Donald Trump’s bruising return to the White House has sent many longtime foreign allies scrambling to get their distance, and according to a new piece from The Atlantic, that distance will last long after Trump is gone.
Trump’s second term as president has been marked by notable and widespread disrespect toward nations once seen as close U.S. allies. Between his attempts to level massive tariffs against nearly every nation in the world and his frequent breaches of diplomatic norms, Trump has created a hostile global environment in which allies no longer feel safe trusting in the stability of the U.S.
In a new piece for The Atlantic on Tuesday, staff writer Vivian Salama argued that this new dynamic, in which the nations of the world are working to establish a safe distance from the U.S., is bound to become the new normal for years to come, even after Trump leaves office and is potentially replaced by a more traditional, dependable administration.
It’s like this. No shade to Americans, but you guys can do this shit in any four year period. You elected him TWICE.
No hard feelings, but you’re on your own.
They re-elect him every day they sit on their asses and allow MAGA to feel safe in public. PLENTY of shade.
It’s not even Trump, they gave him the Congress and Senate too. They REALLY went all in on the Republicans for some fucked up reason.
IDK where you are typing this from, but far-right populism is surging in the EU and some other parts of the world.
In other words, you aren’t wrong, but take the situation more as a warning for yourself. Take a hard look in your own back yard, with wide eyes.
The fact that the rest of the world isn’t perfect, doesn’t change the fact that the rule of law in the USA is completely dead and presidents can now do whatever they want.
You are right about the far-right in the EU, but
I’m in Australia, and yes, far right idiocy happens here too. But in this country our electoral system keeps the wackos contained. We have compulsory preferential voting. Elections here are decided by the middle, not the extremities.
does it ? As an Australian i’d call this take woefully misguided. We elect an endless litany of wackos and nut jobs.
For example, many pundits are suggesting an ONP electoral win and we have our wackos in Government including the LNP.
Remember those asshats holding a lump of coal and laughing about the outcome for the Pacific Islands? we elected one of them as Prime Minister, the same one that then shit in France’s pocket, like Trump is doing to his “friends”
Our talk on immigration is as tough as the US BUT its across ALP, LNO and ONP so most voters are obviously Ok with it, we place refugees in off shore detention centres, many commiting suicide, like the much maligned Alligator Alcatraz in the US. The ALP has literally said they are going to hunt down visa overstayers, like ICE do in the US now. Our phones can be searched anywhere, Americans are in horror about phone searched at the border that’s just a small sample.
the only difference is the size of the stage, ours is insignificant in the world and no one pays any attention, (including apparently Australians) to our endless hate and stupidity.
As to our electoral system, calling bullshit on that, the US has primaries where they vote on candidates and have some say, we have precisely zero choice in that respect. The US has the state base electoral college, that supposed to be there stop big states bullying smaller states by having more representatives ie more people = more votes (aka democracy), we have something similar with our senate having the same number of senators for each state, Tassie (with less population then the the Gold Coast) having the same number of senators as NSW. They do have issues over donor contributions (PACs etc) but so do we, who do you think is bank rolling the ONP? The Greens have long warned of this (and climate change) and been ignored by voters.
We are not good, we’re a petro state hell bent on destroying the planet with our greed and most everything we do makes Australia and the world a worse place.
Can’thappen here, also what we thought.
That’s what we thought too…
Our two electoral systems couldn’t be more different. For a start in ours the politicians aren’t allowed to draw electoral boundaries.
We all thought our constitution had some pretty good checks and balances too. But boy…money talks
Those mostly turned out to just be gentleman’s agreements. As an Americsn, it seems Australia and other countries may have actually put these things into laws with consequences. Sounds nice
No constitution can protect you from voting for an absolute buffoon.
The constitution is a piece of paper. It’s the ones in power that enforce it, and you gave all the power to a clown.
In our case, it’s not the constitution. It’s a result of long running electoral reform. in essence, political parties nor politicians can fuck with the electoral system nor boundaries. It’s run by an independent commission. Parties are welcome to make a submission suggesting change, evenake a case for change, but if it doesn’t match the set criteria, they get shut down. Unlike your states who can redraw boundaries to pick their voters.
Do those independent commissions have their own military? If not, they can be ignored.
Of course, institutions and constitutions can protect against some power. But at the end of the day, whoever has the police and military on their side has the last word.
If democracies don’t often end up as military dictatorships is because people usually vote for parties that at least say they are pro-constitution and pro-independent institutions. Therefore the military ends up in the hands of someone that values those independent institutions.
