Into whose arms precisely? India into China's? Not likely! This is what the US government is counting on - they only need to be a better alternative than China.
The US has a lot of power, that only China comes close to matching. The dominance of the US in certain fields (like IT hardware, software and services, payment services) makes most countries dependent on the US.
> The great brands are going to go more and more offshore, like Apple or Google already does.
Offshore what? Manufacturing? US tariffs do not affect offshoring to sell to other countries, but the US is a huge market for all those brands.
I think the comment you are referring to is employing hyperbole to make a point. It is not accurate to say the British Empire "ruled the world" (just large chunk of it) nor that Britain is a small island no one cares about now. The point is that it has gone from being an economic and military super power to being a second tier power.
The point is these things change over the long term. In a hundred years from now it is likely the super powers will be different - most likely China and India, simply because of their size.
Surely hardware has much more of an economic moat than software, services, and payment services. And the manufacturing of that is dominated by China and to a lesser extent Korea and Taiwan. All of whom have an interest in seeing hardware take a greater cut of value and for software to be commoditised. And it is common and possible for powerful countries or regions to build alternatives. India already has a payment system that is larger than Visa for digital and includes P2P and P2M.
Most of the US's power is contingent in part on them not rocking the boat too much. That's what the current US administration is destabilizing; by harming its own allies, those allies in turn are starting to look for other options. With the exception of IT software, the US has little dominance in any individual sector. IT hardware largely isn't produced in the US, it's produced in Taiwan (TSMC) and Europe (ASML), and then assembled in China.
Payment services aren't a source of US power, they're a consequence; the US allowed itself to be a delivery market, making those payment services a soft requirement for anyone dealing with the US. If anything, the US payment networks are generally seen with scorn outside the US; they're painfully dated (US banks largely rely on a system designed for physical cheques to this day) and the companies running them are often subject to the whims of astroturfing activists, resulting in legal transactions being blocked because someone thinks buying porn is icky, even though it's legal. US payment companies are also notorious for being hard to get a hold of to enforce your rights as a customer; Paypal has to follow several EU laws, but they mostly dodge enforcement by putting their HQ in Luxembourg, which is so small that they can effectively employ all well-paid financial lawyers in that country, leaving any duped customers with very little options because of conflicts of interests.
Most of the worlds dependence is on the US as a delivery market; if the US stops being attractive (ie. because it's too expensive bc of tariffs for US importers to buy goods), then the world will gradually compensate, even if it is economically unpleasant for a while. The only other dependence is military, but don't worry there; the US is doing a great job making it's military allies realize that it's bad at helping them, since POTUS is actively interested in working with the enemies of the US instead.
Offshoring is going to become more common because of how the tariffs are blanket rates; if I am going to make a product, there's only two possible options to avoid tariffs as much as possible: only import primary goods to the US and process everything on-site (keep in mind, you're still paying a tariff for even these materials). That's very expensive, in part because American labour is expensive. It's also not very realistic; your average product these days flies it's components across several countries before it ends up being put together. Even if you source all your manufacturing locally, you're still dealing with the fact your suppliers don't. The other option is to... just pay the tariffs at the end of the supply chain. Raise prices on US customers, try to route your entire production chain around the US. That's what the great brands are doing right now. They aren't going to publicly declare price increases if they can help it (because the risk of political retaliation is real under the current US administration), but expect the next products in their pipeline to have significant price increases to make the customer eat the tariffs. This in no small part happens also because ultimately, the tariffs are seen as temporary; moving a production pipeline entirely to the US can take up to a decade. Most companies are assuming that the tariffs will be gone in ~3.5-4 years when the administration leaves. That's not worth setting up a real production pipeline for in the US.
Australia and NZ are already in Asia's arms economically. That's why AusPost shutting down transit shipping to the USA won't be a huge hit. If it was to China, it would hurt. But not the USA.
With all due respect, can you outline why the current version of America is actually better than China? I mean China has major issues but I'm starting to lose sight of what makes the USA a better more trustworthy ally who protects freedom and democracy? I'm not saying "it's over" but there are a lot of troubling signs it's going in the wrong direction fast.
In the case of India and China, I think it's more of a case of India becoming more independent, which is "good" on the one hand ,but probably terrible for American hegemony and they will just side more with Russia and continue to buy resources from them.
I'm not sure if Americans can really grasp how their soft power around the world is vaporizing by the day. Even at it's peak, probably Obama era, I wouldn't say America was default popular, now, I don't know what to say but it's really looking as if people are just deciding to move on from the American experiment as we realize it might not be coming back. Look at places like Switzerland cancelling orders of F35s, just a coincidence ?
I guess smaller countries aren't being left with much choice, that's the fundamental issue.
Edit: I'm not worried about the down votes, but I also think it's sad and maybe even a sign that people have sore feelings about reality?
I appreciate that you asked the question and actually want to learn about foreign affairs between two non Western countries! So to just scratch the surface, China and India had a full blown war in the 1960s and have had armed conflict on their shared border many times, most recently in 2021.
Meanwhile China actually INVADED Vietnam in 1979, four years after the US-Vietnam War ended!
Both of these countries view China as an immediate potential military threat because it is one, they have fought actual wars with it.
It's so wild how there are all these Western liberals who think Trump is somehow worse than this, I don't even like the guy but these people obviously don't know shit about the history of the region. The history is China warring with these countries!
Do note that the 2020-21 conflict was not a "truly armed" conflict per-se. Unless you count biological, human arms with the occasional use of sticks. Most of it involved muscle power and no firearms. I personally find it remarkable that two large nations can have a border conflict without a single gunshot fired.
Warning shots into the air are fine. There are border agreements not to use firearms directly against soldiers. This was religiously followed by both sides - no one died because of gunshots.
The actual battle was hand+sticks "guerilla". All shots were warning shots and did not occur as part of the actual guerilla fight. The shots happened at multiple places in different times.
Shots were fired along the LAC for the first time in 45 years and according to independent sources dozens were killed. So what if they weren't killed by the bullets? What is with this weird downplaying of the conflict? India/China tensions are high and they recently killed each other on their border!
Yes yes.. the same article says they were all warning shots. Dozens were definitely killed... but in the guerilla fight. I was just making that part clear.
No one is downplaying anything, there was a lot of animosity in india against china after that. Since it happened during the COVID lockdown, which was attributed to a wuhan lab leak at the time, the animosity intensified. It still exists today.
Of course, animosity is irrelevant in geopolitics, so it is useless to try and reconcile this with varying levels of co-operation and friendly foreign ministry statements between the two countries in the 5 years since.
I know the history, but then there is just cold hard current day reality you have to reckon with. I don't felt like you answered my question. Vietnam is going to be looking at the way the USA is treating it's allies right now and thinking seriously about the way forwards. If you think they're not asking themselves some pretty hard questions, I think you might be a bit deluded.
I mean, do you truly think the USA will come to Vietnam's side if it's invaded by China? Honestly? look at all the whining about helping Ukraine and you think the current administration will enter a hot war with China over Vietnam? 90% of Americans wouldn't even know where that is.
Regarding India and Russia, they're already allies, they already do significant trade, I'm not sure what you're reading but I don't think India is by default America first. They nuclear armed, so they have that "f u" card to play as well.
I'm not based in the west either sorry. I wouldn't say I'm a "western liberal", I see you've already made up your mind though.
I mean, what is this stuff you're making up about the US and Vietnam being allies? Is that your head canon? What does Vietnam do as a part of this alliance?
If you think those two countries were ever allies in any serious military or political sense you're deluded. The US is Vietnam's biggest customer and they changed the terms under which they're willing to buy stuff, that's all.
You also better believe that when tensions flare up between Vietnam and China again, Vietnam will be begging the US for help.
On a personal level I am American and the most annoying thing about living in Southeast Asia quite frankly is how much people here seem to think they deserve my money in exchange for selling me low quality shit I don't need or want. You can't have my money. Go away. We can end the relationship and I will be perfectly happy without you. It's amazing how this parallels foreign relations.
> What does Vietnam do as a part of this alliance?
Buys American arms, lets US naval assets use its ports (including aircraft carriers), probably a lot of intelligence cooperation we're not aware of.
> You also better believe that when tensions flare up between Vietnam and China again, Vietnam will be begging the US for help.
The more likely scenario is that the US comes begging Vietnam for help in some future conflict because China shut down the South China Sea as part of a blockade of Taiwan, and used missiles to render all US airbases in the region unusable.
The point was not that they are allies. The point was that USA is very unreliable ally. They will promise things, take away what they want and won't deliver. It is an ally that sees allies as suckers and treats them badly.
Basically, the point was that aspiring to be USA ally is not worth the effort.
This is all a lot of smoke but no fire. There is no alliance and never will be beyond what is directly and immediately expedient. These countries would like to sell things to the US, aka they want it to run a trade deficit with them. They also would like the US to lend them military aid if they get into violent trouble with their neighbor. What does the US get out of this? What is the point? Who cares if they don't think America's a good ally? They're going to keep on marketing their shit to America, asking America for military support, and offering not much in return either way. As noted, the countries under discussion generally dislike each other a lot more than they dislike this particular US President who will be gone in 3 years anyway. All smoke. No fire. They will do nothing except agree to the tariffs, because there is nothing for them to do.
I think Trump should treat actual allies, like Japan or Canada, better. But India, Vietnam and China? Fuck em. Nothing against them particularly, in fact I have professional relationships with some good people in all three of those countries. But they are not allies and were never going to be, they were always just vendors. If they decide they don't like us and don't want to take our money (they won't decide this), fine. We can spend it elsewhere.
It kinda sounds like you made a lot of stuff or rather, eaten fox news entirely.
> They also would like the US to lend them military aid if they get into violent trouble with their neighbor.
Nah, USA promised millitary aid, but invariably just takes away while making the promis and then do not deliver.
>I think Trump should treat actual allies, like Japan or Canada, better.
Well, he does not. Actually, he treats them worst then he treats China, India, Vietnam, Russia.
> But India, Vietnam and China?
Note that the actual topic is 'graemep' thinking USA is better ally then China. And people telling him that nope, USA looks like worst less reliable ally then China or India.
You seem to be unaware of world history or local politics.
India US relationship has historically been bad. It turned around only during the Bush administration with the civil nuclear treaty. So, this good relationship has been there for last 25 years or so. In comparison India has a longer history with Russia.
India was one of the first countries to start working on a deal with US. India subsidizes agriculture as much as US. Indian farmers are a big voting block. Hence the trade deal has been at stuck:
That means it is a political suicide for the current Indian government to sign any sort of deal with Trump unless the agriculture part is removed.
And as much you want to tout IT services, overall GDP contribution is 11.47% and pharma is 1.72%. Someone has told me that the remittances from India to US is 3%. All that combines to less than 19% contributed by agriculture.
Additionally, I don't get why people keep thinking that getting deals is some sort of a master plan. Countries routinely break their deals. Its not only US - who you think has "lot of power" which gets to do that. Countries go to WTO to try and resolve it but US has chosen to side step that as well. Case in point US Canada diary dispute:
https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds103_e...
If you think US has "lots of power" and countries, in the long term, are not going to intentionally make things difficult, I have a bridge to sell you.
>> And as much you want to tout IT services, overall GDP contribution is 11.47% and pharma is 1.72%. Someone has told me that the remittances from India to US is 3%. All that combines to less than 19% contributed by agriculture.
