Donald Trump’s bruising return to the White House has sent many longtime foreign allies scrambling to get their distance, and according to a new piece from The Atlantic, that distance will last long after Trump is gone.
Trump’s second term as president has been marked by notable and widespread disrespect toward nations once seen as close U.S. allies. Between his attempts to level massive tariffs against nearly every nation in the world and his frequent breaches of diplomatic norms, Trump has created a hostile global environment in which allies no longer feel safe trusting in the stability of the U.S.
In a new piece for The Atlantic on Tuesday, staff writer Vivian Salama argued that this new dynamic, in which the nations of the world are working to establish a safe distance from the U.S., is bound to become the new normal for years to come, even after Trump leaves office and is potentially replaced by a more traditional, dependable administration.
Germany as a nation teaches its children about their dark history now many years after the fact (it appears to not be working). The U.S. isn’t in the “after the fact” period yet so it’s hard to predict what they could imagine at this point.
The allied European nations didn’t fully hold the Nazis to account for their crimes against humanity, so there’s no historical precedent to suggest that they will fully hold America to account with what’s going on now.
My point is if Germany can be back to business as usual mere decades after the events of WW2, there’s no reason to think the U.S. won’t be back to business as usual in the same timeframe if not even less.
Why do you think Germany teaching kids about the horrors they committed during ww2 hasn’t been working? I haven’t noticed a 4th Reich rising!
We do not need to get into the difficulties in holding other nations to account for crimes permitted in a different nation and the lack of laws at the time to prosecute most of the 2nd and 3rd tier Nazis or the underlying antisemitism that was not limited to Nazi Germany in Europe at the time as that is a different conversation.
I agree with you when you speak of people’s short memories when it comes to making money in a cynical business sense over the long term. The USA’s danger at the moment is all in the short term, the trust they have lost will take decades of good foreign policy and reliability which I can’t see happening with the current divide in American politics. Any olive branches offered by the democrats will likely be undone by the republicans and it is this unreliability that will be the death of the American economy. The USA has been the most reliable and trusted trading partner for the last century. The uncertainty is what has the rest of the world decoupling from the USA right when they are starting to feel the burden of their national debt that used to be bought up by the rest of the world.
The bond market is now showing cracks, the USA’s financial dominance over the last 35 years has been built primarily on the tech boom they have experienced. They went all in on AI and are now doubling down like a gambler as China offers free open source alternatives making an AI dominance look unlikely. China is now the most interesting tech innovator in robotics and manufacturing. I can’t see how things go back to normal for the states after this, only a long period of decline and loss of relevance on the world stage. I do not take joy from this, my own country’s current financial boom is overly reliant on these American companies.
You should pay more attention.
The American economy will hurt, but as long as it remains the worlds top consumer market, twice the size of the next largest, it will withstand short term instability.
I could not even begin to imagine defending the idea of America replicating the early stages of Nazi Germany and thinking that is why the US is going to be okay.
You cannot be helped.
Is that what you think is happening? Brother I don’t think you can be helped lol