I think they were those friends you teased but still had each other's backs.
Now... They cannot and should not be trusted.
Very well put. Saw it on bluesky, hadn't seen it here. Apologies if this is the wrong community!
Oh absolutely, thank heavens trump is cartoonishly cruel and selfish, it's quickly united everyone else. A clever, subtle and patient trump would've been much more dangerous.
I just fully disagree with the earlier comment that this is a one off trump only aberration.
Can anyone recommend some fun spirits? Looking to scratch that bourbon itch...
An index doesn't necessarily mean it's "what percentage of the economy is affected by trade." But without the source, it's hard to say what exactly it is a percentage of.
What? Ukraine was first invaded before trump and then again without him there. In both cases, the security provided was less than what was originally guaranteed. Ukraine got screwed by believing America.
It's not just trump, there's a whole Senate and Congress cheering him on. I would not gamble our future by relying on it to only be a trump phenomenon. If Americans had elected him once and horrified of their mistake, never came close again, that'd be one thing. But we has elected with a plurarlity of votes.
America has proven an untrustworthy ally and that thwir promises aren't worth the paper their written in.
I don't think Canada's security should be "well, let's just hope they don't do it yet again!"
If our European friends want to start a made in Europe defense plan, ordering a boatload of next generation fighter jets from them seems helpful...
Yeah, they've pretty strongly turned from recent history though. No one in NATO believes the US could be trusted to uphold article 5 anymore. That's the whole issue.
Hell, why doesn't Ukraine have the nuclear deterrnet that it had after the collapse of the Soviet Union? Because they foolishly believed American security promises, which were given in exchange for them releasing their nukes.
Source on the abandoning decreasing emissions? They're shuttering coal plants, starting the world's largest hydro electric project, pumping out the next generation of EV cars, massively funding green tech etc. And I'm hard pressed to find anything comparable in America's course.
And sure, bears can swim but few can do so over an ocean. Even a casual understanding of modern history or an ounce of common sense should show you how much easier it is to invade a country next door than it is to maintain supply lines across an ocean.
In a geopolitical sense, they are more useful to us right now for two reasons:
Any shot that hits Tesla hits America incredibly effectively as Tesla is one of the Magnificent 7, which means it has an outsized effect on the American markets/economy.
Showing America that the world is ready to decouple from it and support to its rival over this nonsense is a powerful signal/threat.
No. There's no telling what comes after these 4 years. The US has proven that they aren't an ally worth relying on, we should look to more reliable partners and building them up and vice versa. Any concession or help offered by the next administration isn't worth the paper it's written on (just look at trump ripping up his own trade agreement for this nonsense.)
We need allies not a neighbour that on a whim might try to throw us into a recession.
Automobiles are a great example! Yes, those parts cross the border multiple times and that's exactly why they are excluded from counter tarrifs!
You can check for yourself:
It is also why trump just exempted automobile parts, his tarrifs hit them, ours basically didn't. (I think we have tires because we finish those as a whole part and the production chain is a bit different for those.) The overwhelming majority of the effect on American auto stocks is because of self imposed costs to American businesses.
We're not aiming our tarrifs at things that will target our own factories. Look through the list and let me know what you think looks like a production input that would get refined here and then sent back.
Edit: For more evidence, you might look at today's stock rally after trump announced delaying auto tarrifs. You'll note Canada made no mention of lifting any of our counter-tarrifs and it'd be weird to assume there'd be a massive change in boycotts or diversification off a one month tarrifs reprieve in one sector.
What a silly "analysis."
You could look to Italy, Israel, Austria, the Netherlands etc for examples of the Far right not only flourishing but running government in PR systems without a majority of the votes.
The more you read about those or the AFD the more you'll see how much of their rise has in large part been because of ineffective/unwieldy coalitions. (It's worth reading about the contortions Germany is trying just to keep the AFD out of government.
The notion that it is somehow inevitable that the Far Right will infect every mainstream party in a fptp system is ridiculous. (And why wouldn't it happen with the Far Left, which presumably we would cheer?)
Hell, you know why thr Far Right isn't running France? Right, because Fptp enabled the Left, Centre and moderate Right to stop them.
I get the appeal but goddamn, the more you read about how PR is actually playing out, the scarier it gets. Cherrypicking an example is the absolute worst way to make a point and a great way to demonstrate you don't know what you are talking about.