That is the direct GDP contribution of IT/allied services. The indirect societal contribution is significant. Most real estate in big cities, transportation, food and other services rely on the IT industry. Expect a lot of pain in India when this is impacted.
India should ignore US support of a nation that sends terrorists to target their civilans... but should proactively care about a war happening thousands of miles from them?
That too, to the extent that the entire country shifts to a much more expensive source of fuel, burning bridges with their longtime ally... I don't really see why they should do that.
Edit: Rephrased my point to be argumentative instead of accusatory
> India should ignore US support of a nation that sends terrorists to target their civilans... but should proactively care about a war happening thousands of miles from them?
Straw man. India should care about both. Get the US to pressure Pakistan and ensure the US knows the expense of not buying Russian oil and that is covered by tariffs.
I still think India is better off choosing to make iPhones than buying Russian oil.
Kindly educate yourself on the latest developments. US President Donald Trump approved ~$450 million for Pakistan to sustain its F-16 fighter jets after Pakistan's Army Chief cozied up. US-Pakistan strategic military ties have also now re-opened and further deals are on the table.
US wants airbase capability in Pakistan to bomb Iran - at-least that is what American military analysts are saying. Another compelling reason is exploitable rare earths and oil in Balochistan.
Do note that China is not sanctimoniously ordering India to stop buying oil from Russia, Iran and Venezuela.
> Vietnam is one of the first countries to get a trade deal.
Mexico and Canada also had trade deals, which went from Trump calling it "the largest, most significant, modern, and balanced trade agreement in history":
> However the deals have generally been good for the US.
Given that some (most? all?) of the deals involve US import tariffs, which raise prices/taxes on US consumers, can you illustrate the ways in which they've been generally good? (Especially compared to what the US was doing in December 2024, pre-Trump.)
To the malignant narcissist, the past, present and future are more or less the same. All grievances in the past are as bad as all the grievances they have in the present or can imagine in the future.
No deal with Trump is ever closed because the past isn't really the past.
This is now how we must view the USA, which is -- at a foreign and trade policy level at the very least -- indivisible from his mindset.
It is the absolutely correct move. Indian-Russian relations have always been stable while US relations are always topsy-turvy depending on the administration in power. The US has now also re-kindled its love affair with Pakistan with resumption of military supplies. Looks like Trump forgot about 9/11 and that Osama Bin Laden's compound was just 1km away from the Pakistan Military Academy.
Please note that Ukraine-India relations were never that great due to Kashmir. Ukraine voted against India at UNSC several times pushing for UN intervention and support for Indian sanctions. (If you support referendum for Kashmir, why object to Donetsk referendum?)
Funny thing is that processed oil products (jet fuel/diesel) are in the tariff exempt list. Yes, US purchased jet fuel (reprocessed Russian oil) from India in 2025.
The US exports very little to China, most of which is easily substitutable (e.g. soybeans, corn, oil) and imports a lot, most of which isnt substitutable (e.g. electronics).
The substituability story was different ~5-10 years ago and a lot of Americans havent noticed yet that China is now just as good at building wide body airplanes and chips.
No prizes for guessing who has the upper hand in negotiations.
This is the problem in my opinion, if you've grown up believing only the US can do amazing things, then maybe you need a firmware update because that's no longer the world we live in.
I understand the sentiment, and I can't control how fine of a distinction you're making.
In fact, you could legitimately blame people like me for not going further to stop the madness.
In my particular case, that could cost me my job, which means losing health insurance for my family and myself. That's a choice I'm making, for sure. To that extent I'm culpable for this situation.
I’ve aleast applied some logic for all countries with shitty leaders. Russia, or Israel, or Gaza (Hamas) for instance. Who is responsible for the shittyness done by the governments of these countries? The governments, obviously. But when harm starts going to other nations, who is most responsible for stopping that? Surely the answer must be the citizens of that country? We can’t expect, say, Canada, or Zimbabwe, to be the morally responsible people and expect them to go in and stage a coup. If they do, maybe that’s fine, but they can’t be held culpable if they do nothing. The citizens however, must be, as there otherwise is no one else to stop the evil. Now, I include the US in this list too.
So, while it’s true that US citizens are not directly responsible for Trump, there is still a dereliction of ethical duty happening, in my opinion, assuming we agree that Trump is harming other people unnecessarily (which, naturally, many Trump supporters would disagree with.)
Of course, even if I’m right, what does that mean in practice? That random Americans on vacation in Italy can be snatched up and sent to The Hague? No, obviously not. I think the most practical effect is that this should give all Americans pause to think, and to at minimum ensure that they are not contributing to the problem in any way, and better yet, fighting the problem in some way.
Of course, this doesn’t even begin to address the fact that only 1/3 or so of Americans voted for Harris, which was the only choice that actually could have worked to stop Trump. 1/3 voted for him directly, and of course they are responsible, but another 1/3 couldn’t be bothered to vote, so it is actually a supermajority of the American people that are shitty, either because they couldn’t care less about other people, or they actively contributed to the problem.
You took the words out of my mind (mouth would not be able to write so clearly). But here's a question:
> If they do, maybe that’s fine, but they can’t be held culpable if they do nothing. The citizens however, must be, as there otherwise is no one else to stop the evil. Now, I include the US in this list too.
On an abstract level how are the citizens more responsible than random countries? Random countries and random citizens are in the same boat: they have to deal with something they had no simple choice over (at least in totalitarian states).
Mind you I agree with the proposition, but the explanation is not satisfactory.
Not everywhere is a democracy though. I'd hesitate to call even the US a democracy and therefore the government is independent of the will of the people.
The specifics of the government don’t matter, insofar as the moral responsibility. A dictator by himself is powerless. He needs many people to prop up and enforce his regime. Of course, it matters a great deal in how the morally responsible people need to behave, and of course I feel more sympathy for people that stand up to Putin vs Trump, because the consequences for them are much more dire, but it doesn’t change the moral calculus.
For sure. When it's Bush, Obama, Reagan or Kennedy, America is the leader of the Free World and what every other nation should strive to be. When it's Trump the government doesn't accurately reflect the will of the people. /s
Like sure, I get that the above is propaganda spread by the machine, but good luck telling that to the Europeans that have dealt with Americans that believe it; furthermore, I think it's telling that a decade ago, Canadians would wear emblems to distinguish themselves from Americans, lest they be confused for the egocentric and rude Americans.
The first paragraph is propaganda, but Americans haven't exactly denied it, nor have they been humble about their place in the world, or the flaws in their nation. Their actions have instead left many of us of the opinion that Americans actually believe it.
"nor have they been humble about their place in the world"
To be fair - which country has ever been the most powerful in the world and humble about it. The UK certainly wasn't - and after more than a century still hasn't learned that it is no longer exceptional.
The US hasn't been a real democracy since the beginning, due to first past the post. It has nothing to do with Trump, there have been much worse conditions in the past such as the Civil War.
Many Americans do believe it of course, otherwise they wouldn't have voted the way they did.
What a horrible take. I feel compelled to say that in my experience people in northern Europe can empathize with and separate the population from a dysfunctional two-party political system captured by capital.
Most of the world engages routinely in tribal thinking without any form of self-reflection. Northern Europe is a distinct exception due to post-enlightenment and post WW2 cultural norms.
The commenters in this thread engaging in transactional tribalism are angry at Trump supporters in the US (and therefore, all Americans because of their tribal "us vs them" lens) for engaging in the same transactional tribalism that they live in. From a game theory perspective, they want the US and northern Europeans to continue to be the good person in the Prisoner's Dilemma game while they reap the rewards.
As I've said elsewhere in this thread, the comments here actually support the beliefs of Trump's base, which is "the world hates us, only pretends to be nice to us when we help make them rich, and power is the only currency that matters."
There are people in this thread complaining about tariffs on imports in the US that are a fraction of what their own nations charge on imports. They don't seem to grasp that "fairness" is an emotional construct that matters for human voting.
Both sides are the same. Trump and his supporters are the same as people who are their targets .... because it is the same tribalism.
> As I've said elsewhere in this thread, the comments here actually support the beliefs of Trump's base, which is "the world hates us, only pretends to be nice to us when we help make them rich, and power is the only currency that matters."
When you are t like Trump does, yes you will loose the affection and respect.
And besides, Trump and his fans both see those who are friendly to them as suckers to take advantage of.
Your wish to be a bully and simultaneously treated like a friend is extremely unrealistic. And not just that, it is a loosing proposition.
You ought to care more then, wouldn’t you say? An American has just pleaded with you not to have this attitude and you’ve thrown it back in their face. Hardly a mature attitude or an open mind.
I am curious how you choose the breadth of people responsible for stopping Trump in various ways.
For example, does it make sense to blame Americans for their failure to protest every weekend?
If so, then why stop at Americans? Why not blame e.g. all Norwegians as well?
Or why not blame the Americans who merely protest, as opposed to organizing a general labor strike or for not attempting an outright assassination?
My only point is that if you're going to blame some people and not others for the current state of affairs, it would be interesting to understand the justification.
Personally I blame the 2/3 of Americans who must have thought his first term was such a success that they either wanted, or didn't mind him being their leader again.
The comment above says “Friendly reminder to please not confuse the Trump administration with all U.S. citizens.”
Nobody is saying he doesn’t officially represent the USA. It’s about not assuming ALL Americans agree with what the administration is doing. A reasonable ask, no?
You can say that about any country though, of course the leader doesn't represent all of the population, just a majority, if they're a democracy, which is rare these day.
Honestly, if you're not protesting, you're enabling. That's why I dont think all Israelis agree with their government, or all gazaoui agree with Hamas. Protests, regular ones, are happening, on both side. I don't see a lot of those in the US to be fair.
The Americans expect the world to constantly make distinctions for them while American foreign policy affects everyone regardless of who individual Americans voted for.
OK yes I meant no reasonable people. I’m not sure what your point is. That Americans deserve to “find out” terrible things because of their government, but other countries don’t? I was just trying to agree with you that the situations are the same.
But it’s the inevitable consequence of what is going on, and it’s going to get worse.
American’s have had a positive PR program for so long, they’re just completely ignorant of what it’s like to no longer have that.
The US has switched from exporting the American Dream to exporting the American Nightmare, and that will have long term consequences.
People are only now starting to wake up to that fact/feel them, but even if we stopped right this second it will take decades for this to play out. And we’re not stopping, but flooring it.
>The US has switched from exporting the American Dream to exporting the American Nightmare, and that will have long term consequences.
This, 100%.
I'm Australian. I grew up playing basketball and watching American TV and movies, even had superbowl parties with friends on multiple occasions, which is pretty rare here in Australia.
Been to the US on holidays. Always got along well with Americans who came here.
Take this free opinion from someone outside the exceptionalist bubble: America is on the decline... and it's going to get worse.
People won't easily forget this grotesque spectacle.
In the end as outside I see that you have allowed system to end in place where very divisive candidate won. Maybe if decades ago you had worked towards direction where there was more than two options it could be different... And if the other side would have fielded something that got the other side as passionate as Trump does with his base.
Whatever you say at least Trump has truly passionate base. Or will next Democrat nominee be Harris?
So 35% voted the option "I'm fine with whatever comes" so a blanket approval can be assumed to whoever won, i.e. in this case an implicit support for Trump.
Because of how the electoral college works, some people in deeply Republican states could correctly assume that their individual vote simply wouldn't matter.
