You are not understanding Trump and you are not comprehending what I am saying.
You have got to be joking, there is no genius bigger plan in Trumps game...
You are responding to a narrative which is in your head, not any post I've made. You seem to be conflating Trump with preexisting political gripes that you have with the USA.
No, I'm pointing out that any claim by any American that they are spending money defending Europe is utter ********, America's reasons for their bloated military spending and military presence in Europe are entirely selfish. That's not a gripe, it's a fact of world politics. America wants to be world policemen which means they have their military in countries all round the world. We did it when we had the empire.
Yes, the USA establishment since after WWII had paid for Europe's defense and allowed them favorable trade terms.
Absolute crap. Yeah they paid for our defence a bit after WW2 but it wasn't long before European armies had rebuilt. Favourable trade terms? Er no. Americans set it up so they could export lots of good to Europe, WE were the net importers and America's big export market. WE bought American goods using money the Americans had loaned to us during the war (which they charged interest on) and only recently paid off. Now things have turned around and Europe exports more to the USA but you are seriously ill educated if we are exporting to the USA because we got beneficial trade deals. The trade deals were beneficial but for BUYING from the USA, not selling to the USA. The reason we export to the USA is due to basic competition. Funny how the Americans loved enforcing free trade when they were the most productive nations with the goods to sell but as soon as other nations catch up, suddenly free trade is horrible.
In return the USA establishment was able to use European power as a supplement to our own power in the game of global politics. That made sense in the Cold War, and the American people were willing to pay this price to contain communism. The world order changed when the Iron Curtain fell, but the USA establishment now wanted to keep playing their games. I'm sure it's fun to try and run the world, and then there's all the special interests / bureaucracy / military industrial complex / etc that have a stake in continuing to get their piece of the pie.
This is all true enough
After 25 years and failure after failure of USA foreign policy the USA elected Trump. He ran on a campaign of eliminating the Deep State, draining the swamp and overturning US foreign policy.
And since taking office all he has done is created a state that is more in line with what you would find in a dictatorship and caused the swamp to overflow. As for overturning US foreign policy? Yeah he has, but not in a good way. He has alienated every ally of the USA, started a global trade war that, contrary to what he says, the USA will lose, attempted to dismantle NATO, failed to observe even basic decorum as a guest in other countries, trashed Americas image internationally, trashed his own intelligence agencies, completely ignored the principles behind free press and cosied up to 2 of Americas enemies. Compare the amount of criticism Trump has fired at Russia to how much he has fired at any of America's allies. Think if Trump was a Russian mole who was told to destabilise the West, the USA and NATO, what would he do differently to what he has already done?
He's not interested in buying off Europe in exchange for Europe agreeing to be junior partners. He either wants a fair alliance.
You're not good at spotting bullshit are you? Have you even looked at how Trump conducts his business? He intentionally chooses small companies, bullies them, refuses to pay them and then sues them. The guy has never cared for fairness in his entire life and somehow you've bought the line that that is what he wants? Quite frankly you are SERIOUSLY ******* stupid if you believe that. What is he doing? Getting aggressive and trying to bully smaller countries into a deal that will be better for HIM (not the USA) EXACTLY the same as how he conducted his business. The USA and Europe already have free trade agreements, which is fair. Did it ever cross your mind that you might be importing Europe stuff because some things we can simply produce better and cheaper? Of course not, it must be down to unfair practices. Can you name any of these unfair practices?
He's not willing to use the wealth created by the American people to subsidize European defense or give you trade deals that are unfair to the American worker, and I think US voters agree with that.
Well how lucky for him the USA isn't subsidising our defence nor does America have unfair trade deals with Europe. As with most things he says, it is just and out and out
LIE.
A fair alliance involves actual German / Italian / French troops fighting along side as equal partners of the US / UK / Canada in a situation like Afghanistan where the NATO treaty was invoked after an attack on the US homeland. It involves even financial contributions. If they don't want to do that, then Trump walks away. He doesn't care about using Europe as a staging ground or getting European votes at the UN, because he's not interested in the American Empire or running the world.
This is about the only point that can be raised militarily that is justified, other European nations have not pulled their weight in the NATO mission in Afghanistan, which has UN backing.
