the world isn’t going to forgive USA ever. They can swing their heavy dick etc all they want and think they can run the world as per their whims and fancies. But this isn’t going to hold too much credence as the days go on.
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Honestly, that sounds like a simplistic political slogan and is something you very often hear (particularly from socialists) in less serious conversations. But seldom do I hear a proper explanation of why this is truly so. Usually I hear this in regards to Israel support and single issues like that, but it’s still not factual from my pov.
Things that have changed in foreign policy that ought to be rather obvious from my perspective:
A) The US is no longer actually part of the “West”, a rather massive change.
B) Isolationism and Nativism.
C) Crusading for anti-liberal values (many of those values comes from the “old” US) in foreign policy, using state power as a sledgehammer instead of soft power.
D) Promoting Authoritarianism.
Imo, list of things (big things) that have changed in vast, incredibly vast, and I choke a bit on my coffee when I hear such simplistic soundbytes that you wrote there. I do not understand how these absurdly vast structural changes are not completely obvious to you.
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And it’s not as if the global south had much faith in America as it was (pre Trump)
You could argue that the US was selective in those even then. They propped up dictatorships , military rules when they felt it was in their interest.
And need I remind people when it was the Americans who propped up Al Qaida and the Taliban in the first place to fight the Russians in Afghanistan.
The shit really has come to roost.
Americans (or their government most importantly) do regime changes as per their whims.
They wage war on illegal pretences
They prop up states like Pakistan even when they were proven to be committing genocide in Bangladesh
Swing their heavy dick around…
And the result is Trump.
The American foreign policy hasn’t really changed. This is what America really is.
And Trump’s been the guy who has really made it obvious
Yes.
Saudi Arabia, Gulf States in general and many more, sure. But, but, but.
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I wonder how much of this is simply the world moving on. The US was already on the wane and this has provided a bit of a “clean break” as it were to a process that had already begun in the late 80s/early 90s.
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They are blatantly obvious, which what I’m saying Trump has done.
My point is, this has replaced the soft power you spoke of, which essentially had the same end goal as what we have now. The aggressiveness of it all has just been ramped up. Sledgehammer as you say.
With regards to the Authoritarianism and so on, I’ve kind of parked that to the side of what is happening in Iran and so on. Yes, it’s part of it ultimately but it’s a tool to sweep away process and possible objections.
I don’t disagree with you, I see it as the same thing. Money, corruption, resources and so on.
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I don’t agree.
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That’s cool. What do you think that is if I may ask?
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I think the End Game is vastly different under Trump from previous administrations. If I understand what you refer to as “End Game” correctly.
The End Game under the Trump regime is a) political block power, centralised under a click under Trump, much like in highly stratified dictatorships. Simply power for power with no clear ethics or political ideology involved b) messianic spread of MAGA-style nativism to the West, using Hard Power. C) Elements in the US admin is also pushing old school imperialism.
From my pov, it is extremely unreasonable to say that nothing has changed like you did. Everything has changed. That is why we have a crisis in the West in regards to relations with the US.
In short, we in Europe have not changed since 2016 (not much), US has VASTLY changed its foreign policy (and domestic).
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Fair shout. My view had been opening up to the US corporations and in this case oil companies. But you’re right on the power front.
With regards, to US relations, I think we were all complicit and happy to tag along with it. It suited us I guess. You’re right we can’t go there anymore but we were too slow to see it coming.
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The United States were the hegemon that was most benevolent in comparison to other hegemons (i.e. they were not imperial, did not seek to subjugate/conquer and incorporate other lands into their own, nor were they authoritarian), but only the euphoric US fans have ever thought it as close to perfect. Not many of those on this forum, I think.
Now it is a bit harder. Because one of the greatest problems in terms of the United States today is unpredictability.
Edit: Yes, yes. I wrote imperial. Obviously I am aware of US imperialism and ladida, but I use the term correctly in the old fashioned way. Enormous difference between empire building through soft power and cooperation and military subjugation and annihilation.
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Trump has done/is doing something I don’recall being done as blatantly as he does.
He wanted absolute power to monetise the office for his own ends,and in making sure no one can jack up on him..his appointments the SC,and the bunch of idiots he has around him are only yes men and women,they wouldn’t be near the place otherwise.
He has probably permanently damage the country for a very long time,mistrust has been around for a long time,but he has ridden roughshod over those he cant manipulate,with the outcome that few ,certainly outside the US trust him or the US anymore.
Sure some world leaders kowtow to him but many citizens of countries do not,which creates a problem for those leaders,none of who are not going to be happy to get rolled for Trump.
We have just seen evidence of that with the underwhelming support he got trying to drag other countries into his and Netanyahu’s war.
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Things are changing rapidly to the worse, thanks to the current idiots in charge, but it’s the result of a trend which started decades ago. I’d say that its start is the fraudulous election of GW Bush. Before that, the US were far from perfect. Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Johnson, Reagan, you name them… all devious bastards imo, and I should probably add Clinton to the list. But at least, the US were following their own (in part outdated) rules in order to continue their dream about individual freedom, land of opportunities etc.
GW Bush’s access to power however broke something from within imo. That’s when everyone around the world really started taking notice that the empire was transforming itself, away from a half-transparent democratic system, towards going back to the XIXth-century-state of a country owned by immensely rich people, by trusts, working actively to erode all sytems trying to offer basic social equality, and towards eroding the democratic system itself.
Trump and co are the logical consequence of what has happened since. A country divided in three polarized parts: the MAGA camp, the Democrats (nowadays, they are basically conservatives who want to ‘maintain the system’, or right now, to go back to the previous system), and a third group made up of people who can’t recognize themselves in these two camps, and have become disenfranchised because of a lack of credible alternatives.
You’re right, Trump makes everything very obvious. He has the function of a revealer. He brings to light everything foul which was until there hidden to most since decades. That’s why it stinks so much currently. 
I suppose that right at the moment when a majority of people will finally realize how foul the system is (can’t be very far away), some cleaner will show up and be given the unthankful task to fix the mess, at least in part. It happened before: Teddy Roosevelt quite authoritatively broke the big trusts at the turn of the XXth century, and FD Roosevelt created the foundations of the New Deal, bitterly needed when the Great Depression hit home.
A lot of cleaning up was required then, and now again, more than ever. But it won’t come from alone. The cunts in charge need to be shown the door as early as possible. It’s the first step before anything else. As long as they are given license to do more damage, things will become worse and worse for everyone, including all of us non-US citizens, much unfortunately so. But I guess that’s the reason why we all care so much, and why we are affected by these cunts running rampant. They have absolutely nothing to do where they are, and need to be flushed down the drain asap.
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Evidence of change and destroys some of what you said above in your post that it is purely a “mask-reveal”.
I thought most of us on this forum agreed that the US under Trump is rather more problematic. Shame on me for being such a naive fool.
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True, they aren’t only revealers, but also accelerators. But by doing this, they reveal more and more of what was broken before already, while continuing their destructive work.
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I can agree with most of that !
It’s just that I think people should take the Trump admin more seriously and not compare him to Bush Jr. admin or any previously more normal and predictable administrations.
For me,claims of the US being essentially the same as it has been becomes a bit like reading communists who claims that there is no real difference between a liberal and a fascist. Those are arguments I have never respected since they are factually incorrect and not just opinions.
The difference in US Foreign Policy in 2026 and 2010 is beyond astronomically huge (or yuge, if you are MAGA). It’s as if it was a completely different state.
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