Trump’s aggressive rhetoric, threats of territorial conquest and ending countries’ existence, and trade wars, against allies, has led to US allies organizing more of their economies around the US, which weakens the US and makes Americans poorer. Trump’s actions have also limited his influence on allies. These actions put Trump’s misguided ideas first, and America last.
When you bully and act aggressively, other countries may not retaliate in the moment, but they do work to weaken you and become more robust to your attacks.
Such Trump aggression has increased China’s power, prestige, and popularity, while lowering those of the US. The CCP is an evil dictatorship, but at least they are predictable, unlike erratic Trump.
Democracies around the world have been weakened because foreigners trying to maintain democracy in their country relied on the US for pushback against the breaking of democratic rules.
Industrial policy has worked for China. It gained China its dominance on refined rare earths and magnets. A dominance China has used to choke other countries, including the United States. And this doesn’t only strangle economies, but militaries.
Trump tariffed India for buying Russian oil, and now Trump is buying Russian diesel, which is a form of refined oil. He has turned the United States into a hypocritical country with no principles, who no one should trust because no words, no deal, means anything. The country has always had to look out for itself, but the repeated backing out of deals, including ones made by Trump, the repeated economic and military aggression, and the naked unprincipled hypocrisy has turned the United States into an asshole country.
China hasn’t simply over invested in their property sector, their credit system is politically biased to invest in unproductive assets, their consumption seems hopelessly suppressed, making China dependent on exports, and all of their amazing new technology is not enough to overcome their malinvestment.
Trump’s trade wars on our allies, his threats to take territory from allies, and his threats to end Canada’s existence as an independent country…have caused the world to turn away from the US economically and diplomatically. Losing economic cooperation and trade that otherwise would have happened won’t single-handedly cause a US recession, but is hurting Americans economically and will continue to do so. We’d be better off without all of this bullshit. Hopefully future administrations can limit the extent that countries wire trade and cooperation away from the US.
The US demanded that Canada give the US control over Canada’s trade policy with other countries. The US also demanded that US companies streaming shows in Canada not be required to order the shows shown to users based on Canada’s cultural preferences. The US wanted Canada to end its Buy Canada program that it put in place in response to US tariffs without offering to cancel the US tariffs that caused this program. The US demanded that the US could change certain terms of the deal at any time.
Ridiculous and demeaning demands on a long-time ally. Ruining such a relationship is not good for the United States.
America’s biggest trade problem is China. Trump started a trade war with China, fought it foolishly, and lost. He escalated tariffs on all goods from China to a level the US couldn’t handle, and that combined with the US need for Chinese rare earths, forced Trump to back down. Tariffs were put on countries who are not rivals and who cooperation with has little to no downsides. Tariffs were put on all sorts of goods, making it difficult for American businesses to operate because they couldn’t afford the inputs to their businesses. China’s strategic cheating on trade affects the whole world. The US could have worked with the world and strategically fought a trade war with China. Instead, the president doesn’t appear to have a basic understanding of economics and world relations, so just blindly tariffed most countries and most goods in such a way that hurt the United States and its people.
China is screwing Europe economically. The US could have worked with Europe to counter China’s cheating, instead, Trump declared economic war on everyone at once, and bowed to China because China was too strong for Trump to take on alone.