA - a resource-rich, powerful country that has decided to concentrate everything in the hands of a few oligarchs.
_ssac_ | 19 hours ago
Exactly.
It's exasperating listening to analysts explaining how his actions have a goal for USA. Like, he has a plan or a reason behind what he does.
Psychologists should be the ones explaining his motivations.
cmack | 18 hours ago
It's in The Republicans DNA> Bush Jr. said this would be a whole lot easier if it was a dictatorship.
Bob_the_blacksmith | 21 hours ago
Disagree. American use of hard power under Trump has achieved remarkably little that will actually be lasting. Venezuela may be the exception but too early to say.
Most other measures have alienated allies, hurt the US, and achieved less than intelligent diplomacy would have.
LieutenantStar2 | 18 hours ago
And Venezuela worth is nothing - commercial leadership had to explain that to Trump after the fact.
Old-Buffalo-5151 | 20 hours ago
But its not America hasn't achieved ANY of its objectives in one case (Greenland) it got a worse deal than it started out with...
Hell even the Venezuela thing hasn't worked out because oil companies are not interested because China is dumping cheep renewables onto the market undercutting them significantly
And now the EU knows it can happily to stand up to trump because the big dangerous tech card can't be played without Nuking the American economy and the recent wargame showed EU can just jailbreak the software they need to keep running until everyone migrates off ...
Im pissed off that paper hasn't been posted online yet...
teshh | 20 hours ago
That's not why us oil companies are hesitant to go to Venezuela. In 2007, venezuela nationalized oil prod facilities that were owned by us companies.
It costs literal billions to set up and maintain these facilities along with minimum 3+ year timelines. It's simply not worth the risk for us companies to go there.
tke71709 | 13 hours ago
Tens of billions if not closer to 100 billion. All to compete against themselves and their Canadian oil sands operations by driving down the price of heavy crude.
ImportantBug2023 | 20 hours ago
Venezuelan oil is still in the ground.. it’s not easy to get hold of and it is vulnerable to any gorilla attack. Which would be highly likely if the local people believe that they are being ripped off. Which will undoubtedly happen.
The United States is the only country on earth that is keeping itself based on oil and not renewable energy.
China has access to Russia. They share a massive border and don’t have issues in protecting it.
Look at Mexico and Canada. Canada would split itself away if it could.
People will probably start going the other way at the Mexican border. Safer in Mexico.
Have to be the worse time to be an American since the civil war.
WildlifePhysics | 19 hours ago
Anything they're getting, they already had.
Jazzlike_Painter_118 | 18 hours ago
Trump has correctly calculated that in the short term at least ~~America~~ Trump can get most of what it wants using hard power alone.
PlanetCosmoX | 18 hours ago
Perhaps you can elaborate on that considering the companies across the US are suffering from a drop in income, with performance limited to the Mag 6 which hasn’t been affected yet.
LieutenantStar2 | 18 hours ago
lol nope. We’ll get nothing.
Zeraru | 16 hours ago
"Correctly calculated" my ass.
An insane person robbing people at gunpoint can get what they want using "hard power" in the short term. It's just a very SHORT term, and everyone is worse off for it.
The only thing he's calculating correctly is the odds of him facing any real repercussions before he croaks. The USA are supposed to last a little bit longer than that though.
RandyFMcDonald | 20 hours ago
How did he correctly calculate things? What did he gain?
PaleConference406 | 20 hours ago
'Soft power' and the "whole "West" eating out of its hand" strikes me as a rather rose-tinted view. Americans and the US weren't universally admired and liked pre-Trump, even amongst their allies. In fact, I don't even really recall hearing soft power mentioned in the context of the US prior to now.
cmack | 18 hours ago
That's true, they hated Bush Jr too. But they loved Obama. Then hated Trump again.
Republicans; can't govern, can't run a business, and can't make friends.
DonQuoQuo | 20 hours ago
Anyone who's studied international relations was acutely aware of it. The US had the most sophisticated foreign service of any country.
joe-re | 18 hours ago
One piece of evidence for US soft power in Germany:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantik-Br%C3%BCcke
A club of influential and powerful Germans promoting eating out of US hands.
Now, they wonder what they are even doing.