I don't know if such reasoning swung the election or not. I imagine some political pollsters have a better sense of it.
I didn't vote because I live in a deep blue district in a deep blue state, Harris was a joke of a candidate, and I couldn't be bothered to update my voter registration after a recent move. Given my participation would have had zero impact on the outcome, I decided to spend my time on other things.
From what I hear, many people in blue states made the same calculation.
I would guess more like "I hate them both" or "I'm too busy just trying to take care of my family to care about politics". There was also a contingent of "Trump sucks, but I hate the way Biden is handling Gaza". Plus a big chunk of "burn it all down so we can try something new".
> About half of us are shocked and revolted by pretty much everything he says and does.
I'd put that at less than 1/3, actually.
The problem is that there is a good third of the US that seems to be completely oblivious that bad shit is going down until it shows up and kicks them in the balls personally.
This is, sadly, neither new nor limited to the US.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." John Philpot Curran--1790
> This is, sadly, neither new nor limited to the US.
But it's not a huge issue in Australia, because Australia has compulsory voting. Whatever you think of the indolent that didn't vote in the USA, if you are right that only 1/3 of the population supported Trump he would not have got in if voting was compulsory.
As an Australia, my gut feeling is that our compulsory voting drags everything towards the centre. If a party strays too far from there, their gone. For example we like the USA do have two major parties, split down similar lines. In one state, Western Australia, the right party got taken over by some right wing religious sect. Very few people want government institutions run as a church, and they now have 7 of the 70 or so seats. They ran the place in 2017, and had 31 seats in 2021.
Nationally, the right decided marching to Trump's tune would be a vote winner in this years federal election. In other words, they veered sharply to the right. The result - they lost 25% of their seats.
If you believe the system to be flawed there is no hypocrisy in not engaging with it while simultaneously denouncing the outcome. For instance, I am vehemently opposed to the outcomes produced by a defacto two-party system so for my entire adult life I have exclusively voted for 3rd party candidates on principle. In practice this is akin to not voting at all. I have been accused on multiple occasions of failing to prevent the 'bad' two-party candidate from winning by 'wasting' my vote. Nevertheless, I find it well within my wheelhouse to cast critique.
What if you were disenfranchised? This happened to me before, due to residency and main-in ballot rules. This may be a significant number of non-voters.
Your intentions don't matter, only your actions. The fact is that about two thirds of the population voted that they were okay with a Trump presidency, and slightly less than that with a Harris presidency.
> Friendly reminder to please not confuse the Trump administration with all U.S. citizens.
None of us do at the personal level. At the international level we are compelled to.
Even in an ordinary administration, internationally a state is indivisible from the government it chose, and any strategy to pretend otherwise is doomed to failure or various kinds of corruption. The larger the amount of money that is staked on ignoring/going around/subverting the national policy of the state in which a business partner is based, the greater the chance of encouraging turning-a-blind-eye grift from elected officials, at the very least. "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"
But this isn't an ordinary administration. Trump is fully into "l'état, c'est moi" [0] and he goes there more and more by the day. From the outside, the degradation just in the last seven months is extremely obvious.
Given that international trade policy seems to have been entirely handed to the executive, anyone wishing to trade with a US business must simply assume the USA is Trump.
None of the old sense of continuity can be trusted. It's all new. This is deliberate, it's what his voters wanted, but it's also our reality.
[0] I anticipate some pushback here. I would accept the criticism that if we're talking about the USA as a single entity, it's intellectually dishonest to focus on matters of internal policy to back that up. To people who want to make that criticism I would simply ask: what international policy, separable from Trump's own grievances, explains the tariffs on Brazil?
Ironically, you are responding to a person who has the attitudes that his supporters believe the entire world has:
They don't like Americans unless they are engaging in unequal trade where they sell goods at vastly lower tariff rates than they apply to US imports.
They have no problem with China destroying their fisheries, and joining with India to buy tons of Russian oil and finance the destruction of Ukraine, while simultaneously emitting vastly more CO2 than the US does.
They just want free defense, one sided "free trade" and the minute they stop getting it, they hate everyone in this country.
I don't agree with this attitude, but the commenter absolutely embodies it. This whole thread embodies it. It's the kind of thing I would send to a bunch of swing voters to persuade them to continue to support these policies.
> while simultaneously emitting vastly more CO2 than the US does.
"vastly" is well out of place here.
Currently, on a per annum basis, China is the number one emitter, the United States is number two. China currently puts out ~ 2.5 the total of the US.
* less than 3x is hardly "vastly more"
* on a per capita basis China emits less per person than the US.
* Much of China's emissions are due the US offshoring manufacture, a large chunk the CO2 rising from China is a result of US consumer demand.
Moreover, the current yearly outputs are merely the bleeding edge of the CO2 problem - it's the cumulative total that is responsible for the increased insulation that is trapping an increasing amount of heat energy.
On that front the US is responsible for more of the total raised by human activity than China.
None of you are responding to the fact that China and India are buying Russian oil and financing the thousands of dead every week.
Per capita means nothing to the planet. The temperature climbs regardless, and China has a choice and it's chosen power plants even if India doesn't. They are building coal plants every single day and you don't say anything because you are a product of a left-wing movement that views state capitalism as an offshoot of communism and therefore positive. That's why your movement never has anything critical to say about China. You only care about Muslims if they are being murdered by capitalists. But the uyghurs can just go pound sand. They are literally having forced birth control and have lower birth rates than any Muslim population on the planet and you sit there and ignore it.
US/NATO are directly financing the War in Ukraine and supplying weapons. Nobody stopped buying from the US when you were busy bombing the middle east during your War on Terror and annihilating millions. You are still funding the genocide in Gaza and nobody stopped buying from you. The United States has killed more people in War and raised more funding for War in the last three decades than anyone else.
It is utterly ridiculous to expect India/China to stop buying Russian oil and destroy their domestic economies to satisfy the sanctimonious hypocrisy of the US. Please remember - you have ALREADY oil-sanctioned Venezuela and Iran. Now you oil sanction yet another major oil producing nation ? - so utterly stupid.
Oh btw, the US is financing the Russian War in Ukraine by buying Russian Uranium, Russian Palladium, Russian fertilizer and believe-it-or-not: Russian oil (via processed jet fuel) from India. US imports of Russian minerals and fertilizer were vastly increased in 2025.
Many European postal carriers have now suspended all package deliveries to the US.
The problem isn’t new tariffs, but how the USA wants to collect them. It’s mentioned in the article:
“IMAG's Ms Muth said the overarching concern is that many postal carriers are not set up to ‘collect and remit’ the duties specified by Donald Trump's executive order.”
Normally tariffs are collected by the receiving country when a package arrives. Trump wants foreign countries’ postal carriers to collect US tariffs and somehow remit the money to the American authorities… But there are no systems set up for this. The Americans haven’t even provided a way to send those remittances.
Obviously this is not something that postal carriers around the world can just spin up in two weeks, just because the Americans suddenly decided they want foreign post offices to collect their import taxes. So the only option is not to ship to America at all.
When the EU [1] implemented these systems they announced it years in advance, delayed the deadline due to Covid disruption, and it's still optional — the alternative is for the receiving post carrier to charge the taxes and an administration fee.
But using this system, I can order something from Ali Express for €10 + €2.50 VAT, pay Ali Express €12.50, and they send the VAT to Denmark. The tracking number on the package proves the VAT was paid, and the package sails through customs.
(There's also a UK system, very similar, but I have forgotten the name of it.)
The parent's point is that these kind of systems can be implemented by postal services seamlessly, but not on a month's notice. I don't see how the form of the tax is material to the point being made.
>Normally tariffs are collected by the receiving country when a package arrives.
For good reason too, the sender engaged the carrier. The receiver has no business relationship with the carrier, so they don't have an opportunity to pay any tariff to the carrier.
This is especially relevant when the carrier engages a local contractor for the last leg of a delivery, because they don't even have a presence there.
It's better if the sender includes tariffs/import duties in the price the customer pays originally, but it's easy to set up a system where the receiving country collects taxes on incoming deliveries. Ireland has it: https://www.anpost.com/Post-Parcels/Receiving/Pay-Customs-Ch...
I get an SMS saying that my parcel has arrived in the country but I have to pay customs before it's released for delivery, done via the site above.
When I order things from China to the UK, on AliExpress, they arrive 'delivered duty paid' - i.e. aliexpress collects certain taxes from me at checkout, then the item doesn't get held up at the border.
So there does seem to be some mechanism for closing the buyer-seller-taxman loop. Unfortunately I have yet to find a reliable way to send things using this system.
I was gonna mention that, but I felt I was waffling on a bit, so I deleted it!
We've got the same thing with GST, basically like VAT or sales tax. So that'll appear on the invoice from AliExpress or Steam or wherever.
Businesses have a threshold before they need to charge it though. If they're under that threshold (like a small business), but the value of goods is over another threshold, then the receiver has to pay GST.
If I remember correctly, customs would mail me a letter, and I'd pay it like a tariff. Which brings me back to the main point, that's just that the carrier has nothing to do with it. It's ridiculous to get them involved in a transaction they're not a party to.
Process might be slightly different, I'm remembering from about fifteen years ago.
Using the EU and UK systems is optional, but without using it the small business's customers might be annoyed by the handling fees applied by the recipient's mail carrier, and the delay it causes.
I have seen some foreign merchants (I think DigiKey?) offer the choice, as their business customers don't need to pay VAT directly in this way, and may well prefer to do the import paperwork themselves.
I haven't seen a choice for any large retailer (Amazon, eBay, Etsy, AliExpress etc). They don't want customers annoyed by fees, or returned packages from unpaid fees and duties.
Every business that wants to send something to the UK is required to register with the British government and collect VAT on items shipped to Britain. So yes, the US could have a system like that - just get a couple DOGE kids to vibe code it tomorrow, huh.
Foreign businesses aren't required to register and collect UK VAT on items they send there, but by doing so they avoid their customers paying the £8 handling fee charged by Royal Mail.
An £8 fee makes a cheap product bought from China unappealing, so those sites do pay the fees. It's less important if the British person is buying something for €100 from a tiny French business.
I remember one UK content creator had some recipe books. I think the way to get them to EU was order from Ebay. SO big enough platform to have implemented whole thing... Not sure if that really works.
I wish the rest of world would finally push back against US bullying. It's so pathetic that they don't even try.
When the Obama administration forced every bank in the world to start reporting the data and assets of any US-adjacent person (creating nightmare scenarios that continue today for most US expats), the entire world just rolled over and gave in. It was one of the greatest abuses of power, ever, all enabled by the US dollar's reserve currency status.
I can only hope this time is different due to the current administration being more hated around the world.
And don't think they're going to be the last. Yesterday got a message from an influencer merch shop basically saying no more shipping to US. They're just over it.
So this looks like just transit shipping is changing, since the other country could have a potentially higher tariff applied rather than the Australia-specific one.
I don't agree with >99% of what Trump does, but closing this loophole that allowed Chinese companies to flood Western markets with cheap (and partly dangerous) junk is one of the exceptions - and also one of the few things where he is in agreement with the EU (https://marketing4ecommerce.net/en/europe-packages-under-val...).
There is Chinese junk, German junk, and American junk. But not all of those countries are into junk production exclusively. I've received goods from a China startup with are much higher quality than goods from a Germany company which is over one hundred years old.
