Posted on 06/19/2018 10:35:53 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
Most people can agree that international affairs should not be conducted by tweet — especially when the tweeter in question is Donald Trump. Among other reasons, it’s easy to dismiss the president’s mercurial rage and flagrant insults as little more than temper tantrums.
But that’s a mistake. Mr. Trump’s anger at America’s allies embodies, however unpleasantly, a not unreasonable point of view, and one that the rest of the world ignores at its peril: The global world order is unbalanced and inequitable. And unless something is done to correct it soon, it will collapse, with or without the president’s tweets.
While the West happily built the liberal order over the past 70 years, with Europe at its center, the Americans had the continent’s back. In turn, as it unravels, America feels this loss of balance the hardest — it has always spent the most money and manpower to keep the system working.
The Europeans have basically been free riders on the voyage, spending almost nothing on defense, and instead building vast social welfare systems at home and robust, well-protected export industries abroad. Rather than lash back at Mr. Trump, they would do better to ask how we got to this place, and how to get out.
The European Union, as an institution, is one of the prime drivers of this inequity. At the Group of 7, for example, the constituent countries are described as all equals. But in reality, the union puts a thumb on the scales in its members’ favor: It is a highly integrated, well-protected free-trade area that gives a huge leg up to, say, German car manufacturers while essentially punishing American companies who want to trade in the region.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
>>Most people can agree that international affairs should not be conducted by tweet <<
Better to have them run in absentia like obozo.
Once again......
Europe was
The future is east of Suez
I’m absolutely stunned. This not only appeared in The NY Times but the writer is from Die Zeit which is The NY Times equivalent in Germany - intellectual, yet very Left wing.
There is nothing Trump is saying about the Yurps I haven’t said literally for decades. Yes, to their faces when I lived there multiple times. They want an equal say but are allergic to paying their dues. They always have been.
President Trump’s TWEETS bypass the gatekeepers of information - big media outlets.
His tweets are not diplomatic, which at times can be a good thing. He lets the world know what he is thinking and what he plans on doing. Ignore him and you pay a price.
Europe is like a drug addict and America was their enablers. Like most addicts they did what felt “good” not what was right and necessary.
President Trump is providing some tough love - we will not pay for your drug (socialism) anymore.
If Europe (and America) stopped all payments to illegals would they still come?
“All those German politicians who oppose raising military spending from a meager 1.3 percent of gross domestic product should try to explain to American students why their European peers enjoy free universities and health care, while they leave it up to others to cover for the West’s military infrastructure.”
We protect them via our tax dollars and they spend their money on building extensive social welfare programs.
Amazing!!! Good post.
All those German politicians who oppose raising military spending from a meager 1.3 percent of gross domestic product should try to explain to American students why their European peers enjoy free universities and health care, while they leave it up to others to cover for the West’s military infrastructure.
That may be what the Left means when it claims those to be the fruits of a superior socio-economic system instead of the takings of a grossly uneven one. Germany's percentage is actually 1.2% with no particular urgency in sight to increase it. Welfare states cost money, don't you know. The U.S. spends approximately 3.5% of its GDP on defense, and that covers a lot of territory. And that extra 2.3% of GDP might go a long way in fixing our broken college finances.
The author points out that Trump's actions are new but the warnings are not, dating back through the previous several administrations of both parties. Unmentioned is another policy dating back that far: the gradual drawdown of U.S. military presence in Europe and its shifting emphasis toward the "new members" of the EU. The doors were closed on the airbase in Bitburg on the day before Trump was elected. We're no longer in the arena of theory here.
The real problem is that you don't really need a military until you do. That makes it a hard sell if, for a very long time, you haven't. But the key term in "collective security" is "collective", and when the hegemon has had enough and decides to step down you'd better have a plan B ready and it needs to be something a little more comprehensive than more goodies for the welfare state and a stout denial that defense spending is necessary for a "peaceful" system.
Give the guy a break. If a foreign entity had banks that invited secret numbered accounts....Bumbola was all ears (pun intended).
I agree with everything else you say, but I colleges are broken for two reasons...Marxist/Liberalism (including safe spaces and useless degree programs) and easy loans.
Can’t disagree there, but I don’t see a way of climbing out of that that isn’t going to cost money. The libs have created a massive, bloated dependency and we need to put it on a diet now or it will starve later. But that’s another thread...
Every once in a while something like the NYT has to publish a piece such as this soy that the favorables/unfavorables ratio has something other than zero on the favorables side to oprove there is no bias.
The writer is actually from a German publication, which adds even more to the truthful knowledge in his comments.
OUR POTUS = DJT
Will we be able to keep him?
LOL - (NYTimes—ho li cao!)
will see you and raise you two more
;-)
Thank You JESUS for this man at this time.
Amen!
Yep. Amen! ;-)
Does the author give examples of PDJT's "rage"? He seems smart, sharp, witty, and direct. Rage, though, I have not seen.
GW never addressed many issues
Trump addresses them in real time (almost), and he leaves no doubt where his instincts are leading him.
I’ll many miscues by Trump rather than go back to GW.
Besides, I don’t see any tweets I’d do away with.
Go Trump!
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