One characteristic of the European politics is that it’s slow. Painfully slow. With 27 countries with veto power and different interests it is certain that at any time you will have any possibility on the table together with its opposite.
Making an EU independent from the US has been certainly a dream for several groups since decades. The idea never got much traction because it seemed more convenient to go in the direction of a single market with the US for some kind of goods.
That was true until Trump’s second term with the tariffs, the NATO power play, and the BS around Greenland. Now there is no doubt that the EU should seek independence from the US and seek agreements with Canada and China first. The only question is how quickly it should be done because some countries (like Germany, Italy and Greece) have more to lose than others and there is the issue with Ukraine.
That said, you are free to think that with Biden it was all the same (or even worse).
One characteristic of the European politics is that it’s slow. Painfully slow.
The glacial pace of European politics helps prove my point. The fact that the pace is slightly quickening may or may not be because of Trump - like I said, I certainly wouldn’t argue against his undeniable increasing of the already rapidly deteriorating global image of the US as being trustworthy, but the whole point is that that deterioration was already happening when he got into office. Your original position is that it was not, that the Europeans feeling that the US cannot be trusted anymore and that the image of the dollar’s supremacy was waning, that all of that rests entirely on the shoulder of the Republicans when that is just demonstrably not true.
That said, you are free to think that with Biden it was all the same (or even worse).
You’re shifting the goalposts a bit there, since I never claimed it was “the same” only that it was already clearly well underway, which I have maintained throughout. Yes, I am free to recognize the objective reality of the situation, just as you are free to, for whatever odd reason, push against it to mistakenly insist that Trump is some sudden and unique outlier in the collapse of US image and power projection when that has demonstrably been going on since before him and will continue after, even if he is ramping up the rate of deterioration.
It’s funny because while we both acknowledge that we can have different opinions, you imply that mine is totally wrong.
Before Trump 2 the US was an ally, the cornerstone of NATO, the place where you want to go to have some kind of career, and so on. We can argue that something changed a bit over the decades, but America was always America. Even during Trump’s first term, for us at least, it was business as usual (despite lots of negative forecasts).
In the last few months all that certainty became questionable at least. I see a remarkable shift in politics, public opinion, and risk assessment at work. “Going European” is a widespread idea. Replacing the US in defence is now for the first time in history a funded project with an end date and clear objectives, including nuclear defence. Quite a few websites emerged to help consumers “buy European” or “check if it’s American”. For the first time in my life, boycotting US is no more something for rebellious teenagers full of ideologies, and people are at work to create here those things that we used to “just buy” from the US. The EU put on the table “the bazooka”: a legal instrument created to kick out China from the continent and that now some (like France) want to use against Trump.
But yeah, you can think that it all started years ago and that I have a secret agenda to defend Biden. Sure, why not?
One characteristic of the European politics is that it’s slow. Painfully slow. With 27 countries with veto power and different interests it is certain that at any time you will have any possibility on the table together with its opposite.
Making an EU independent from the US has been certainly a dream for several groups since decades. The idea never got much traction because it seemed more convenient to go in the direction of a single market with the US for some kind of goods.
That was true until Trump’s second term with the tariffs, the NATO power play, and the BS around Greenland. Now there is no doubt that the EU should seek independence from the US and seek agreements with Canada and China first. The only question is how quickly it should be done because some countries (like Germany, Italy and Greece) have more to lose than others and there is the issue with Ukraine.
That said, you are free to think that with Biden it was all the same (or even worse).
The glacial pace of European politics helps prove my point. The fact that the pace is slightly quickening may or may not be because of Trump - like I said, I certainly wouldn’t argue against his undeniable increasing of the already rapidly deteriorating global image of the US as being trustworthy, but the whole point is that that deterioration was already happening when he got into office. Your original position is that it was not, that the Europeans feeling that the US cannot be trusted anymore and that the image of the dollar’s supremacy was waning, that all of that rests entirely on the shoulder of the Republicans when that is just demonstrably not true.
You’re shifting the goalposts a bit there, since I never claimed it was “the same” only that it was already clearly well underway, which I have maintained throughout. Yes, I am free to recognize the objective reality of the situation, just as you are free to, for whatever odd reason, push against it to mistakenly insist that Trump is some sudden and unique outlier in the collapse of US image and power projection when that has demonstrably been going on since before him and will continue after, even if he is ramping up the rate of deterioration.
It’s funny because while we both acknowledge that we can have different opinions, you imply that mine is totally wrong.
Before Trump 2 the US was an ally, the cornerstone of NATO, the place where you want to go to have some kind of career, and so on. We can argue that something changed a bit over the decades, but America was always America. Even during Trump’s first term, for us at least, it was business as usual (despite lots of negative forecasts).
In the last few months all that certainty became questionable at least. I see a remarkable shift in politics, public opinion, and risk assessment at work. “Going European” is a widespread idea. Replacing the US in defence is now for the first time in history a funded project with an end date and clear objectives, including nuclear defence. Quite a few websites emerged to help consumers “buy European” or “check if it’s American”. For the first time in my life, boycotting US is no more something for rebellious teenagers full of ideologies, and people are at work to create here those things that we used to “just buy” from the US. The EU put on the table “the bazooka”: a legal instrument created to kick out China from the continent and that now some (like France) want to use against Trump.
But yeah, you can think that it all started years ago and that I have a secret agenda to defend Biden. Sure, why not?
it’s slow unless it’s about increasing military spending and support for Israel, then it’s very fast!