The question is what's the West doing to uppe their game, and right now it seems that our side is fundamentally incompatible with the sort of things China is doing, and then we resort to blaming them for whatever we can.
And often when I am charged 5x or 10x for something here I have no idea if the manufacturing price was 2x or 3x and thus higher quality with better QC and so on. Or does that money just go to bunch of middle-men and to bottom line of the local seller.
Also the factory that produces the $2000 luxury dress is often the same one producing the $2 Temu version. The former has a specific yarn, strict QC, lifecycle audits, the works. The latter uses the cheapest available yarn, no QC and crappy packaging.
There are specific regulations that exist and are enforced in Germany (2009/48/EC) and the US (CPSC), that also exist in China (e.g. GB 6675) but enforcement is relatively weak, especially for cheap toys from small manufacturers that end up in the hands of children.
It's not that China is into junk production exclusively as your dishonest straw man claims. It's that china can make an overwhelming amount of it. The weird shipping situation subsidized the flow of junk from China to the US. It subsided everything else too but everything else didn't necessarily benefit as much from the subsidy so the junk is what really changes in volume based on the nickels and dimes of it.
Dishonest strawman? I sincerely understood the post implied China produces only junk, which I thought was an unfair statement. My apologies.
In a second read, now I understand that the post implies that China produces lots of junk that then they magically teleport to the doorstep of unwilling Americans, who then snare on the junk and fall when they are trying to leave their houses to buy American-made high quality goods, thus thwarting the good business and good intentions of that economy /s.
Look, I'm okay if people want to have their government impose on them what they should buy and they should not, on the principle that national capital should get a bigger slice of the pie. But if you are going to allow the government to decide that for everybody, you may as well not stop there and let the government decide on other matters, like healthcare, education, and economic incentives for society.
China has very many start-ups and one man shows shipping utter junk. Germany and the US are not even in the same league. The companies in those countries tend to follow the local laws because they know there are consequences.
Good luck getting compensation when that product from AJDHJk sets your house on fire or makes you sick.
In consumer products, the German and US brands do indeed manufacture in China, but then do their QC and supervision to get to an acceptable level.
You can see how this goes wrong with Anker’s recent recall, where they got blindsided by their supplier and now have to do a recall because their portable batteries can cause fires.
I won't deny your point, but I think we are missing something. China's economy has more cutthroat competition than at least where I live. As such, strict QC is a must for any brand there that wants to survive and have a presence in the West, of which there are quite a few. And those brands still manage to beat domestic ones in price, often with higher quality. My point being, QC and legislation alone can account for the price difference; there has to be other economic factors at play.
> As such, strict QC is a must for any brand there that wants to survive and have a presence in the West, of which there are quite a few.
The thing is, there are three ways to survive as a company. The one way is establishing a brand like Ecoflow, DJI, Anker, and do what you suggest. The second one is to produce directly for some large Western brand (either as contract manufacturer or ODM). The final way is to just flood the Western markets with cheap garbage and alphabet-soup brands, and make up the lower margins in sales volume. There can't be that many companies making and selling PL259 adapters as there are "brands" on Amazon selling them, after all.
> The final way is to just flood the Western markets with cheap garbage and alphabet-soup brands, and make up the lower margins in sales volume.
...and because they don't have a presence in the West and don't care about their brand(s), if the shit really were to hit the fan in such a big way that they can't just sit it out, they can simply drop that particular brand, while the remaining heads of the Hydra will be just fine.
Did you know Switzerland has a free trade agreement with China? We have the same strict/very similar strict rules as the EU does.
In Switzerland if you import dangerous junk and sell it in your store, you are liable. Of course the end consumer can also directly purchase from China as well but then it is their responsibility (Eigenverantwortung).
Customs will also confiscate fake brands and for example radios that violate frequencies rules (unless you can provide documents that you are allowed to operate such a device, ham radio license etc.)
And if my neighbor purchases a cheap battery-powered product that violates all electrical regulations from TEMU and the fire started by it burns down my apartment too, who's responsible then? I guess my neighbor, and the insurance will probably cover the costs, but I will still have lost the apartment and all the stuff that was in it. And customs will maybe look at big shipments, but can't hope to check even a tiny fraction of the millions of small packages.
The article is mostly about duties. If you buy from someone outside of Switzerland that doesn't take care of the customs fees it's a pain for you. I once bought something that was only around 40chf from someone in the eu but then had to pay an extra ~40chf to Swiss customs for tax + plus handling fees (they had to open the box, inspect it, repackage it and send it to me).
"n Switzerland if you import dangerous junk and sell it in your store, you are liable."
The same in the UK, and a lot of other countries. The retailer is responsible to the customer, the importer or wholesaler to the retailer.
> Of course the end consumer can also directly purchase from China as well but then it is their responsibility
Providing an easy workaround to safety regulations does not sound like a great idea to me. If you let consumers easily buy unsafe things it will lead to problems. Consumers often do not even realise that things do not meet standards, especially if they buy it through somewhere like Amazon.
You could argue that consumers should do their own checks, but then why have the regulation of what can be sold in the first place?
We have a big thing in Switzerland called "Eigenverantwortung". You need to take responsibility, the state will not babysit you at everything. You have the freedom to purchase abroad but at your responsibility.
I like that. Here in the UK we have definitely gone too far far the other way, and I dislike the effect its having. A lot of people seem to want want the state to tell them what to do.
In Switzerland if you import dangerous junk and sell it in your store, you are liable.
Oh, that's why amazon.ch redirects to amazon.de... In general, manufacturers and retailers have more legal responsibility for what they sell here in Germany than in the USA, but it feels like Switzerland takes that even further, in good but more expensive ways.
There is no Amazon in Switzerland. Well, they probably have an office here for tax schemes, but there's no Amazon service. Instead we have Galaxus which is awesome and so I fully expect Amazon to buy it one day and ruin it.
Free trade? With no adjustment given to the CO2 emission intensity of production or CO2 emission per capita which are much higher in China than Switzerland?
That's basically subsidizing climate change and encouraging production to move to dirtier regimes. Seems fairly wild.
What on earth happened to free market capitalism, now you don’t want it? You want government intervention in the price of goods to manipulate outcomes ? Make up your mind and make it up quickly because I don't think the world will wait.
People buy cheap junk because it’s cheap. Why do you think so few people buy American made tools ? Your government is now forcing you to buy expensive goods and you’re, “happy with it”? It’s wild. I’m one of those people who always purchased USA, British , Australian, I still but I've had to watch many of my favourite brands lose their soul and offshore only because consumers chose to stop supporting them. It was the choice of consumers. It's just the sad reality, I'm certain the fix isn't government intervention though.
Likewise EU to US import rules were based on a World War II recovery concept. Europe is no longer recovering from World War II so asking them to pay a reciprocal tariff seems entirely reasonable whether you think Trump is a jackass or not.
Er, words mean things, you know? If Trump pulls a tariff out of thin air because he doesn't like it that the US has a trade deficit with a certain country (or because he doesn't like that that country is prosecuting one of his allies, as in Brazil's case), that maybe makes the tariff "retaliatory", but not "reciprocal". Last time I checked, the EU wasn't charging a 15% tax on imports from the US, but the US was.
> > Likewise EU to US import rules were based on a World War II recovery concept.
> Er, words mean things, you know? If Trump pulls a tariff out of thin air because he doesn't like it that the US has a trade deficit with a certain country
Not what I wrote. Words mean things. You don't seem to be good at reading or communicating with people Rob, and you should refrain from doing both in future.
US thinks they are irreplaceable and the center of this world.
At this end this just pushes India, Vietnam and China into the arms of the rest of the world.
Then US is going to be left alone with their precious pure home-made products like Twinkies, Spam, American cheese or Budweiser.
The great brands are going to go more and more offshore, like Apple or Google already does.
Into whose arms precisely? India into China's? Not likely! This is what the US government is counting on - they only need to be a better alternative than China.
The US has a lot of power, that only China comes close to matching. The dominance of the US in certain fields (like IT hardware, software and services, payment services) makes most countries dependent on the US.
> The great brands are going to go more and more offshore, like Apple or Google already does.
Offshore what? Manufacturing? US tariffs do not affect offshoring to sell to other countries, but the US is a huge market for all those brands.
100 years ago the British Empire ruled the world, today it's a small island nobody care about.
People underestimate how fast things can move
The GDP of the USA overtook that of the British Empire in 1916 (which is actually a lot later than I was expecting):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_British_Empire
I think the comment you are referring to is employing hyperbole to make a point. It is not accurate to say the British Empire "ruled the world" (just large chunk of it) nor that Britain is a small island no one cares about now. The point is that it has gone from being an economic and military super power to being a second tier power.
The point is these things change over the long term. In a hundred years from now it is likely the super powers will be different - most likely China and India, simply because of their size.
Do you think the GDP of the USA will keep growing / maintain if it isolates itself further?
Yes. The US economy is not particularly dependent on international trade.
If it were, Trump's silly tariffs would have been stopped by now.
Surely hardware has much more of an economic moat than software, services, and payment services. And the manufacturing of that is dominated by China and to a lesser extent Korea and Taiwan. All of whom have an interest in seeing hardware take a greater cut of value and for software to be commoditised. And it is common and possible for powerful countries or regions to build alternatives. India already has a payment system that is larger than Visa for digital and includes P2P and P2M.
Most of the US's power is contingent in part on them not rocking the boat too much. That's what the current US administration is destabilizing; by harming its own allies, those allies in turn are starting to look for other options. With the exception of IT software, the US has little dominance in any individual sector. IT hardware largely isn't produced in the US, it's produced in Taiwan (TSMC) and Europe (ASML), and then assembled in China.
Payment services aren't a source of US power, they're a consequence; the US allowed itself to be a delivery market, making those payment services a soft requirement for anyone dealing with the US. If anything, the US payment networks are generally seen with scorn outside the US; they're painfully dated (US banks largely rely on a system designed for physical cheques to this day) and the companies running them are often subject to the whims of astroturfing activists, resulting in legal transactions being blocked because someone thinks buying porn is icky, even though it's legal. US payment companies are also notorious for being hard to get a hold of to enforce your rights as a customer; Paypal has to follow several EU laws, but they mostly dodge enforcement by putting their HQ in Luxembourg, which is so small that they can effectively employ all well-paid financial lawyers in that country, leaving any duped customers with very little options because of conflicts of interests.
Most of the worlds dependence is on the US as a delivery market; if the US stops being attractive (ie. because it's too expensive bc of tariffs for US importers to buy goods), then the world will gradually compensate, even if it is economically unpleasant for a while. The only other dependence is military, but don't worry there; the US is doing a great job making it's military allies realize that it's bad at helping them, since POTUS is actively interested in working with the enemies of the US instead.
Offshoring is going to become more common because of how the tariffs are blanket rates; if I am going to make a product, there's only two possible options to avoid tariffs as much as possible: only import primary goods to the US and process everything on-site (keep in mind, you're still paying a tariff for even these materials). That's very expensive, in part because American labour is expensive. It's also not very realistic; your average product these days flies it's components across several countries before it ends up being put together. Even if you source all your manufacturing locally, you're still dealing with the fact your suppliers don't. The other option is to... just pay the tariffs at the end of the supply chain. Raise prices on US customers, try to route your entire production chain around the US. That's what the great brands are doing right now. They aren't going to publicly declare price increases if they can help it (because the risk of political retaliation is real under the current US administration), but expect the next products in their pipeline to have significant price increases to make the customer eat the tariffs. This in no small part happens also because ultimately, the tariffs are seen as temporary; moving a production pipeline entirely to the US can take up to a decade. Most companies are assuming that the tariffs will be gone in ~3.5-4 years when the administration leaves. That's not worth setting up a real production pipeline for in the US.
this guy gets it. The US is literally creating the market for their own replacement(s)!
