I tend to believe that the US can both attend to its own problems and be involved globally, and that such involvement is good for us. Maintaining cordial relations with countries that are not overtly adversarial toward us seems like a reasonable approach and one that likely brings economic benefits for us. And we are all humans (with some caveat there about members of Hamas and Putin-like Russians) and we should feel some kinship with all mankind and disregard artificial national boundaries in our willingness to advocate for and protect basic human rights and freedoms. For a century, the US has helped lead and create a world in which billions of humans have come to have a higher standard of living. And since the second World War we have helped to limit armed conflicts that do no one any good, stepping in to prevent delusional dictators from using violence to expand their rule.
While I like much of what Trump has done, particularly in regard to government efficiency and eliminating indoctrination, his actions toward other countries should concern us all. The level of bullying, mocking and outright hostility is doing us no good even among our natural friends–the other free market democracies. And it is having and will have unintended consequences that are not good for us economically or in the interests of maintaining peace. Here is one example. Canada has been led by a whacked pro(re)gressive for far too long. Pierre Poilievre is a solid conservative who would be an outstanding leader and a better friend to the US. He was leading by 20 points. But after Trump’s treatment of Canada and Canadians, Pierre is now losing in the polls. And US exports to Canada are down. A company in Norway says it won’t provide fuel to the US Navy because of Trump’s actions in regard to Ukraine. Norway has about the highest per capital income in the world and they don’t need us, so we can’t threaten them.
From tariffs to demands about more military spending to the apparent embrace of obvious enemies to Western values, like Putin, it isn’t Trump’s actions or policies but how he communicates them that raises hackles in foreign countries. And no matter how strong we think we are militarily or economically, neither we or any other country can go it alone. Many businesses and jobs in this country are tied to the export of goods, services and intellectual property. At some point other countries will just say ok, fine, the hell with you, and make it even harder for us to sell overseas. No one really wins, and the US certainly won’t, in this environment.
I am in favor of the “retaliatory” trade actions if their goal is to either equalize barriers or eliminate them. I do think Europe needs to devote more spending to defense. But there is a way to do that without being confrontational or adversarial. Trump needs to spend more time praising other countries and using charm to get his deals done, and less threatening them. If not, he is going to find himself with a worsening economy and world situation and that won’t be good for the conservative cause.
Not certain I can agree with your characterization of Trump’s methods. Yes, he’s confrontational … Biden wasn’t, and look what it gave us. I think most European leaders understand that there is the public-facing side to negotiations and a private side. Trump draws attention with his public statements, but achieves results with his private efforts, e.g. the Abraham Accord.
As far as the recent incident with Zelenskyy, IMO that was ALL Zelenskyy. FIrst 40 minutes of the presser went fine … but then Z attacked JV in a very hostile way. And he DID campaign in PA for Harris, a genuine election interference.
It isn’t even the confrontational as much as the mocking and disrespect that concerns me, no one likes that, and what happened in Canada is an absolute shame and completely due to Trump’s tone
Stick to bond auctions and medical news.
you may not like what I have to say, but that is no reason for me to stop saying it. The truth is hard to deny but easy to ignore
https://www.reuters.com/world/norway-says-it-will-keep-supplying-fuel-us-navy-after-company-calls-boycott-2025-03-02/
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/03/02/britain-and-france-to-craft-a-coalition-of-the-willing-ukraine-ceasefire-plan-to-present-to-trump/
Well ok but first Zelensky met with a group of democrats before meeting with our President. Why. Secondly, the whole video shows a very different level of discourse. Who else has taken this much money from us with so little tangible outcome. I for one believe there is money laundering happening. We certainly know it was lilely happening with USAID funds based on the work by Datarepublican.
why the heck would he listen to Dems? that makes no sense when he knows Trump is in charge
Looking back what has diplomacy gotten us? How many billions have.we.spent, have to others? The minute they get in trouble who do they call for help? It ain’t the ghost busters. Trump is Trump, you either take or reject the whole package because he doesn’t come in individual serving sizes.