But if you give the power on purpose to a party that openly claims they don’t give a shit about the rule of law, you get the USA.
As I said, constitutions and independent entities only have power if the ones in charge of the military (the ultimate power source) follow the constitution and the law voluntarily.
That’s a positive, but IMO the fundamental issue is engagement-driven social media stoking extremist populism. If voters radicalize, especially in one direction, no voting system will protect you from that.
We… well, I was gonna was we realized it too late in the US, but we never really figured it out, and now we never will.
You folks need to neuter US social media as fast as you can. Cut the undersea cables, if you have to.
For now, but far right ideology shouldn’t be contained, it should be quashed. The US is a great example of what happens when it isn’t.
Also, the rise in far right ideologies across multiple countries should be a global concern. If one country under fascist control can cause significant damage to Australia imagine the effect of 4 or 5 scattered across the world.
Thanks for the tip, but get your own house in order before lecturing everyone else. To date, we are good.
This is dangerous thinking. This is exactly what I’m talking about.
Complacency and overconfidence is precisely how fascism rises, historically.
Don’t be proud, be afraid. Look at the tire fires overseas as motivation to squash the embers in Australia now. Your election system alone will not protect you from it.
Why is the typical American response always “No U!” ?
The problem is not that Republicans are far-right. Nowhere in the article does it say former allies are distancing themselves because of the far-right in America. The problem is the actions of the administration: a single person constantly threatening allies, tearing up agreements from previous administrations just because, tearing up agreements from his own administration just because, and zero resistance from the other branches of government or the citizens for doing so.
Former allies are distancing themselves because the word of the US means absolutely nothing. It doesn’t matter what they promise, the US has shown no deal or agreement will ever be honored, and there are no mechanisms in place to make sure previous agreements are honored. Why would anyone make a deal with someone who will ignore it the next day?
It’s typical American learned helplessness: “The far right exists everywhere in the world so there’s nothing we can do about it.”
That is precisely the opposite of what I meant.
Ideology is what gives Trump the power to do what he wants, what put him there, what enables him and stokes him. He is a symptom.
I am arguing the exact opposite; not that there is nothing that can be done, but that other countries should take the exact opposite approach the US took and take immediate, drastic action before it’s too late.
I did not mean to drag specific US politics into this at all, but to use it as an example when one assumes their country is on a better trajectory than it actually is. The EU is not in a good place, Australia and Canada are not on good trajectories, and if they don’t act as if they are one election away from populist fascism, other countries will find themselves with leaders trashing alliances, too.
In other words:
This article ^ could be your future.
If you’re confident your voter base is “above that,” you should take a closer look.
Which is part of my issue. The article is specifically about US politics, and you don’t want to talk about US politics, instead you go on a tangent about other countries.
A contributing factor to the issues in the US is that Americans seem to be unable to stay on topic about anything long enough to take action. Trump does something that would have ended the political career of any other president, but before anything is done about it you’re taking about the next thing, and then the next thing, and the first thing is already forgotten.
Here we are talking about the impact of the actions the US government is currently taking, and Americans start taking about how other countries might start doing it in the future. On another article that was about a far right party in another country I saw Americans talking about “all the people who told us to take action…” Making it about America. It’s never about the actual topic.
Yes, I realize it’s “not all Americans”, but it is “always an American”. And I don’t mean when it happens it’s an America doing it, I mean every time an article is posted about the shitstorm happening in the US there is always an American pointing out that the far right exist elsewhere. It gets so fucking old and it isn’t helpful. People know. Pointing out the nightmare happening in the US does not mean people are unaware of the far right in their own countries, and talking about what is happening in the US is more helpful to encourage people to prevent it happening in their own countries because they can see where it leads.
I was responding to this comment:
I see this “it’s not the same here” attitude a lot, because it is. I think it’s dangerous to write it off as “America did this to themselves,” like the same thing isn’t in progress all over the globe.
I’m specifically not trying to belittle other places, or look down upon them; I have no leg to stand on. I am trying to WARN them to not get comfortable. I am yelling “this exact same shit is cooking in Canada, and Australia, the EU, all over the world, so burn it out with fire while you can.”
You’re right, we need a lot of reform.
You’re not wrong to feel that way and you’re not wrong that it is a common opinion, specifically among Europeans. That said, I don’t think your politicians are nearly principled enough to stick to that stance. Some of them say it now because people want to hear it but the moment it becomes less awkward to do so they’ll go back to relying on America for all sorts of things that you don’t want them to. Hell, many of them won’t even make an attempt to distance themselves now, or worse, actively praise many of Trump’s actions.