> Into whose arms precisely? India into China's? Not likely!
Australia's trade with China in 2024: $102.63B
Australia's trade with India in 2024: $16.48B
Australia's trade with USA in 2024: $14.73B
Australia's trade with NZ in 2024: $8.24B
https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/exports-by-country
Australia and NZ are already in Asia's arms economically. That's why AusPost shutting down transit shipping to the USA won't be a huge hit. If it was to China, it would hurt. But not the USA.
With all due respect, can you outline why the current version of America is actually better than China? I mean China has major issues but I'm starting to lose sight of what makes the USA a better more trustworthy ally who protects freedom and democracy? I'm not saying "it's over" but there are a lot of troubling signs it's going in the wrong direction fast.
In the case of India and China, I think it's more of a case of India becoming more independent, which is "good" on the one hand ,but probably terrible for American hegemony and they will just side more with Russia and continue to buy resources from them.
I'm not sure if Americans can really grasp how their soft power around the world is vaporizing by the day. Even at it's peak, probably Obama era, I wouldn't say America was default popular, now, I don't know what to say but it's really looking as if people are just deciding to move on from the American experiment as we realize it might not be coming back. Look at places like Switzerland cancelling orders of F35s, just a coincidence ?
I guess smaller countries aren't being left with much choice, that's the fundamental issue.
Edit: I'm not worried about the down votes, but I also think it's sad and maybe even a sign that people have sore feelings about reality?
I appreciate that you asked the question and actually want to learn about foreign affairs between two non Western countries! So to just scratch the surface, China and India had a full blown war in the 1960s and have had armed conflict on their shared border many times, most recently in 2021.
Meanwhile China actually INVADED Vietnam in 1979, four years after the US-Vietnam War ended!
Both of these countries view China as an immediate potential military threat because it is one, they have fought actual wars with it.
It's so wild how there are all these Western liberals who think Trump is somehow worse than this, I don't even like the guy but these people obviously don't know shit about the history of the region. The history is China warring with these countries!
Do note that the 2020-21 conflict was not a "truly armed" conflict per-se. Unless you count biological, human arms with the occasional use of sticks. Most of it involved muscle power and no firearms. I personally find it remarkable that two large nations can have a border conflict without a single gunshot fired.
What? Per independent sources shots were fired and dozens were killed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%8...
Warning shots into the air are fine. There are border agreements not to use firearms directly against soldiers. This was religiously followed by both sides - no one died because of gunshots.
The actual battle was hand+sticks "guerilla". All shots were warning shots and did not occur as part of the actual guerilla fight. The shots happened at multiple places in different times.
Shots were fired along the LAC for the first time in 45 years and according to independent sources dozens were killed. So what if they weren't killed by the bullets? What is with this weird downplaying of the conflict? India/China tensions are high and they recently killed each other on their border!
Modi just visited China earlier this month, last visit was 2019, so India-China relations are better now and tensions aren't that high anymore.
Yes yes.. the same article says they were all warning shots. Dozens were definitely killed... but in the guerilla fight. I was just making that part clear.
No one is downplaying anything, there was a lot of animosity in india against china after that. Since it happened during the COVID lockdown, which was attributed to a wuhan lab leak at the time, the animosity intensified. It still exists today.
Of course, animosity is irrelevant in geopolitics, so it is useless to try and reconcile this with varying levels of co-operation and friendly foreign ministry statements between the two countries in the 5 years since.
I know the history, but then there is just cold hard current day reality you have to reckon with. I don't felt like you answered my question. Vietnam is going to be looking at the way the USA is treating it's allies right now and thinking seriously about the way forwards. If you think they're not asking themselves some pretty hard questions, I think you might be a bit deluded.
I mean, do you truly think the USA will come to Vietnam's side if it's invaded by China? Honestly? look at all the whining about helping Ukraine and you think the current administration will enter a hot war with China over Vietnam? 90% of Americans wouldn't even know where that is.
Regarding India and Russia, they're already allies, they already do significant trade, I'm not sure what you're reading but I don't think India is by default America first. They nuclear armed, so they have that "f u" card to play as well.
I'm not based in the west either sorry. I wouldn't say I'm a "western liberal", I see you've already made up your mind though.
I mean, what is this stuff you're making up about the US and Vietnam being allies? Is that your head canon? What does Vietnam do as a part of this alliance?
If you think those two countries were ever allies in any serious military or political sense you're deluded. The US is Vietnam's biggest customer and they changed the terms under which they're willing to buy stuff, that's all.
You also better believe that when tensions flare up between Vietnam and China again, Vietnam will be begging the US for help.
On a personal level I am American and the most annoying thing about living in Southeast Asia quite frankly is how much people here seem to think they deserve my money in exchange for selling me low quality shit I don't need or want. You can't have my money. Go away. We can end the relationship and I will be perfectly happy without you. It's amazing how this parallels foreign relations.
> What does Vietnam do as a part of this alliance?
Buys American arms, lets US naval assets use its ports (including aircraft carriers), probably a lot of intelligence cooperation we're not aware of.
> You also better believe that when tensions flare up between Vietnam and China again, Vietnam will be begging the US for help.
The more likely scenario is that the US comes begging Vietnam for help in some future conflict because China shut down the South China Sea as part of a blockade of Taiwan, and used missiles to render all US airbases in the region unusable.
The point was not that they are allies. The point was that USA is very unreliable ally. They will promise things, take away what they want and won't deliver. It is an ally that sees allies as suckers and treats them badly.
Basically, the point was that aspiring to be USA ally is not worth the effort.
This is all a lot of smoke but no fire. There is no alliance and never will be beyond what is directly and immediately expedient. These countries would like to sell things to the US, aka they want it to run a trade deficit with them. They also would like the US to lend them military aid if they get into violent trouble with their neighbor. What does the US get out of this? What is the point? Who cares if they don't think America's a good ally? They're going to keep on marketing their shit to America, asking America for military support, and offering not much in return either way. As noted, the countries under discussion generally dislike each other a lot more than they dislike this particular US President who will be gone in 3 years anyway. All smoke. No fire. They will do nothing except agree to the tariffs, because there is nothing for them to do.
I think Trump should treat actual allies, like Japan or Canada, better. But India, Vietnam and China? Fuck em. Nothing against them particularly, in fact I have professional relationships with some good people in all three of those countries. But they are not allies and were never going to be, they were always just vendors. If they decide they don't like us and don't want to take our money (they won't decide this), fine. We can spend it elsewhere.
Who cares if they don't think America's a good ally?
You will find out I guess...
It kinda sounds like you made a lot of stuff or rather, eaten fox news entirely.
> They also would like the US to lend them military aid if they get into violent trouble with their neighbor.
Nah, USA promised millitary aid, but invariably just takes away while making the promis and then do not deliver.
>I think Trump should treat actual allies, like Japan or Canada, better.
Well, he does not. Actually, he treats them worst then he treats China, India, Vietnam, Russia.
> But India, Vietnam and China?
Note that the actual topic is 'graemep' thinking USA is better ally then China. And people telling him that nope, USA looks like worst less reliable ally then China or India.
You seem to be unaware of world history or local politics.
India US relationship has historically been bad. It turned around only during the Bush administration with the civil nuclear treaty. So, this good relationship has been there for last 25 years or so. In comparison India has a longer history with Russia.
India was one of the first countries to start working on a deal with US. India subsidizes agriculture as much as US. Indian farmers are a big voting block. Hence the trade deal has been at stuck:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/...
That means it is a political suicide for the current Indian government to sign any sort of deal with Trump unless the agriculture part is removed.
And as much you want to tout IT services, overall GDP contribution is 11.47% and pharma is 1.72%. Someone has told me that the remittances from India to US is 3%. All that combines to less than 19% contributed by agriculture.
Add the fact that previous US administration was okay with India buying Russian oil to help stabilize global oil prices: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-wanted-india-to-buy-russi...
That just pours more fuel on fire. Pun intended.
Additionally, I don't get why people keep thinking that getting deals is some sort of a master plan. Countries routinely break their deals. Its not only US - who you think has "lot of power" which gets to do that. Countries go to WTO to try and resolve it but US has chosen to side step that as well. Case in point US Canada diary dispute: https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds103_e...
If you think US has "lots of power" and countries, in the long term, are not going to intentionally make things difficult, I have a bridge to sell you.
>> And as much you want to tout IT services, overall GDP contribution is 11.47% and pharma is 1.72%. Someone has told me that the remittances from India to US is 3%. All that combines to less than 19% contributed by agriculture.
That is the direct GDP contribution of IT/allied services. The indirect societal contribution is significant. Most real estate in big cities, transportation, food and other services rely on the IT industry. Expect a lot of pain in India when this is impacted.
Vietnam is one of the first countries to get a trade deal. India will get one when they decide to stop funding the Russian war machine.
Considering that US is now funding the Pakistani war machine, India knows which side to pick.
Kashmir and Ukraine are very different situations.
Humor me -- different how?
India should ignore US support of a nation that sends terrorists to target their civilans... but should proactively care about a war happening thousands of miles from them?
That too, to the extent that the entire country shifts to a much more expensive source of fuel, burning bridges with their longtime ally... I don't really see why they should do that.
Edit: Rephrased my point to be argumentative instead of accusatory
> different how?
Constantly disputed since the partition of India.
> India should ignore US support of a nation that sends terrorists to target their civilans... but should proactively care about a war happening thousands of miles from them?
Straw man. India should care about both. Get the US to pressure Pakistan and ensure the US knows the expense of not buying Russian oil and that is covered by tariffs.
I still think India is better off choosing to make iPhones than buying Russian oil.
What US military aid is going to Pakistan at this point? This info is a decade out of date. Pakistan is incredibly tight with China now.
Kindly educate yourself on the latest developments. US President Donald Trump approved ~$450 million for Pakistan to sustain its F-16 fighter jets after Pakistan's Army Chief cozied up. US-Pakistan strategic military ties have also now re-opened and further deals are on the table.
US wants airbase capability in Pakistan to bomb Iran - at-least that is what American military analysts are saying. Another compelling reason is exploitable rare earths and oil in Balochistan.
Do note that China is not sanctimoniously ordering India to stop buying oil from Russia, Iran and Venezuela.
> Vietnam is one of the first countries to get a trade deal.
Mexico and Canada also had trade deals, which went from Trump calling it "the largest, most significant, modern, and balanced trade agreement in history":
* https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/pr...
To Trump asking "Who would ever sign a thing like this?":
* https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-accidentally-insults...
Oh agreed Trump has no consistent narrative. However the deals have generally been good for the US.
> However the deals have generally been good for the US.
Given that some (most? all?) of the deals involve US import tariffs, which raise prices/taxes on US consumers, can you illustrate the ways in which they've been generally good? (Especially compared to what the US was doing in December 2024, pre-Trump.)
Which benefits it's allies how ? Like in the short term maybe good for the US, in the long term, people go elsewhere for trade, arms, etc.
To the malignant narcissist, the past, present and future are more or less the same. All grievances in the past are as bad as all the grievances they have in the present or can imagine in the future.