PaleConference406 | 17 hours ago
"Founded in 1952...". Yes, that sort of soft power, along with the likes of Coca-Cola, was prevalent and effective in the post-war period, a long time ago, not so much in recent decades.
joe-re | 16 hours ago
Did you actually read who was a member? Angela Merkel wasn't exactly chancellor in post-war period.
But if your argument "founded 75 years ago, can't have any significance now" would hold, where did that leave the US?
PaleConference406 | 16 hours ago
Given Merkel was from the East, the wonders of the capitalist West were probably more enticing to her. Regardless, she's 70-odd and retired.
Age is not the criticism, time is. Coke (a-Cola), Cadillacs, Hollywood, Freedom, Fast food were all aspirational and exciting. Guantanamo Bay, poor quality consumer goods, manufactured pop-bands, McDonald's pink slime and school shootings have rather dulled the appeal in recent decades.
Where does that leave the US? Declining. Rapidly increasing under Trump.
Spinoza42 | 21 hours ago
It's not backfiring: the isolation and dismantling of the United States is the main goal of this administration. Personal financial gain comes second, which is easily done through insider trading on the former, because most people keep thinking that the insane policies are some kind of game of chicken that will end sooner or later. It won't: the USD and the US government are not meant to survive this at all.
bloodontherisers | 16 hours ago
I don't think personal financial gain is the imperative for anyone outside of Trump. They all want power now without the constraints of government. They want to be feudal lords which no amount of money could buy if the government continued to be effective and enforce laws. They have more money than they could possibly know what to do with so they are moving on to the very last thing, total control.
RandyFMcDonald | 20 hours ago
It is remarkable how this American news article seems so late, frankly, in picking up on common knowledge elsewhere. The lag in recognition is remarkable.
LieutenantStar2 | 18 hours ago
No one in the U.S. has recognized it. No one. People are mad about the Minnesota shootings (which I’m glad for), but absolutely no one is talking about how Trump has destroyed the U.S. economy for the next 100 years.
cmack | 18 hours ago
TBF, this is what The Republicans ALWAY do. They are bad for the country.
FloweringOrchid1 | 18 hours ago
Nobody on the right has recognized it.
CGlids1953 | 18 hours ago
I’m sure all the bankrupted farmers are finally figuring it out now.
LieutenantStar2 | 17 hours ago
Not even close - they’re all just begging for a handout for today, they’re not realizing they’re fucked in perpetuity.
FloweringOrchid1 | 17 hours ago
Nope, Biden’s policies are why this happened.
Edit: clearly sarcasm
berpaderpderp | 13 hours ago
Hwhat? You're delusional.
FloweringOrchid1 | 11 hours ago
That was sarcasm. See the comment above from me. Should’ve put /s
MootRevolution | 11 hours ago
I'm sure they have by now. They are just all-in on Trump, Heritage Foundation etc.
buffotinve | 18 hours ago
Del American First al American Only...Los demás ya saben qué significa para Trump ser aliado, básicamente ser un vasallo. Y ese tiempo se acabó. Europa, entre otros, irá comprando menos productos eeuu y dejando de ser tan dependiente.
elementality883 | 19 hours ago
Can someone identify where America has ever been put first by this regime outside grifting directly into billionaire's pockets?
Everything I have seen has been to make the common man's more difficult and unstable. Maybe the racists and bigots are happy?
ToneSenior7156 | 17 hours ago
Honestly, they are. My MAGA family member told me this is everything she voted for. I can’t even look at her now.
philnotfil | 18 hours ago
But you don't understand, He is putting America First!!1!
I habe yet to get an actual answer about how Trump is putting America first when I question Trump supporters, jusy lots of handwaving about how He is putting America First. If we have to explain it to you, you just couldn't understand. Sometimes with a side of why do you hate America
oneeyedfool | 17 hours ago
Yes the Trump regime’s lack of understanding that the entire post WW2 / post Cold War global order centered around the USA, while requiring the USA to take on responsibilities and make investments, benefited the USA the most, is predictably backfiring. The entire second Trump administration is a giant self own by the American voters.
AdmirableBoat7273 | 16 hours ago
As a Canadian, most Americans had no idea how good they had it. We bought literally everything from them. All our resource money flowed back south while we provided the raw materials to them cheep. Every business that got big enough moved south. Every expert, musician, and specialist, and doctor considered working in the US first.
