> Only if you actively misunderstand, or more likely only listen to selected clips by mainstream media

I watched entire speeches by Donald Trump. Were they representative? I have no idea. Were they scary? Not all of them. But a sufficient number that I stand by my estimate of a perfect 14/14. I'll let you check on Umberto Eco's scale to see if something is missing.

> Trump foreign policy was returning America to what it should have been all along, *Free Trade with all nations, entangling alliances with none*

(emphasis mine)

Interestingly, this is exactly what the EU has been moving towards for the past few decades. Hence the attempt to not be economically dependent from the US. Hence the refusal to take part in the trade war against China. I remember how France was – and, to some extent still is – covered with mud in US media for refusing to take part in the Invasion of Irak (forgot whether it was the first or second), but that was also a symptom of the same. Hence the balancing act with buying some things from Russia that the EU could also have bought from the US.

Selling weapons to Russia and buying gas from them? Didn't turn out so well, we can all agree. The alternative to buying gas from Russia was nuclear power, which would have been much better, but got much maligned after Three Miles Island, Tchernobyl and Fukushima. This will happen, eventually, but too late.

> I can see why the EU would worry about that but not for the reasons you seem to think

I realize that the way I wrote my post could have been clearer. While I can't escape writing some of what I think (in particular, the Umberto Eco scale of fascism), the general idea was to explain what EU leaders think, as far as I understand.

These worries are not personal to me.

On the other hand, yes, what you're pointing out is also true. Life without an alliance with the US is a scary perspective. And the EU has been quite slow to build its own army, relying too much on the fact that it is a nuclear alliance and has a large intersection with NATO.

I believe that, if Putin's invasion hadn't happened, EU countries would slowly have left NATO and concentrated on building a unified army. I hope that the latter will happen nevertheless.

> You believe that started with Trump? That has been a mainstay of US foreign policy at least since WWII, it was not even the first time we fucked over the Kurds.

Maybe? Also, you already pointed out (with different vocabulary) that, under Donald Trump, the US preferred isolationism. Does this mean that we agree that the US is not a reliable ally for Europe, especially under Trump?

> I 100% support the decision to leave.

I actually support that decision. But I think we can agree that leaving could have been done much, much better.

> I disagreed with the Tariffs, however I absolutely supported his desire to increase our manufacturing base in the US, and hold other nations accountable for their abuse of trade policy at the expense of the US which has been going on since at least Bill Clinton if not longer. The US has and continues to be asked to "sacrifice" our prosperity for the good of the world while other nations refuse to do even a fraction of what the US does, and even when we meet the goals often the rest of our "partners" like the EU pants the US as a bully, as evil, as the problem. Frankly we need a president to stand up for the US.

I had a scathing (and, frankly, rather stupid) reply for this.

And then I realized one thing. I find this line of "The US has and continues to be asked to "sacrifice" our prosperity for the good of the world while other nations refuse to do even a fraction of what the US does" extremely interesting. Because I've heard this line being repeated over and over:

- in the US, recently, by Trump-style Republicans;

- in the EU, recently, by far right parties;

- in the UK, recently, by the Brexit party (didn't Thatcher use that line, too, some time ago, now that I think of it?);

- but also in the EU, for decades, by socialists and communists of various shades of pink-to-red.

Of course, you need to substitute "good" and "bad" actors when you cross the Atlantic or the Channel. Bad actors (which can be the EU, the US or the UK) abuse "our" (insert whoever you are) good faith while "we" need to sacrifice our prosperity (the exact definition of prosperity may differ slightly between left and right) for the sake of others while other nations refuse to do even a fraction of what "we" do.

It would be interesting to try and see where this discourse originates from.

I suspect that it's largely propaganda, though. Have you ever had a single representative ask anybody to sacrifice prosperity for the good of the world? What I have seen aplenty, on the other hand, are political figures promising to create/return prosperity through $(magical cure of the day).

> The side of the US citizen, first time in a long time the US President stood up for the US Citizen, not global corporations, or globalism

So, if I understand correctly, you're basically agreeing with EU leaders that Trump's US was not a reliable ally? Perhaps not an ally at all?