No deal with Trump is ever closed because the past isn't really the past.
This is now how we must view the USA, which is -- at a foreign and trade policy level at the very least -- indivisible from his mindset.
They already made it pretty clear that if America forces them to choose, they pick Russia.
It's really wild...a billion people in that country too, not a smart move.
Because the US has treated its allies well over the last few years?
I can understand why some are looking elsewhere.
It is the absolutely correct move. Indian-Russian relations have always been stable while US relations are always topsy-turvy depending on the administration in power. The US has now also re-kindled its love affair with Pakistan with resumption of military supplies. Looks like Trump forgot about 9/11 and that Osama Bin Laden's compound was just 1km away from the Pakistan Military Academy.
Please note that Ukraine-India relations were never that great due to Kashmir. Ukraine voted against India at UNSC several times pushing for UN intervention and support for Indian sanctions. (If you support referendum for Kashmir, why object to Donetsk referendum?)
Funny thing is that processed oil products (jet fuel/diesel) are in the tariff exempt list. Yes, US purchased jet fuel (reprocessed Russian oil) from India in 2025.
That's right, he's the president of peace.
Such a well thought out response.
So India should ignore how US has been funding a terrorist nation on their border, and hate Putin for a war that is half-the-planet away?
Sorry, but the world does not revolve around USA :)
Calling Trump's bluff is rarely an unwise move.
China was similarly unmoved by the threats America made.
Europe was moved and they got an absolutely horrible trade deal.
China simply imports less from the US - about a fifth of what it imports - so yes the US has the upper hand here.
The US exports very little to China, most of which is easily substitutable (e.g. soybeans, corn, oil) and imports a lot, most of which isnt substitutable (e.g. electronics).
The substituability story was different ~5-10 years ago and a lot of Americans havent noticed yet that China is now just as good at building wide body airplanes and chips.
No prizes for guessing who has the upper hand in negotiations.
This is the problem in my opinion, if you've grown up believing only the US can do amazing things, then maybe you need a firmware update because that's no longer the world we live in.
Meh, they made empty promises that dont require them to change pretty much anything.
Considering USA appears to basically change sides to Putin, nah, USA does not mind Russian war machines. USA president admires them.
Also, those trade deals are not worth much.
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Friendly reminder to please not confuse the Trump administration with all U.S. citizens.
About half of us are shocked and revolted by pretty much everything he says and does.
For all i care, he represents all the US citizen. He is your president.
I understand the sentiment, and I can't control how fine of a distinction you're making.
In fact, you could legitimately blame people like me for not going further to stop the madness.
In my particular case, that could cost me my job, which means losing health insurance for my family and myself. That's a choice I'm making, for sure. To that extent I'm culpable for this situation.
I’ve aleast applied some logic for all countries with shitty leaders. Russia, or Israel, or Gaza (Hamas) for instance. Who is responsible for the shittyness done by the governments of these countries? The governments, obviously. But when harm starts going to other nations, who is most responsible for stopping that? Surely the answer must be the citizens of that country? We can’t expect, say, Canada, or Zimbabwe, to be the morally responsible people and expect them to go in and stage a coup. If they do, maybe that’s fine, but they can’t be held culpable if they do nothing. The citizens however, must be, as there otherwise is no one else to stop the evil. Now, I include the US in this list too.
So, while it’s true that US citizens are not directly responsible for Trump, there is still a dereliction of ethical duty happening, in my opinion, assuming we agree that Trump is harming other people unnecessarily (which, naturally, many Trump supporters would disagree with.)
Of course, even if I’m right, what does that mean in practice? That random Americans on vacation in Italy can be snatched up and sent to The Hague? No, obviously not. I think the most practical effect is that this should give all Americans pause to think, and to at minimum ensure that they are not contributing to the problem in any way, and better yet, fighting the problem in some way.
Of course, this doesn’t even begin to address the fact that only 1/3 or so of Americans voted for Harris, which was the only choice that actually could have worked to stop Trump. 1/3 voted for him directly, and of course they are responsible, but another 1/3 couldn’t be bothered to vote, so it is actually a supermajority of the American people that are shitty, either because they couldn’t care less about other people, or they actively contributed to the problem.
You took the words out of my mind (mouth would not be able to write so clearly). But here's a question:
> If they do, maybe that’s fine, but they can’t be held culpable if they do nothing. The citizens however, must be, as there otherwise is no one else to stop the evil. Now, I include the US in this list too.
On an abstract level how are the citizens more responsible than random countries? Random countries and random citizens are in the same boat: they have to deal with something they had no simple choice over (at least in totalitarian states).
Mind you I agree with the proposition, but the explanation is not satisfactory.
Not everywhere is a democracy though. I'd hesitate to call even the US a democracy and therefore the government is independent of the will of the people.
The specifics of the government don’t matter, insofar as the moral responsibility. A dictator by himself is powerless. He needs many people to prop up and enforce his regime. Of course, it matters a great deal in how the morally responsible people need to behave, and of course I feel more sympathy for people that stand up to Putin vs Trump, because the consequences for them are much more dire, but it doesn’t change the moral calculus.
Since you are a resident of the planet earth, you should hold yourself personally responsible for the political outcomes there.
For sure. When it's Bush, Obama, Reagan or Kennedy, America is the leader of the Free World and what every other nation should strive to be. When it's Trump the government doesn't accurately reflect the will of the people. /s
Like sure, I get that the above is propaganda spread by the machine, but good luck telling that to the Europeans that have dealt with Americans that believe it; furthermore, I think it's telling that a decade ago, Canadians would wear emblems to distinguish themselves from Americans, lest they be confused for the egocentric and rude Americans.
The first paragraph is propaganda, but Americans haven't exactly denied it, nor have they been humble about their place in the world, or the flaws in their nation. Their actions have instead left many of us of the opinion that Americans actually believe it.
"nor have they been humble about their place in the world"
To be fair - which country has ever been the most powerful in the world and humble about it. The UK certainly wasn't - and after more than a century still hasn't learned that it is no longer exceptional.
The US hasn't been a real democracy since the beginning, due to first past the post. It has nothing to do with Trump, there have been much worse conditions in the past such as the Civil War.
Many Americans do believe it of course, otherwise they wouldn't have voted the way they did.
What a horrible take. I feel compelled to say that in my experience people in northern Europe can empathize with and separate the population from a dysfunctional two-party political system captured by capital.
Most of the world engages routinely in tribal thinking without any form of self-reflection. Northern Europe is a distinct exception due to post-enlightenment and post WW2 cultural norms.
The commenters in this thread engaging in transactional tribalism are angry at Trump supporters in the US (and therefore, all Americans because of their tribal "us vs them" lens) for engaging in the same transactional tribalism that they live in. From a game theory perspective, they want the US and northern Europeans to continue to be the good person in the Prisoner's Dilemma game while they reap the rewards.
As I've said elsewhere in this thread, the comments here actually support the beliefs of Trump's base, which is "the world hates us, only pretends to be nice to us when we help make them rich, and power is the only currency that matters."
There are people in this thread complaining about tariffs on imports in the US that are a fraction of what their own nations charge on imports. They don't seem to grasp that "fairness" is an emotional construct that matters for human voting.
Both sides are the same. Trump and his supporters are the same as people who are their targets .... because it is the same tribalism.
> As I've said elsewhere in this thread, the comments here actually support the beliefs of Trump's base, which is "the world hates us, only pretends to be nice to us when we help make them rich, and power is the only currency that matters."
When you are t like Trump does, yes you will loose the affection and respect.
And besides, Trump and his fans both see those who are friendly to them as suckers to take advantage of.
Your wish to be a bully and simultaneously treated like a friend is extremely unrealistic. And not just that, it is a loosing proposition.
For this lifelong US citizen Trump's death will be one of the happiest days of my life.
You ought to care more then, wouldn’t you say? An American has just pleaded with you not to have this attitude and you’ve thrown it back in their face. Hardly a mature attitude or an open mind.
I don't like how people separate themself from "society" when it's convenient for them. You are part of it, whether you like it or not.
And last time i check, Trump won most of the swing state, so a large part of US believe in Trump.
It's also the second time he won.
I am curious how you choose the breadth of people responsible for stopping Trump in various ways.
For example, does it make sense to blame Americans for their failure to protest every weekend?
If so, then why stop at Americans? Why not blame e.g. all Norwegians as well?
Or why not blame the Americans who merely protest, as opposed to organizing a general labor strike or for not attempting an outright assassination?
My only point is that if you're going to blame some people and not others for the current state of affairs, it would be interesting to understand the justification.
Personally I blame the 2/3 of Americans who must have thought his first term was such a success that they either wanted, or didn't mind him being their leader again.
The comment above says “Friendly reminder to please not confuse the Trump administration with all U.S. citizens.”
Nobody is saying he doesn’t officially represent the USA. It’s about not assuming ALL Americans agree with what the administration is doing. A reasonable ask, no?
You can say that about any country though, of course the leader doesn't represent all of the population, just a majority, if they're a democracy, which is rare these day.
minor nit: The US doesn't require a majority to win the presidency, only a plurality, which was ~32% in the most recent election.†
† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...
Honestly, if you're not protesting, you're enabling. That's why I dont think all Israelis agree with their government, or all gazaoui agree with Hamas. Protests, regular ones, are happening, on both side. I don't see a lot of those in the US to be fair.
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The Americans expect the world to constantly make distinctions for them while American foreign policy affects everyone regardless of who individual Americans voted for.
The US is just experiencing what every Russian, Iraqi, Afghani, etc. has been dealing with for a long time.
It’s FAFO writ large, and the US has been ‘exceptional’ for so long they think they can avoid the FO part.
But that’s exactly the point - nobody thinks of the citizens of those countries as being unified behind or synonymous with whoever is in charge.
Clearly you’ve never met people?
And never seen news discussions, sanctions, seen immigration policies, etc?
It may not been as bad and direct as discrimination against the Japanese in WW2, but a ton of people absolutely do discriminate that way.
And let’s not talk about Muslims (or anyone with a turban, like Sikhs) post 9/11.
OK yes I meant no reasonable people. I’m not sure what your point is. That Americans deserve to “find out” terrible things because of their government, but other countries don’t? I was just trying to agree with you that the situations are the same.
Deserve has nothing to do with it.
But it’s the inevitable consequence of what is going on, and it’s going to get worse.
American’s have had a positive PR program for so long, they’re just completely ignorant of what it’s like to no longer have that.
The US has switched from exporting the American Dream to exporting the American Nightmare, and that will have long term consequences.
People are only now starting to wake up to that fact/feel them, but even if we stopped right this second it will take decades for this to play out. And we’re not stopping, but flooring it.
>The US has switched from exporting the American Dream to exporting the American Nightmare, and that will have long term consequences.
This, 100%.
I'm Australian. I grew up playing basketball and watching American TV and movies, even had superbowl parties with friends on multiple occasions, which is pretty rare here in Australia.
Been to the US on holidays. Always got along well with Americans who came here.
Take this free opinion from someone outside the exceptionalist bubble: America is on the decline... and it's going to get worse.
People won't easily forget this grotesque spectacle.
> Hardly a mature attitude or an open mind.
Not gp, but: sorry, Americans, for whatever voter turnouts, gerrymandering, secret deals, etc, etc.
He's your president. Twice.
