Many people seem to keep making the mistake of taking Trump’s words at face value. This is partly the fault of the media, which hangs onto everything he says because he is their golden goose. Furthermore, there is the desire to keep finding some kind of logic in Trump’s actions.
The problem is, we keep projecting our own logic onto the Trump admin. We think, “what would we do if we were American imperialists?” Which leads us, and many analysts (like yanis) to think about the Trump admin as if they were cavalry reinforcements arriving unexpectedly in the darkest hour of western imperialism to save it.
In reality, the Trump admin simply wants to impose unequal trade treaties on his allies and get them to spend more on weapons. His fearmongering and negging is his style of salesmanship.
The fact that the Trump admin keeps flip flopping on tariffs, resumed military aid to Ukraine, tried to pull that stunt with the “30 day ceasefire” (in ukraine) and the ceasefire in Palestine has broken down all show that the Trump administration has as much of a master plan as a shitty SV startup trying to attract VC funding.
What worries me is that the Europeans are falling for this con a second time! Trump literally did the same shit in his first term and got the euros to up their NATO spending! The fact that the Europeans can’t even act in self interest or see through the tactics of a used car salesman is horrifying to see in first person. These people have nukes.
You are right about everything except “the Europeans are falling for this con a second time!”.
We are vasal states and our leaders are sellouts. They know what is happening.
It has been done for centuries in Africa or wherever.
A local puppet dictator fills his pockets while his country is being plundered by colonialists.
Not a peep from the EU when the US commited a blatant act of terrorism by blowing up Nordstream and destroying our economy.
They don’t feel the gas prices or unemployment, they don’t need to care.
The US would like nothing more than to see the whole of Europe and Russia at war.
Economic competition destroying themselves while they benefit.
This is how the leeches took us over after WW2.
Now we’re in their sphere of influence and the NATO protection racket.