I think much of what you write is fine but I disagree with getting involved in limiting armed conflicts if that means providing arms or troops. You know as well as we do that we are broke – the brokest nation in all of history, and I’m not accounting for the $100 trillion+ in unfunded liabilities, liabilities that would force a company into bankruptcy. We should help only countries that we have commitments to or that have strategic, economic interests to us (or both). Ukraine doesn’t tick any of those boxes (Taiwan and Israel do, for example). NATO countries obviously count, but they’ve been living off of us since 1917. How many trillions of dollars have we spent defending them, with how many lives, in WW I, WW II, the Cold War and Yugoslavia? Since NATO was designed “to keep the Americans in, the Soviets out and the Germans down” as someone once said, and its primary purpose is to defend Europe, then Europe should fund the majority of NATO defense expenses – say 2/3 at least. It should not be proportional to the size of economies, it to should be proportional to who benefits, and that’s the Europeans. Further, the Europeans run big trade surpluses with us and view American tech companies as piggy banks to rob every few years with multi-billion dollar fines, plus regulations that seek to extend European values into American lives.
For all we’ve done for Europe – keeping them free and being their market for their mercantile systems – they look down on us as unsophisticated rubes, suitable for mocking. All while they cannot defend themselves (while we put our cities at risk to defend them) and cannot grow their economies much.
Remember how they mocked and denigrated Trump in his first term. The Brits even participated in the Russia-Russia-Russia get Trump atrocity. Merkel and the superior Europeans were photographed staring down Trump (and, by extension, us) at a summit, with only Japan’s Abe defending us.
But when things become a problem for them – Russia, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Ukraine – they come running to us to make things better. They fund Russia with their Nord Stream pipelines then are gobsmacked when the Russians act like Russians, using the profits from gas and petroleum sales to Europe. They deal with the Chinese, thinking they can profit, while the Chinese are now eating their lunches. They throw Israel to the wolves, constantly, and, outside the Muslim world, Europeans are the biggest and most vicious anti-Semites you will find in this world. They have no problem with October 7 and still defend the homicidal, terrorist Gazans above a free and democratic Israel.
Finally, Ukraine is not in our national interest. Not a bit. I already wrote that we have little trade and zero strategic interest with Ukraine, and we have no history with them (other than meddling in their internal politics). They are not worth our time and effort, especially in a war with their neighbor who has the most nuclear weapons on this planet. And we’re around $36,000,000,000,000 in debt, paying over $1,000,000,000,000 annually in interest on that debt, and increasing that debt by at least $2,000,000,000,000 per year (which adds roughly $100,000,000,000 annually to our interest costs essentially forever – and then in following years we add to that again and again and again).
The Europeans need to stand on their own two feet. They need to defend themselves. If they can’t get troops to Ukraine then that’s due to their lack of military capability and we cannot and should not do it for them.
Donald Trump represents a huge number of Americans. We are sick and tired of being taken advantage of by people who, frankly, owe us their lives and their freedoms. Who have contributed to us being the brokest nation ever. Who see us as rubes to be taken to the cleaners. By a bunch of non-democratic lunatics (the EU is not democratic) who use totalitarian tactics to squelch speech and overturn elections in their own “union.” I couldn’t care less about their whiny little butts.
So, sure, we should engage in the world but should unabashedly do so in our national interest. We should treat them as they treat us. They don’t like that but …. tough.
Disclosure: I’ve been all over Europe and eastern Asia doing business for 25 years – I’m not a redneck ‘Merican drinkin’ beer on my porch.
respect your views, but you are dead wrong about Ukraine or any place else not being in our national interest. The belief that any nation can ignore what goes on elsewhere has repeatedly been shown to lead to disaster. And of course, France should never have helped the US win the revolutionary war under your theory. The US debt issue is solely due to out of control entitlement programs and tax-giveaways to rich people, like the private foundation rules and “renewable” energy subsidies. If we don’t reduce entitlement spending we won’t end the deficits