In the end as outside I see that you have allowed system to end in place where very divisive candidate won. Maybe if decades ago you had worked towards direction where there was more than two options it could be different... And if the other side would have fielded something that got the other side as passionate as Trump does with his base.
Whatever you say at least Trump has truly passionate base. Or will next Democrat nominee be Harris?
> About half of us are shocked and revolted by pretty much everything he says and does.
Only 65% voted, so it’s probably safe to say that only 35-40% of the population support him.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/2024-pre...
> Only 65% voted
So 35% voted the option "I'm fine with whatever comes" so a blanket approval can be assumed to whoever won, i.e. in this case an implicit support for Trump.
I don't think that's accurate.
Because of how the electoral college works, some people in deeply Republican states could correctly assume that their individual vote simply wouldn't matter.
I don't know if such reasoning swung the election or not. I imagine some political pollsters have a better sense of it.
I didn't vote because I live in a deep blue district in a deep blue state, Harris was a joke of a candidate, and I couldn't be bothered to update my voter registration after a recent move. Given my participation would have had zero impact on the outcome, I decided to spend my time on other things.
From what I hear, many people in blue states made the same calculation.
I would guess more like "I hate them both" or "I'm too busy just trying to take care of my family to care about politics". There was also a contingent of "Trump sucks, but I hate the way Biden is handling Gaza". Plus a big chunk of "burn it all down so we can try something new".
In other words, 2/3 of people were ok with this.
It's equally safe to say only 35-40% of the population oppose him.
> About half of us are shocked and revolted by pretty much everything he says and does.
I'd put that at less than 1/3, actually.
The problem is that there is a good third of the US that seems to be completely oblivious that bad shit is going down until it shows up and kicks them in the balls personally.
This is, sadly, neither new nor limited to the US.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." John Philpot Curran--1790
> This is, sadly, neither new nor limited to the US.
But it's not a huge issue in Australia, because Australia has compulsory voting. Whatever you think of the indolent that didn't vote in the USA, if you are right that only 1/3 of the population supported Trump he would not have got in if voting was compulsory.
As an Australia, my gut feeling is that our compulsory voting drags everything towards the centre. If a party strays too far from there, their gone. For example we like the USA do have two major parties, split down similar lines. In one state, Western Australia, the right party got taken over by some right wing religious sect. Very few people want government institutions run as a church, and they now have 7 of the 70 or so seats. They ran the place in 2017, and had 31 seats in 2021.
Nationally, the right decided marching to Trump's tune would be a vote winner in this years federal election. In other words, they veered sharply to the right. The result - they lost 25% of their seats.
Based on the turnout you have 36% who silently approves the result since they didn’t turn up for the election.
Followed by 32% of the voting population which strongly approves of the result.
The ”not all of us” is a very tempting copout but it is quite evident that the American psyche is in general aligned with Trump.
Very convenient that you are able to rebrand apathy as approval. They're not actually the same, however.
If you don't vote, don't complain about the outcome. It is de facto approval with the result regardless of how one spins it.
If you believe the system to be flawed there is no hypocrisy in not engaging with it while simultaneously denouncing the outcome. For instance, I am vehemently opposed to the outcomes produced by a defacto two-party system so for my entire adult life I have exclusively voted for 3rd party candidates on principle. In practice this is akin to not voting at all. I have been accused on multiple occasions of failing to prevent the 'bad' two-party candidate from winning by 'wasting' my vote. Nevertheless, I find it well within my wheelhouse to cast critique.
You’re wrong. You have, at best, wasted votes your whole life.
But hey, you get to pretend it’s some moral high ground, so, yay! Nice job.
Well, as I said, your opinion is one I have heard before. If you have some deeper reasoning or insight to share I would love to hear it.
I think you're totally right if they're in a swing state, but it's less clear otherwise.
What if you were disenfranchised? This happened to me before, due to residency and main-in ballot rules. This may be a significant number of non-voters.
Your intentions don't matter, only your actions. The fact is that about two thirds of the population voted that they were okay with a Trump presidency, and slightly less than that with a Harris presidency.
Two thirds of the country is ok with this.
You can spin non-voters however you want, but they were objectively OK with this outcome.
.
Trump was democratically elected. Twice. Sure, all US Citizens are not like this, but a lot of them are.
He still hasn't killed as many people as Bush Jr yet, though he might before this is all over.
Are you counting deaths due to dismantling of USAID?
> Friendly reminder to please not confuse the Trump administration with all U.S. citizens.
None of us do at the personal level. At the international level we are compelled to.
Even in an ordinary administration, internationally a state is indivisible from the government it chose, and any strategy to pretend otherwise is doomed to failure or various kinds of corruption. The larger the amount of money that is staked on ignoring/going around/subverting the national policy of the state in which a business partner is based, the greater the chance of encouraging turning-a-blind-eye grift from elected officials, at the very least. "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"
But this isn't an ordinary administration. Trump is fully into "l'état, c'est moi" [0] and he goes there more and more by the day. From the outside, the degradation just in the last seven months is extremely obvious.
Given that international trade policy seems to have been entirely handed to the executive, anyone wishing to trade with a US business must simply assume the USA is Trump.
None of the old sense of continuity can be trusted. It's all new. This is deliberate, it's what his voters wanted, but it's also our reality.
[0] I anticipate some pushback here. I would accept the criticism that if we're talking about the USA as a single entity, it's intellectually dishonest to focus on matters of internal policy to back that up. To people who want to make that criticism I would simply ask: what international policy, separable from Trump's own grievances, explains the tariffs on Brazil?
Ironically, you are responding to a person who has the attitudes that his supporters believe the entire world has: They don't like Americans unless they are engaging in unequal trade where they sell goods at vastly lower tariff rates than they apply to US imports.
They have no problem with China destroying their fisheries, and joining with India to buy tons of Russian oil and finance the destruction of Ukraine, while simultaneously emitting vastly more CO2 than the US does.
They just want free defense, one sided "free trade" and the minute they stop getting it, they hate everyone in this country.
I don't agree with this attitude, but the commenter absolutely embodies it. This whole thread embodies it. It's the kind of thing I would send to a bunch of swing voters to persuade them to continue to support these policies.
> while simultaneously emitting vastly more CO2 than the US does.
"vastly" is well out of place here.
Currently, on a per annum basis, China is the number one emitter, the United States is number two. China currently puts out ~ 2.5 the total of the US.
* less than 3x is hardly "vastly more"
* on a per capita basis China emits less per person than the US.
* Much of China's emissions are due the US offshoring manufacture, a large chunk the CO2 rising from China is a result of US consumer demand.
Moreover, the current yearly outputs are merely the bleeding edge of the CO2 problem - it's the cumulative total that is responsible for the increased insulation that is trapping an increasing amount of heat energy.
On that front the US is responsible for more of the total raised by human activity than China.
By country, per year: https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...
By country, cumulative total: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions
"less than 3x is hardly vastly more"
Listen to yourself. That is absolutely ridiculous. This is not a serious conversation. I won't be replying to anymore of your comments.
None of you are responding to the fact that China and India are buying Russian oil and financing the thousands of dead every week.
Per capita means nothing to the planet. The temperature climbs regardless, and China has a choice and it's chosen power plants even if India doesn't. They are building coal plants every single day and you don't say anything because you are a product of a left-wing movement that views state capitalism as an offshoot of communism and therefore positive. That's why your movement never has anything critical to say about China. You only care about Muslims if they are being murdered by capitalists. But the uyghurs can just go pound sand. They are literally having forced birth control and have lower birth rates than any Muslim population on the planet and you sit there and ignore it.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-record-solar-growth-kee...
China is on track to reduce its use of fossil fuel for energy production
US/NATO are directly financing the War in Ukraine and supplying weapons. Nobody stopped buying from the US when you were busy bombing the middle east during your War on Terror and annihilating millions. You are still funding the genocide in Gaza and nobody stopped buying from you. The United States has killed more people in War and raised more funding for War in the last three decades than anyone else.
It is utterly ridiculous to expect India/China to stop buying Russian oil and destroy their domestic economies to satisfy the sanctimonious hypocrisy of the US. Please remember - you have ALREADY oil-sanctioned Venezuela and Iran. Now you oil sanction yet another major oil producing nation ? - so utterly stupid.
Oh btw, the US is financing the Russian War in Ukraine by buying Russian Uranium, Russian Palladium, Russian fertilizer and believe-it-or-not: Russian oil (via processed jet fuel) from India. US imports of Russian minerals and fertilizer were vastly increased in 2025.
Many European postal carriers have now suspended all package deliveries to the US.
The problem isn’t new tariffs, but how the USA wants to collect them. It’s mentioned in the article:
“IMAG's Ms Muth said the overarching concern is that many postal carriers are not set up to ‘collect and remit’ the duties specified by Donald Trump's executive order.”
Normally tariffs are collected by the receiving country when a package arrives. Trump wants foreign countries’ postal carriers to collect US tariffs and somehow remit the money to the American authorities… But there are no systems set up for this. The Americans haven’t even provided a way to send those remittances.
Obviously this is not something that postal carriers around the world can just spin up in two weeks, just because the Americans suddenly decided they want foreign post offices to collect their import taxes. So the only option is not to ship to America at all.
When the EU [1] implemented these systems they announced it years in advance, delayed the deadline due to Covid disruption, and it's still optional — the alternative is for the receiving post carrier to charge the taxes and an administration fee.
But using this system, I can order something from Ali Express for €10 + €2.50 VAT, pay Ali Express €12.50, and they send the VAT to Denmark. The tracking number on the package proves the VAT was paid, and the package sails through customs.
(There's also a UK system, very similar, but I have forgotten the name of it.)
[1] https://vat-one-stop-shop.ec.europa.eu/index_en
But VAT is not a tariff
The parent's point is that these kind of systems can be implemented by postal services seamlessly, but not on a month's notice. I don't see how the form of the tax is material to the point being made.
>Normally tariffs are collected by the receiving country when a package arrives.
For good reason too, the sender engaged the carrier. The receiver has no business relationship with the carrier, so they don't have an opportunity to pay any tariff to the carrier.
This is especially relevant when the carrier engages a local contractor for the last leg of a delivery, because they don't even have a presence there.
It's better if the sender includes tariffs/import duties in the price the customer pays originally, but it's easy to set up a system where the receiving country collects taxes on incoming deliveries. Ireland has it: https://www.anpost.com/Post-Parcels/Receiving/Pay-Customs-Ch...
I get an SMS saying that my parcel has arrived in the country but I have to pay customs before it's released for delivery, done via the site above.
When I order things from China to the UK, on AliExpress, they arrive 'delivered duty paid' - i.e. aliexpress collects certain taxes from me at checkout, then the item doesn't get held up at the border.
So there does seem to be some mechanism for closing the buyer-seller-taxman loop. Unfortunately I have yet to find a reliable way to send things using this system.
I was gonna mention that, but I felt I was waffling on a bit, so I deleted it!
We've got the same thing with GST, basically like VAT or sales tax. So that'll appear on the invoice from AliExpress or Steam or wherever.
Businesses have a threshold before they need to charge it though. If they're under that threshold (like a small business), but the value of goods is over another threshold, then the receiver has to pay GST.
If I remember correctly, customs would mail me a letter, and I'd pay it like a tariff. Which brings me back to the main point, that's just that the carrier has nothing to do with it. It's ridiculous to get them involved in a transaction they're not a party to.
Process might be slightly different, I'm remembering from about fifteen years ago.
