Three quarters of Germans consider the United States to be an unreliable partner, according to a survey published on Thursday.
78% of those queried currently consider France to be a trustworthy partner and 74% consider the UK to be a trustworthy partner.
According to the survey, 40% consider Ukraine to be a trustworthy partner, while 48% of respondents believe that Germany cannot trust Ukraine.
Why in God’s name did you ever trust the US??
There is a fundamental difference between the USA of the past and Trumps MAGA regime. Yes, the USA was never really trustworthy, even under Clinton or Obama. But what Trump is currently doing is on a totally new level.
There’s been a long period of propaganda through tv shows and movies portraying the USA as an utopia of freedom and morality.
That carefully crafted image has been very powerful in all European countries, making the American bigger brother and protector a very ingrained idea. This benefited American trade to no end, many American brands were commonly known and wanted.
I remember traveling to the USA and wanting to taste all the things we couldn’t get in Europe, like mountain dew or taco bell. Only after trying Reese’s chocolate did I understand that marketing and quality are not the same.
But this empire that was built in wake of the Marshall plan had been slowly crumbling, and as of the last year actively lobotomized.
I don’t know if you can sell the same products to China or Russia
Russia and china are doing the same propaganda now though and have been for years.
Not as effective, culturally speaking.
I know little or nothing about Chinese or Russian popular culture, yet I was spoon fed us culture through cartoons and movies.
Because it freed up government military spending, which we could use for healthcare, infrastructure, social security and education instead.
It’s not true. Military spending during the Cold War in Europe was substantial. It changed after 1990.
True.
But if we still had the standing armies, materiel and weapons manufacturers that we had during the Cold War, we and Ukraine would be much better off.
The problem is that we gave up on those, and it takes too long to get back on that level.
Well they did save europe from the nazi’s earlier in history
OK, the one brief moment we incidentally ended up on the right side of history.
But you look at what we were doing immediately before and after that, selling weapons to the Nazis while praising fascism as the savior of Europe, and after, dividing Korea in half, then murdering anyone left of Mussolini in our half, it’s clearly an aberration.
“Saving europe from the nazis” is far too much credit for the USA… but they did play a significant role, just weren’t the only one putting in work to do it. Unfortunately the Soviets also took the eastern half for their efforts…
I don’t know what you’re referring to with “selling weapons to the nazis” though, the aid in weapons to Britain and USSR was significant before USA entered the war and there was a ban on selling weapons to anyone before that happened.
Same with praising fascism, in general the Nazis tried to demonize the US government and focused on the jewish members of it in particular. There were certainly some American fascists of course if that’s what you’re referring to but they didn’t represent the US as a country…
US splitting Korea is a bit like saying the US split Europe or Germany. It wasn’t the plan at the time but the USSR wasn’t going to let go of what they had occupied without it becoming ideologically aligned with them. The government that US supported carrying out purges is inexcusable of course but on the other hand but an even more brutal regime is now still in power in the North.
That said, post-WW2 USA certainly did it’s share of evil shit during the cold war. It’s just that the other side of that was still generally worse and USA got somewhat better over time. Now all that seems to be out the window.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_collaboration_with_Nazi_Germany
Sorry, converted factories in nazi germany to make weapons, while also continuing to sell nazi germany materials and financial services integral to their effort.
He was literally Time’s Man Of The Year in 1938; fascism was seen as the answer to communism.
It was ideologically aligned with them because they liberated the people and increased their standards of living by simply removing the Japanese and holding real elections.
South Korea could not be allowed democracy until like the 90s because the US-backed regime would immediately be ousted and probably executed for putting Japanese collaborators in positions of power and massacring entire villages due to concerns they would (rightfully) side with the communists when they invaded the north.
Yeah no, the US was literally genocidal in Korea and Indonesia and Vietnam. The singular time that the US was not worse than what we were fighting was when we ended up opposed to the nazis.
Where in particular do you see weapons factories mentioned in that? Some businesses continuing to operate in Nazi Germany, sure. Fairly far from the initial claim though.
Time magazine man of the year has never been about making an endorsement. He wasn’t portrayed as an answer to communism in the article but as a threat: https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/projects/hitler/sources/30s/391time/391timemanyear.htm
Yeah… that’s not at all accurate. There were no real elections. A hand-picked leader who was loyal to Moscow by the Soviets. Communist as a requirement. Wasn’t great from the start and especially in the long run North Korea really has in fact proven to be the worse option…
I love your username
Because for a time with all its faults it was the best option. The world becoming multipolar with most strong players not being committed to rule of law or democracy will have some pretty significant consequences…
??? “Rule of Law” has always meant obeying America, democracy always meant aligned with US interests.
Looking at all the lawlessness of the Trump administration with regards international law and how it is returning to “gunboat diplomacy” I think that position is a bit difficult to defend as being the only thing it has done.
More nuanced arguments can be made but it is a fact that we can just look at how things were historically if we want to see what the world will look like when there’s no international law or norms.
Democracy has certainly meant a lot more than just that to the countless people who got out of nondemocratic regimes imposed on them against their will. So much so that even the modern authoritarian tries to pretend he is supporting democracy by holding sham elections etc.
Correct, we can look at the dictators America put in place via coup, then kept in power with military aid over the last century.
The only difference is that you’re starting to notice it, but you will go back to brunch like all the other libs if Gavin Newsome wins in 2028, and continues 98% of Trumps policies, the same way Biden did, the same way Obama did for Bush.
When westerners talk about democracy, they’re not talking about Cuba, Vietnam, Venezuala, Bolivia, China, countries whose governments are overwhelmingly popular because they enact the will of their people, they’re talking about countries whose rulers do what US capital wants.
I agree the shit during cold war was bad and it was good that we had moved past that. Unfortunately it looks like that and worse is now again on the table for USA. What I was really talking about was even further back than that though. The real period of no international norms whatsoever, pre-WW1.
But yeah, I can see you’re one of those tankies who only wants to desperately see one thing so probably not worth continuing.