[k33n]

If you think the world is shifting away from the United States, or that Trump isn’t having his way with virtually every trading partner on the map, then it seems you are falling victim to strong anti-US rhetoric. This rhetoric isn’t based in reality. The US leads the defense strategy of the entirety of Europe, and Europe has no other alternative. There may be some politicians that want to choose the US as “the loser”. But that’s just not really an option given the size of our economy and the size of our military.

TDS inspires people to blurt out the types of statements you’re making.

[epistasis]

You throw around insults like "TDS," and try to say that a plain and calm stating of facts is "blurting," but is there even a single trading partner where Trump is having his way? He makes ridiculous demands, throws around tariffs, and at most he extracts a memorandum of understanding that maybe there will be a trade deal in the future. Trump promised something like 100 new trade deals last year in a matter of months, and long after the deadline where are the deals?

The clear facts are that the US has cheapened its word and made itself an embarrassment around the globe. China has completely dog walked Trump on tariffs and trade, devastating US farmers, and leading to far stronger ties between China and the rest of the world, not just with our former tight trading partner Canada, but with all the emerging economies around the world. The US is cutting itself out of the new economic order that is emerging from the energy transition to cheaper renewable energy, which will leave the US with sky-high energy prices while the rest of the world runs their economies cheaper, and with less inflation-inducing price shocks, on solar and grid storage.

I respond with these basic facts not because I think that you will believe anything, but because the obvious falsehoods that you are repeating should not stand unanswered by the reality that we can all see in the world.

> There may be some politicians that want to choose the US as “the loser”. But that’s just not really an option given the size of our economy and the size of our military.

The only politicians that wants to choose the US as the loser are those following the dictates of Trump, by weakening our gloabl position. The size of our economy and military are not enough of a draw to keep us as the leader through sheer domination. And in fact pretending that "domination" is what made the US strong is the exact sort of weak person's idea of a strong man. The US is handing away all its leadership and power by trying to force what it does not have the ability to force, trying to force what would instead be freely given! It's utter insane behavior of a nation, and indicates just how little the Trump administration understands of US power around the world. The US is not a mob boss, we are (were?) a leader that attracted support because we were a shining example of what a country could be. When we act like bullies we throw away all that power, because we can not fight the entire world with our military, and our economy is not nearly big enough to overcome bullying behavior.

Edit: an as for an example just this morning of how Trump is making the US weaker, the UK is not allowing the US to use bases for attacks on Iran, which is leading to other threats from Trump that further push the UK away and make the US weaker on the global stage. Nearly every single day the US is becoming weaker because of this sort of weak behavior. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/trump-chagos-is...