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> I think Trump has made clear that Europe has no meaningful sovereignty. How do you define "sovereignty" here? Because (for example) many European countries h

by WJW 1y ago

> I think Trump has made clear that Europe has no meaningful sovereignty. How do you define "sovereignty" here? Because (for example) many European countries have made it crystal clear that they will continue to support Ukraine whether or not the USA continues or not. That's not something they could do if the US had taken over their sovereignty. There are plenty of other demands that Trump makes which the EU is going "lol nope" about, like adjusting its own taxes, selling Greenland, or lowering food safety standards so American foods could be sold here. Does the US have a lot of influence? Sure. So does the EU over the USA, though the EU has long preferred soft power over military presence. China has a lot of influence over the USA too, simply by having to power to meaningfully harm its economy (although at significant cost to itself too). Does that make the USA "not sovereign"? The US has a lot of influence over Russia's economy too, but nobody would argue that Russia is "not sovereign" because they're under sanctions. By that logic even the USA is not fully sovereign because it's "forced" to spend time and money to counteract the countries out there defying its will. Defining sovereignty is very tricky in a globalized world.

somenameforme 1y ago
Trump has never once opposed Europe continuing to fund Ukraine however long they want. On the contrary, that clearly became his plan once it became clear he wasn't going to be able to get a cease fire. Now he simply wants to get out of Ukraine without it being a huge L on his legacy like Afghanistan was for Biden. So how does he plan to do this? Just dump it on Europe. This started out with calls for the EU to 'pay their fair share.' It's now been made clear that "their fair share" is 100% of the cost of the war. We get out of the war, it's no longer tied to Trump, and the MIC lobby still gets filthy rich because the EU funding for Ukraine will go straight to the US MIC anyhow. And what does the EU get out of this? Local economies that are already headed into recession now expected to pay dramatically more for Ukraine to the US, skyrocketing energy costs owing largely to being compelled to purchase US natural gas, getting to deal with jacked up tariffs to the US, and eventually being the ones that get to take the L over Ukraine. This is not "influence" - this is countries being dictated to act in a way that runs completely against their own self interest.
- WJW 1y ago
  If I were to summarize: - Europe chooses to fight a war it wants to fight; - with the weapons it has decided are the best choice available at the moment (even though many of those are not yet produced domestically and so need to be imported); - while hugely increasing its own weapons manufacturing; - paid for by its own money. (aka the factories built and new weapon systems introduced will not be controlled by the US) You seem to argue (but correct me if I'm wrong) that this is somehow a huge win for the USA and proves the European states have barely any sovereignty as in your previous post. But the more logical result of all this would be that the European countries come out of this war with a significantly larger defense-industrial base. In addition this bigger DIB will be used to shift away the composition of EU armed forces away from American systems and towards domestically produced systems. Like you mention the USA will not pay for anything anymore, but as the saying goes "the one who pays is the one who gets to decide". Pulling support also means you no longer get a say in decision making. Finally, the USA not helping in Ukraine makes it much easier for politicians to say "no thank you" when the US wants help in a future Taiwan conflict. None of these things improve US influence over Europe. Tariffs are completely separate and are mainly a US thing being paid for by US importers to the US government. Natural gas imports are Trump overstating his dealmaking skills: countries do not buy gas but companies do, and the global energy companies are not bound to this trade deal. Finally this: > Trump has never once opposed Europe continuing to fund Ukraine however long they want. Yes he did. He proposed a peace deal to Putin in which Ukraine would basically surrender, then tried to pressure Zelensky and the EU leaders into going along with this. This very much included Ukraine giving up the fight and EU halting support. Obviously, this didn't happen and now Trump tries to pretend he meant this occur all along.
  - chrisco255 1y ago
    I'm with you all the way up to the last paragraph. There has been no explicit peace deal with Russia. There has been an ongoing negotiation and attempts at agreements but my no means was Trump suggesting to surrender all of Ukraine to Russia. You do realize that EU support and weaponry is completely insufficient to fight Russia, right? Their military is far stronger than anything you've got. The only reason Ukraine has been doing as well as it has is because of American training, intel, weaponry, drones, etc. If America walked away, Ukraine would collapse quite quickly, regardless of empty pledges by the EU.

by WJW 1y ago

somenameforme 1y ago

Trump has never once opposed Europe continuing to fund Ukraine however long they want. On the contrary, that clearly became his plan once it became clear he wasn't going to be able to get a cease fire. Now he simply wants to get out of Ukraine without it being a huge L on his legacy like Afghanistan was for Biden. So how does he plan to do this? Just dump it on Europe. This started out with calls for the EU to 'pay their fair share.' It's now been made clear that "their fair share" is 100% of the cost of the war. We get out of the war, it's no longer tied to Trump, and the MIC lobby still gets filthy rich because the EU funding for Ukraine will go straight to the US MIC anyhow. And what does the EU get out of this? Local economies that are already headed into recession now expected to pay dramatically more for Ukraine to the US, skyrocketing energy costs owing largely to being compelled to purchase US natural gas, getting to deal with jacked up tariffs to the US, and eventually being the ones that get to take the L over Ukraine. This is not "influence" - this is countries being dictated to act in a way that runs completely against their own self interest.

WJW 1y ago
If I were to summarize: - Europe chooses to fight a war it wants to fight; - with the weapons it has decided are the best choice available at the moment (even though many of those are not yet produced domestically and so need to be imported); - while hugely increasing its own weapons manufacturing; - paid for by its own money. (aka the factories built and new weapon systems introduced will not be controlled by the US) You seem to argue (but correct me if I'm wrong) that this is somehow a huge win for the USA and proves the European states have barely any sovereignty as in your previous post. But the more logical result of all this would be that the European countries come out of this war with a significantly larger defense-industrial base. In addition this bigger DIB will be used to shift away the composition of EU armed forces away from American systems and towards domestically produced systems. Like you mention the USA will not pay for anything anymore, but as the saying goes "the one who pays is the one who gets to decide". Pulling support also means you no longer get a say in decision making. Finally, the USA not helping in Ukraine makes it much easier for politicians to say "no thank you" when the US wants help in a future Taiwan conflict. None of these things improve US influence over Europe. Tariffs are completely separate and are mainly a US thing being paid for by US importers to the US government. Natural gas imports are Trump overstating his dealmaking skills: countries do not buy gas but companies do, and the global energy companies are not bound to this trade deal. Finally this: > Trump has never once opposed Europe continuing to fund Ukraine however long they want. Yes he did. He proposed a peace deal to Putin in which Ukraine would basically surrender, then tried to pressure Zelensky and the EU leaders into going along with this. This very much included Ukraine giving up the fight and EU halting support. Obviously, this didn't happen and now Trump tries to pretend he meant this occur all along.
- chrisco255 1y ago
  I'm with you all the way up to the last paragraph. There has been no explicit peace deal with Russia. There has been an ongoing negotiation and attempts at agreements but my no means was Trump suggesting to surrender all of Ukraine to Russia. You do realize that EU support and weaponry is completely insufficient to fight Russia, right? Their military is far stronger than anything you've got. The only reason Ukraine has been doing as well as it has is because of American training, intel, weaponry, drones, etc. If America walked away, Ukraine would collapse quite quickly, regardless of empty pledges by the EU.