But now the priority is anything but USA, and there is policy to prevent being overly dependent on the USA being made every day. Those things stick, and increased canadian and allied capabilities due to domestic investment mean less and less outsourcing to the US every year.
They had it so good, and folded a royal flush to bluff a pair of 2's.
howimetyourcakeshop | 20 hours ago
YOU THINK?! brother. From the outside looking it is a fucking dumpsterfire. Your nation is beyond fucked. I am not even exaggerating if i say that generations not even born yet will curse out Trump and everything he has destroyed for your nation.
mrImTheGod | 17 hours ago
Lol, if America is just now starting to think this way, they are even dumber than I thought.
Your ex allies have already moved on and have other partners, its diddler don and america who is alone
iMecharic | 5 hours ago
The conservatives are still in denial of this, but everyone with a brain is well aware. I do think a lot of people think that things can ‘go back’ to the way they were, which is… not going to happen.
PrivateBozo | 13 hours ago
Ahem, major nit.
our allies aren’t going it alone. They are going with all our other allies and the other economic powers on the planet and leaving us with Trump wanking lone in the bathroom rage tweeting.
Chipay | 12 hours ago
Yeah, wanted to say exactly this, the West is diversifying their trade away from the US, it's not like they're moving towards Autarky.
Konukaame | 16 hours ago
Rabid xenophobic isolationism causing America to become isolated. Who could possibly have guessed?
Global trade wars, telling allies that you want to have hot wars and conquer them. Violating treaties and alliances. Snubbing every international organization that we used to be a member of.
Of course that becomes America Alone.
Psyclist80 | 18 hours ago
Of course it is, as Canadians, we largely went along with the US policy. Then Canada got stabbed in the back by the orange pedo. Trump did what he does, used leverage to exploit. This is his life motto in everything...i mean everything.
So now we are forging our own path, trying diversify and reduce our dependence on the compromised administration to the south. 12 new deals, from 4 continents in 6 months. That's what Carney is working on. We will come out of this more resilient and have learned the US can't be trusted. It's democracy is flawed and its population too prone to misinformation and grifts.
colcatsup | 18 hours ago
That’s nowhere near as catchy as “90 deals in 99 days”!! :). You really got work on your branding!!
Calm-Maintenance-878 | 15 hours ago
As someone who didn’t vote for “America First”, I’d say so, especially if you look at a country like China. They want to world to back the Yuan, they’re extra vocal now. America is all talk about isolationism, doing less humanitarian work globally, our maga agenda. If America wants to focus on itself, that only leaves room for other countries to take the lead. I’d say this is what they asked for but a bunch of them can’t seem to even agree on what “America First” even means. I trust the trump quote, where he said it means whatever he wants. That’s why the plan is backfiring, that’s not a plan lol.
NameLips | 15 hours ago
I'm starting to think that whoever is the Democratic candidate should choose a slogan like "Stronger Together." It's snappy and can apply to both domestic and foreign relations.
Alertcircuit | 21 hours ago
It's not even "America First" really. We still let Americans starve in the streets and gut the education system. We still let Americans pay a bazillion dollars for healthcare. We don't punish businesses monetarily for outsourcing jobs or hiring illegal immigrants. We still let lots of foreigners take American jobs through work Visas, although that's not inherently bad cause they can stay and become Americans. We still give a shit ton of money to Israel. We still get involved in foreign conflicts that our citizens don't want anything to do with. We're not restricting generative AI even though the art that comes from this country is why America has had cultural dominance for generations. What is "America First" about any of what we're doing right now other than yelling "me me me"?
If we're just saying "America First" as a name for his tariffs and foreign policy, obviously it's not fucking working. Americans are still paying more and more for shit. We keep flip flopping and threatening our allies and the dollar is weakening in favor of metals because of it. It's getting to the point where I'm beginning to wonder if Trump has a literal mountain of gold somewhere and he's purposely trying to tank the dollar so his gold stockpile becomes more valuable.
Hazuchio | 14 hours ago
US might look fine now, but the rich will devour the poor. There will only be more hostilities and divide as the inequality increases. Eventually, the economy will collapse after the rest of the world moves onto new trade partners. Default on debt. A death spiral to follow.
jellyhessman | 12 hours ago
The US does not look fine now.