The ones that make a fuss now won’t go back because of American exceptionalism but because it is economically in their interest to do so in a myriad of ways. This is why Europe has been content to rely on American military assets for so many decades. It was never a particularly good idea but it was economically expedient. The same is true of American media, tech companies, and financial institutions. It’s easier to let someone else have a bit of control in order to simplify things and politicians love simple sounding solutions.
Maybe I’m wrong and this is the moment that the EU usurps the US for good. That’s probably the best case outcome. I just don’t think there’s enough agreement between European nations on what needs to happen to get to that point in order for it to become a reality.
There is a great deal in what you say that I heartily agree with, and a few things that I don’t. I’m not European, although I do visit annually, so I have no horse in that race.
I would say that you repeat a tired American trope that has been outdated for at least 35 years now. That Europe gets more out of the NATO than America does.
The US gets a great deal out of NATO, arguably all lot more than Europe gets. For a start, the US has 31 permamant military bases across Europe and free access to another 19 hosted by member countries. It doesn’t really need to ask permission on how it operates on any of them. It also maintains another 275 smaller units and installations for free. This is not a one-way deal for Europe. For the US, a country that insists on projecting power to influence national policy objectives, the ability to operate like this is incredible. Does it pay rent? No. Does it seek agreement with the host country? No. It bombs first and informs later.
Secondly, wherever possible it forces US military hardware onto European countries by way of ‘interoperability’. Those F35s provide jobs for US workers. Same with parts, same bombs and weapon systems. All that hard cash flows back to the US. There is a reason why US administrations bitch and moan about Europe not pulling it’s weight on NATO but still won’t pull out of the region. It’s because the US gets a massive indirect benefit from the deal.
But what does Europe get in return? It’s supposed to be security guarantees. But the only country that has triggered NATO’s Article Five has been the US following 9/11. Hundreds of Europeans died in defence of what happened in far-off New York. Not that this has been appreciated by Trump.
Lastly, the biggest threat to Europe is Putin. And what has been the US response? Not great. All of Europe has been watching and wondering has all this been worth it. The one reason Europe has been tolerating America taking over much of its foreign policy is for a security trade-off. Now it seems the arrangement is worthless.
I’m not European, but I’m watching events. Nothing dramatic will happen in the short term. Spain cancelled it’s F35 contract. European countries have universally increased their defence budgets, not from US pressure, but from the realisation that security is unlikely to arrive from America. Countries have failed to support the US openly. First time since WW2. The whole world turned their back on the stupid Iran war. Things have changed irrevocably. However, they will only visibly change over time. You guys are sleepwalking into isolation.
Let’s revisit the subject in 10 years and see how things have turned out?
I appreciate your response both in quality and in tone. Thanks for that.
To be clear, I never meant to imply that the US gets nothing out of NATO. It is clear that we do for the reasons you mentioned and countless others. I was simply saying, in much the same way you did, that EU nations allowed that situation to exist because spending less on defense was good for them domestically in an economic sense. It was not a good decision beyond the short term from a security perspective unless the US could be guaranteed to be a righteous actor forever and that is obviously not something that can ever be guaranteed. Treaties and alliances are great. Dependence is not.
It is true that some countries have taken action to distance themselves from the US under Trump. It is also true that many of the citizens of the EU want their governments to take more action on that front. As an American, I would rather the EU lead the world in most respects as I trust most of their governmental systems to represent their people better than ours does.
Still, money rules the world and the US has a lot of it. Greed is a powerful motivator and I would bet that it is going to entice a lot of European politicians to make unpopular deals with the US and it’s corporate representatives under the next administration. Despite the EU as a whole better representing it’s people there are still too many instances of their governments manipulating or outright ignoring popular sentiments for me to believe that something like sidelining the US is within the realm of possibility, even if most of their citizens wanted to do so.
As a last note I would add that I believe eliminating reliance on the US is something the EU absolutely should do as much as possible. It is the only reasonable answer to the insanity taking place in our government. Nothing I’ve said should discourage action towards that goal. I’m just trying to be realistic about how I see that playing out.
Great reply!
this is exactly what putin wants, plus hes pretty much bankrolling most of eus far right gonvernments, to this end. needs a divisive west, so he cant take over former soviet bloc with much resistance.
As long as china, india doesnt get in his way, and they dont seem to mind that russia is a useful tool for them.