Second ('Third') Trump Presidency Thread
- Thread starter thethe
- Start date
acesfull86
Well-known member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/01/18/greenland-tariffs-eu-trade-war-trump/
President Donald Trump threatened this weekend to unilaterally impose 10 percent tariffs on eight European countries until a deal is reached that makes Greenland part of the United States. In other words, American businesses and consumers will pay higher prices because Denmark, a strong ally which already welcomes U.S. troops and investment in Greenland, isn’t willing to cede territory.
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Moron.
President Donald Trump threatened this weekend to unilaterally impose 10 percent tariffs on eight European countries until a deal is reached that makes Greenland part of the United States. In other words, American businesses and consumers will pay higher prices because Denmark, a strong ally which already welcomes U.S. troops and investment in Greenland, isn’t willing to cede territory.
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Moron.
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
Yes, European countries are famous for their desire to have US blood and treasure defend them, while they instead spend their money on free healthcare, 32 hour work weeks, early retirement, etc. The US has held the expenses of an empire for 80 years now, without any of the economic benefits that every other empire throughout history has extracted. It’s past time Daddy demands some sugar.
acesfull86
Well-known member
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
I think Europe will always have a different set of policy choices. No one held a gun to our head when we joined NATO. No one holds a gun to our head when we make our annual choices on how to spend on defense and other priorities. No one made us put military bases in NATO countries and in dozens of countries around the world. We made those decisions on national interest not sentimental grounds. And now we are making a different set of decisions based on a president our voters put in office. Sometimes there is buyers' remorse. Sometimes not.
I would also say we have benefited enormously from many of the choices we have made. Reserve currency status alone benefits the country to the tune of $50 billion per year. So yeah Daddy does get paid. Daddy always gets paid.
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acesfull86
Well-known member
The 40-50 Danish soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan should count for something
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
Handouts of any kind should come with some kind of mandatory birth control. Needing help is fine, helping people is good, but there should be some mechanism to reduce future costs. The government dole is a generational way of life for way too many.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
btw Europeans are enormously grateful for what the United States has done for them. And honors those memories in many beautiful ways.
There is a daily march across a bridge in Nijmegen to remember the American soldiers (including many who died) who liberated them. A daily march. A modest quiet remembrance. No bands or speeches. But they do it every single day. More than 80 years later.
There is a daily march across a bridge in Nijmegen to remember the American soldiers (including many who died) who liberated them. A daily march. A modest quiet remembrance. No bands or speeches. But they do it every single day. More than 80 years later.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
If the concern is the transmission of poverty across generations we should look carefully at the work of Raj Chetty. He and his co-authors have done amazing work that has clarified some of the causal factors and how we can promote mobility across generations.
The Opportunity Atlas – RAJ CHETTY
rajchetty.com
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
No one is putting a gun to Europe’s heads over Greenland. Trump is changing the cost/benefit equation for them. If he were to decide to send an invasion force to whatever they call the old Thule base that we still operate, they would have the option of marshaling their entire combined amphibious capability and transporting a significant force to stop it.
The only issues with that are that they have no amphibious capability, no sea lift capacity, no significant operational forces, and are much farther away. They are quite literally a joke militarily with less than 10% of their on paper forces actually in operational condition in the best of times. At one point a few years ago the Germans were down to zero ships capable of putting to sea and something like a dozen military planes able to fly. They aren’t allies, they’re dependent hostages, and in a generation they’ll have completely changed to hostile anyway due to their own suicidal empathy.
Poland, Hungary, and the rest of the old Eastern Bloc nations are worth hanging onto. Their memory of communist rule is half a century more recent than Western Europe’s memory of WW2, and they act like it. They carry their weight. Germany, France and the rest of the western continent get too much pleasure from letting us pay for their defense while coming up with creative ways to make us uncompetitive their markets.
GeorgiaGirl
NL Rookie of the Year
From what I've seen through mostly lurking (though I occasionally post) in left wing circles, you have more faith than I do, though I have seen people on the center left or at least in the south acknowledge the issue by voting for the immigration bill early last year.
They think that doubling down on cultural issues will work out just fine because they see Trump as pure vile. They are missing that while Trump's favorability #'s have dropped on the immigration issue as people don't really love seeing the thuggery by ICE, the thing that is "in" right now is tough on immigration (R's still viewed more favorably on the issue despite the drop).
This was mostly on the Jewish/antisemitism issue, but there is absolutely more chance of this then I'd like to see sadly...
2028 may well be immigration resentment populism vs left economic populism, and immigration resentment populism is going to look just fine for now with no recession occurring.
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
American foreign policy has long been based on preventing major foreign powers from aligning. Keep Europe and the USSR at odds, keep China and the rest of Asia tense, prevent a single Middle Eastern bloc from forming. So military superiority was absolutely a goal. Having a military monopoly within an alliance, and we absolutely, was not.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
True. They are just being tariffed over it. It is about the dumbest thang I've seen a president do. Goodwill may be a soft and mushy concept. But it is a thang. We already have a treaty that gives us a military base there. At the end of the day some clarification and enhancement of our capabilities in Greenland will be agreed upon. And everyone will declare victory. But the unnecessarily heavy-handed approach Trump is taking will have a cost.
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
Out of genuine curiosity, do you think they fervently believe the gender and identity stuff, or is it something else?
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
It’s not about the base. Zero percent of this is about the base.