Every major financial indicator is pointing to a massive depression in the next 3 years.
guywholikesboobs | 10 hours ago
>Every major financial indicator is pointing to a massive depression in the next 3 years.
The data is mixed and leading indicators are more so pointing to slowdown/recession, not severe economic depression.
Cariboo_Red | 14 hours ago
I fail to see how anybody who can read and write would think it would turn out any differently. There are myriad examples in the past of how this whole inanity will turn out.
ThatsASpicyBaby | 11 hours ago
America’s long term global supremacy was predicated on its international ties. It being the world’s reserve currency and dominant voice in foreign affairs was contingent on the US being consistent and trustworthy from administration to administration. None of that can be true if we might elect xenophobic morons every four years.
Olderscout77 | 10 hours ago
It started some time ago, but the World gave us a repreive from 2020 to 2024 when we rejected Trumpism. Now there's no coming back - nobody is going to trust the USA again because they know we're capable of electing moronic psychopaths at every level of Government, psycho's who swear to NOT respect any promises we may have preveiously made. Trump has done for the US what he previously did for the Trump Ogranization and doing for Americans what he already did to his employees.
Delicious-Plastic-44 | 20 hours ago
Sometimes in politics a population doesn’t get what they want, they get what they deserve.
America needs to wallow in its feces a while. Then it can come back to the world with humility. In like 20-30 years
Ok_Builder910 | 14 hours ago
This isn't backfiring.
It was the plan all along. There were zero people that thought it would go differently.
The question no one is willing to ask is why. The answers are too terrible.
QuietKanuk | 7 hours ago
The question
>Is ‘America First’ starting to backfire as Washington’s allies go it alone?
Is mis-framed.
In the context of Canada, the president of the US has said explicitly and REPEATEDLY that the US doesn't need anything from Canada. In between saying how perfectly reasonable it would be if Canada were to be annexed.
So the question about 'allies going it alone' is more like "Allies? You think you still have allies?"
Oh, you poor sweet child. That ship has sailed, and you don't even recognize that you missed the boat.
For countries, trust is built over decades, but in this case was destroyed in less than a single year. But at least relations with Putin improved, so I guess there's that.
TragicallyDip | 7 hours ago
They’re not going it alone, they’re leaving the US behind. Americans seem to have no idea how trade works, as well as soft power. It’s bizarre watching them throw it all away for literally nothing.
AdmiralUpboat | 6 hours ago
It's backfiring because it isn't "America first." The policies are all "American ultra wealthy and their cronies first." It's never been about America, that's just how they packaged the dog shit so maga dopes would vote for eating it as if it was chocolate.
Visible_Wolverine2 | 17 hours ago
Leaders aren’t doing “America first”, they are doing Israel and Billionaires First. America First doesn’t leave trade partnerships, or productive relationships. It is supposed to focus attention on helping American lives and the American infrastructure. That is not happening.
Ithirahad | 18 hours ago
It is not America First that is backfiring, it is the utter lack of any steady hand upon the tiller.
Some degree of economic independence is good for America's leverage, job opportunities for people who are not necessarily all going to have masters' degrees and PhDs, and (more importantly) its nonquantifiable sense of self-worth. But that requires a well-laid plan spanning more than one presidential term, and not randomly shutting down energy projects or imposing 100% tariffs on some country because Fox News said one night that you should dislike them.
CaspinLange | 15 hours ago
It’s a problem that didn’t exist before Trump. A completely manufactured and unnecessary problem that harms hundreds of millions of people. A problem that will cease to exist once he’s gone.
saml01 | 16 hours ago
Maybe I’m feeling optimistic but i really doubt one presidency is the death knell for this country. Meh, maybe its unpleasant. Maybe this is going to be hard to undo. But its certainly not the end of 250 years of development. This is a hiccup on the road to something even better. A last gasp of a way of thinking that will never exist again. Just a problem we need to deal with for a little longer until things go back to normal unfortunately.
LivefromPhoenix | 8 hours ago
It isn't one presidency though. America tried to convince the world that Trump was an aberration and then we elected him again. It would be insane for any country to trust American voters to not elect another crazy person intent on tearing up every agreement the US is involved in.