The Trump-Xi meeting didn’t change much, if anything important, but it does keep the conversation open, and, maybe more technical people can work something more substantial out.
A president meeting a foreign leader at the airport is rare and is a sign of deference and weakness. Xi stood at the top of his airplane steps, while Trump waited at the bottom like a subservient vassal. Probably doesn’t matter in the greater scheme of things, but goes along with Trump’s flooding dictators with love and praise while repeatedly violating the rule of law himself.
Despite Trump’s public subservience to China and its leader, and despite backing down at his attempts of major trade war against China, the Trump administration is still pushing back against China in smaller, yet important, and less headline grabbing, ways.
Maybe we’ve reached the end of history in the sense that domestic and international conflict is no longer about major differences in worldview, like Republicanism VS monarchy, or Communism VS Capitalism/Democracy, but relatively small ideological differences and a focus on: first-world middle class people making their lives relatively better, groups who haven’t done as well getting butthurt about their relative status, and great power contests more about territory, power, and security dilemmas than ideological differences.
Trump’s ICE is deporting people who have lived most of their lives in the US, working legitimate jobs, and sending them to countries where their lives may be in danger, separating them from their families and the lives they have built in the US.
Trump uses economic benefits to bribe African countries into taking US deportees.
American hegemony suppressed a lot of: war, the desire for radical parties, and terrorism. As Trump over extends the US while at the same time not caring about maintaining world order, we are step by step seeing the chaos that American hegemony was keeping tamped down.
It’s not clear that even Europe will remain at peace without American hegemony. Things could spiral out of control if US leadership continues to crumble.
People want to believe the world will keep going on as it was during US hegemony, but this is a naive hope and it’s more likely that we will see violent or/and tyrannical disasters around the world.
Canadians are pissed at the United States, not just its leader, for Trump’s aggressive, bellicose, and demeaning comments and goals regarding Canada. They are most insulted by Trump’s insults to Canada’s sovereignty and some say that trust in the US will not come back. They plan to boycott American goods, cancel US travel, and flipp US products on store shelves to notify others that these are products from an asshole country. They don’t just blame Trump, they blame the American people, who truly did cause this aggression toward Canada.
Iran’s nuclear program was one of the most transparent in the world thanks to the nuclear deal with Obama, which Trump left. With the war, it’s difficult to know what Iran is doing as far as nuclear research and building.
The war may have strengthened the Iranian regime by giving Iran an outside enemy that is attacking them. When Trump talks about erasing civilization and shares maps of Iran breaking up, that facilitates Iranians believing that the US and Israel are after Iran, not just the current regime.
Europe used to trust the United States to store their gold. Due to Trump’s erratic and aggressive behavior and comments, some of them are moving their gold back to Europe.