Using the EU and UK systems is optional, but without using it the small business's customers might be annoyed by the handling fees applied by the recipient's mail carrier, and the delay it causes.
I have seen some foreign merchants (I think DigiKey?) offer the choice, as their business customers don't need to pay VAT directly in this way, and may well prefer to do the import paperwork themselves.
I haven't seen a choice for any large retailer (Amazon, eBay, Etsy, AliExpress etc). They don't want customers annoyed by fees, or returned packages from unpaid fees and duties.
Every business that wants to send something to the UK is required to register with the British government and collect VAT on items shipped to Britain. So yes, the US could have a system like that - just get a couple DOGE kids to vibe code it tomorrow, huh.
https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/united-kingdom/corporate/other-...
Foreign businesses aren't required to register and collect UK VAT on items they send there, but by doing so they avoid their customers paying the £8 handling fee charged by Royal Mail.
An £8 fee makes a cheap product bought from China unappealing, so those sites do pay the fees. It's less important if the British person is buying something for €100 from a tiny French business.
I remember one UK content creator had some recipe books. I think the way to get them to EU was order from Ebay. SO big enough platform to have implemented whole thing... Not sure if that really works.
Royal Mail have a decent explanation: https://www.royalmail.com/business/international/guide/deliv...
Searching "EU IOSS UK" also shows some sort of support from Shopify and similar.
Possible the UK version of this? https://vat-one-stop-shop.ec.europa.eu/index_en
This sort of thing happened to some extent with Brexit, too; after the chaos died down some carriers resumed service to the UK, but some didn't.
I wish the rest of world would finally push back against US bullying. It's so pathetic that they don't even try.
When the Obama administration forced every bank in the world to start reporting the data and assets of any US-adjacent person (creating nightmare scenarios that continue today for most US expats), the entire world just rolled over and gave in. It was one of the greatest abuses of power, ever, all enabled by the US dollar's reserve currency status.
I can only hope this time is different due to the current administration being more hated around the world.
I think if you send something under 100$ and its person to person you are still good though.
And don't think they're going to be the last. Yesterday got a message from an influencer merch shop basically saying no more shipping to US. They're just over it.
So this looks like just transit shipping is changing, since the other country could have a potentially higher tariff applied rather than the Australia-specific one.
I don't agree with >99% of what Trump does, but closing this loophole that allowed Chinese companies to flood Western markets with cheap (and partly dangerous) junk is one of the exceptions - and also one of the few things where he is in agreement with the EU (https://marketing4ecommerce.net/en/europe-packages-under-val...).
There is Chinese junk, German junk, and American junk. But not all of those countries are into junk production exclusively. I've received goods from a China startup with are much higher quality than goods from a Germany company which is over one hundred years old.
The question is what's the West doing to uppe their game, and right now it seems that our side is fundamentally incompatible with the sort of things China is doing, and then we resort to blaming them for whatever we can.
The real question is why people buy such products, and the answer is because the quality for that specific price point is decent.
When you buy Anker for example, you are buying, pure China products, but still a very good choice.
Many US companies choose to manufacture in China because the tooling is more advanced than in other countries + scalability is high.
If you buy a 2 USD dress don’t expect it to be super high-quality but at the same time the price is reasonable for that.
And often when I am charged 5x or 10x for something here I have no idea if the manufacturing price was 2x or 3x and thus higher quality with better QC and so on. Or does that money just go to bunch of middle-men and to bottom line of the local seller.
My favourite example is cables. I can either buy a Chinese-made product locally, or get a similar quality for a tenth the price on Aliexpress.
Also the factory that produces the $2000 luxury dress is often the same one producing the $2 Temu version. The former has a specific yarn, strict QC, lifecycle audits, the works. The latter uses the cheapest available yarn, no QC and crappy packaging.
Pure China products with Western QC on top and somebody to sue when things go wrong.
Turns out this matters. But it’s still better to buy made in EU/USA.
There are specific regulations that exist and are enforced in Germany (2009/48/EC) and the US (CPSC), that also exist in China (e.g. GB 6675) but enforcement is relatively weak, especially for cheap toys from small manufacturers that end up in the hands of children.
It's not that China is into junk production exclusively as your dishonest straw man claims. It's that china can make an overwhelming amount of it. The weird shipping situation subsidized the flow of junk from China to the US. It subsided everything else too but everything else didn't necessarily benefit as much from the subsidy so the junk is what really changes in volume based on the nickels and dimes of it.
Dishonest strawman? I sincerely understood the post implied China produces only junk, which I thought was an unfair statement. My apologies.
In a second read, now I understand that the post implies that China produces lots of junk that then they magically teleport to the doorstep of unwilling Americans, who then snare on the junk and fall when they are trying to leave their houses to buy American-made high quality goods, thus thwarting the good business and good intentions of that economy /s.
Look, I'm okay if people want to have their government impose on them what they should buy and they should not, on the principle that national capital should get a bigger slice of the pie. But if you are going to allow the government to decide that for everybody, you may as well not stop there and let the government decide on other matters, like healthcare, education, and economic incentives for society.
China has very many start-ups and one man shows shipping utter junk. Germany and the US are not even in the same league. The companies in those countries tend to follow the local laws because they know there are consequences.
Good luck getting compensation when that product from AJDHJk sets your house on fire or makes you sick.
In consumer products, the German and US brands do indeed manufacture in China, but then do their QC and supervision to get to an acceptable level.
You can see how this goes wrong with Anker’s recent recall, where they got blindsided by their supplier and now have to do a recall because their portable batteries can cause fires.
I won't deny your point, but I think we are missing something. China's economy has more cutthroat competition than at least where I live. As such, strict QC is a must for any brand there that wants to survive and have a presence in the West, of which there are quite a few. And those brands still manage to beat domestic ones in price, often with higher quality. My point being, QC and legislation alone can account for the price difference; there has to be other economic factors at play.
Also, I recently watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2TfbN3v8h8 , which may be smoke and mirrors and have me slightly biased. Also, my iphone is made in China.
> As such, strict QC is a must for any brand there that wants to survive and have a presence in the West, of which there are quite a few.
The thing is, there are three ways to survive as a company. The one way is establishing a brand like Ecoflow, DJI, Anker, and do what you suggest. The second one is to produce directly for some large Western brand (either as contract manufacturer or ODM). The final way is to just flood the Western markets with cheap garbage and alphabet-soup brands, and make up the lower margins in sales volume. There can't be that many companies making and selling PL259 adapters as there are "brands" on Amazon selling them, after all.
> The final way is to just flood the Western markets with cheap garbage and alphabet-soup brands, and make up the lower margins in sales volume.
...and because they don't have a presence in the West and don't care about their brand(s), if the shit really were to hit the fan in such a big way that they can't just sit it out, they can simply drop that particular brand, while the remaining heads of the Hydra will be just fine.
i'm pretty sure if your house is on fire because of anker charger, you can ask them for compensation.
a lot of US manufactures had been recalling their products too.
If you buy a cheap charger from AliExpress, it's not going to be Anker.
>In consumer products, the German and US brands do indeed manufacture in China, but then do their QC and supervision to get to an acceptable level.
....until the QC and supervisor turn their backs.
Did you know Switzerland has a free trade agreement with China? We have the same strict/very similar strict rules as the EU does.
In Switzerland if you import dangerous junk and sell it in your store, you are liable. Of course the end consumer can also directly purchase from China as well but then it is their responsibility (Eigenverantwortung).
Customs will also confiscate fake brands and for example radios that violate frequencies rules (unless you can provide documents that you are allowed to operate such a device, ham radio license etc.)
And if my neighbor purchases a cheap battery-powered product that violates all electrical regulations from TEMU and the fire started by it burns down my apartment too, who's responsible then? I guess my neighbor, and the insurance will probably cover the costs, but I will still have lost the apartment and all the stuff that was in it. And customs will maybe look at big shipments, but can't hope to check even a tiny fraction of the millions of small packages.
The article is mostly about duties. If you buy from someone outside of Switzerland that doesn't take care of the customs fees it's a pain for you. I once bought something that was only around 40chf from someone in the eu but then had to pay an extra ~40chf to Swiss customs for tax + plus handling fees (they had to open the box, inspect it, repackage it and send it to me).
"n Switzerland if you import dangerous junk and sell it in your store, you are liable."
The same in the UK, and a lot of other countries. The retailer is responsible to the customer, the importer or wholesaler to the retailer.
> Of course the end consumer can also directly purchase from China as well but then it is their responsibility
Providing an easy workaround to safety regulations does not sound like a great idea to me. If you let consumers easily buy unsafe things it will lead to problems. Consumers often do not even realise that things do not meet standards, especially if they buy it through somewhere like Amazon.
You could argue that consumers should do their own checks, but then why have the regulation of what can be sold in the first place?
> If you let consumers easily buy unsafe things it will lead to problems.
It's Switzerland.... I can buy fireworks rockets as big as my leg at the grocery store just before Swiss national day.
We have a big thing in Switzerland called "Eigenverantwortung". You need to take responsibility, the state will not babysit you at everything. You have the freedom to purchase abroad but at your responsibility.
I like that. Here in the UK we have definitely gone too far far the other way, and I dislike the effect its having. A lot of people seem to want want the state to tell them what to do.
In Switzerland if you import dangerous junk and sell it in your store, you are liable.
Oh, that's why amazon.ch redirects to amazon.de... In general, manufacturers and retailers have more legal responsibility for what they sell here in Germany than in the USA, but it feels like Switzerland takes that even further, in good but more expensive ways.
There is no Amazon in Switzerland. Well, they probably have an office here for tax schemes, but there's no Amazon service. Instead we have Galaxus which is awesome and so I fully expect Amazon to buy it one day and ruin it.
Free trade? With no adjustment given to the CO2 emission intensity of production or CO2 emission per capita which are much higher in China than Switzerland?
That's basically subsidizing climate change and encouraging production to move to dirtier regimes. Seems fairly wild.
What on earth happened to free market capitalism, now you don’t want it? You want government intervention in the price of goods to manipulate outcomes ? Make up your mind and make it up quickly because I don't think the world will wait.
People buy cheap junk because it’s cheap. Why do you think so few people buy American made tools ? Your government is now forcing you to buy expensive goods and you’re, “happy with it”? It’s wild. I’m one of those people who always purchased USA, British , Australian, I still but I've had to watch many of my favourite brands lose their soul and offshore only because consumers chose to stop supporting them. It was the choice of consumers. It's just the sad reality, I'm certain the fix isn't government intervention though.
Likewise EU to US import rules were based on a World War II recovery concept. Europe is no longer recovering from World War II so asking them to pay a reciprocal tariff seems entirely reasonable whether you think Trump is a jackass or not.
Er, words mean things, you know? If Trump pulls a tariff out of thin air because he doesn't like it that the US has a trade deficit with a certain country (or because he doesn't like that that country is prosecuting one of his allies, as in Brazil's case), that maybe makes the tariff "retaliatory", but not "reciprocal". Last time I checked, the EU wasn't charging a 15% tax on imports from the US, but the US was.
> > Likewise EU to US import rules were based on a World War II recovery concept.
> Er, words mean things, you know? If Trump pulls a tariff out of thin air because he doesn't like it that the US has a trade deficit with a certain country
Not what I wrote. Words mean things. You don't seem to be good at reading or communicating with people Rob, and you should refrain from doing both in future.