Trump threatens Tariffs on those who don't support his purchase of Greenland.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Unfortunately the US is the world superpower. That used to be ok when they were moral.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow The annexation of Greenland could happen because the US already has the forces there to do it. If you ignore what allies think, international law and treaty agreements, then there is nothing stopping America.

However, it would be a game-changing event in geopolitics, and I am nit sure the Trump administration has fully thought it through.

@JimboSaturn I only disagree on one point. The US empire has never been moral. The reality is what has changed is it no longer serves our self interest.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow I guess you are right. I guess I mean we never expected the US to upend the post WWII order.

@Burnley123 If Trump breaks NATO, can NATO countries kick American bases out of their countries? Such a dangerous and totally unnecessary game he's playing.

@JimboSaturn @Burnley123

Never thought I would say this coming from a military family but NATO is now a national security liability for all members.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow We (including Britain) can liquidate over 3 trillions worth of US treasury bonds and make the dollar compete with the ruble for the title of world's worst sh*tcoin. It won't happen until an actual invasion, as that'll torpedo the world's economy as a whole and for obvious reasons Europe doesn't want to look like the one who started it.

@Elessar A major flaw with that. All our currencies are pegged to the dollar so it turn our own currencies into meme coins too.

And it still doesn't address the fact that we are all now chained to a rogue state as long as NATO exists.

NATO hasn't made sense for decades since it has member states that have completely opposite and opposing national interests anyways. This just makes it a security liability too.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow It's not necessary a flaw, as every economy will suffer from it, hence why it's treated no differently than launching nukes.

Not necessarily, we'll still need an alliance and chain of command to coordinate the response when they'll boot themselves out

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow If they quit it or are made to quit it, yes, it will. Underestimating how quickly and unitedly we react to a crisis is the mistake that both Brexiters (convinced that them leaving would be the first of a long series, and that the EU would've collapsed soon after) and Putin did (convinced that he could blackmail us into accepting whatever imperialist goals he cooked, blackmailing us with the threat of cutting gas supplies).

You're overestimating their capacity, they'll certainly succeed the initial invasion but they're notoriously bad at handling the next stages. See Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. And those were against countries that had nothing close to the capacity of NATO-minus-US to retaliate. You don't get to keep an army formidable for long if you lose all your allies, if your currency isn't worth the paper it's printed on and if your overseas projection capacity gets cut overnight

@Elessar @PicturesOfABetterTomorrow

The point for me is that Europe has economic leverage. Threaten tariffs on America or whatever.

There is a point that Europe is militarily vulnerable to America given our security apparatus is integrated with theirs. There needs to be a decent coupling. This will take time and money but there is no other option now.

I also think that Europe needs to decouple trade where possible..Build more links with Asia and Africa.

@Burnley123 I agree but I think the decoupling is happening already, just out of the spotlight; see the Mercosur deal recently passing, the rearmament program launched one year ago, the DSA, etc.

We have nothing to gain by making stern proclamations or open threats without the military capacity to back them, as a plus the last thing we want right now is to give the European/British/Canadian/etc far right (aka Trump and Putin' useful idiots, if not agents) a campaign point like "tHe EU iS gOinG tO DrAg Us In A wAr AgAiNsT tHe USA!!! If we win we'll stop this madness!!" (that'll end with becoming even more dependent if they get their way), or Trump a justification for being Trump.

Just because we're used to seeing American foreign politics being pompous and arrogant it doesn't mean it's the way it should be conducted. Especially because at this critical point in time Europe's future depends on asserting itself as the adult in the room. On the international scene, you don't want to appear unstable and neurotic, that's exactly the mistake Trump and Putin are making.

We need to be (foreign policy speaking) more like China than like America or Russia

@Elessar Totally agree.

It feels weird but the biggest geopolitical threat to Europe is now Trump's America. Probably under any future Republican too. Assuming they will still have somewhat fair elections, which can't be taken for granted.

You probably know about the national security document which makes it explicit that the US government will be supporting the European far right.

Britain is in a vulnerable situation because if Brexit and because our deluded political class has deep seated yank worship.

Our labour government recently signed a contract with Palantir (Peter Theil) which is ridiculous. Italy has the problem that Meloni is a Trump supporter.

@Elessar Europe stops trading oil in USD and watch how the Dollar starts to crash.

@Burnley123 Yeah I'm aware, but all those contracts can be rescinded at least. It's the same cr#p as when we built those pipelines to Russia *after* they've invaded Crimea only to shut them down in 2022

@Burnley123 @Elessar

Well we all seem to agree on decoupling militarily and security.


I have to disagree with the economic leverage though. That is a fight Europe would lose ironically because of a previous self defeating posture coming back to haunt them.

As a sign of loyalty and subservience to American interests EU leaders went along with the bombing of Nord Stream and for one of the biggest infrastructure terror attacks on European soil literally no one seems to care about finding out official answers. Probably because unofficially it has been confirmed as a CIA op

Regardless Europe has made themselves completely dependent on the US for energy and is already paying 3 times more for the privilege. Literally paying imperial tribute to the USA.

You can't win an economic war when your opponent can literally leave you to freeze in winter.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow the EU needs to decouple both from the US and Russia alike, the NS shouldn't have been built to begin with.

Energy is the other sector where China should be taken as the model: self sufficiency, achieved with massive investments in renewables and nuclear.

And for those uses where fossil can't be replaced, if you guys had more LNG terminals we'd more than happily replace American energy imports with Canadian

@Elessar As much as the cold warriors want to pretend otherwise because it keeps them relevant and keeps the weapons industry going Russia has no intention of invading Belgium.

Trump on the other hand intends to annex 2 Scandinavian territories. Oh and Denmark has no artillery now because they sent it all to be scrapped in Ukraine for American proxy wars.

Self sufficient? The only territory in Europe with oil is Norway. That is not realistic.

The reality is the EU blew up their economies to go along with American obsessions with war with Russia.

Countries like Germany tried the "green and nuclear" approach and it largely failed.


Again, even if you switch to Canada you are still looking at paying 3 times as much much just to childishly thumb your nose at Putin which only serves the Americans, and European weapons manufacturers at the expense of everyone else.

Ironically the economic model that even allows for the EU weapons industry to be profitable was based on the assumption of cheap Russian energy.

Making stupid economic decisions because your ruling class is stuck in the Cold War because it was the last time they were relevant doesn't help the majority.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow The USA is heading towa4ds $40Tn debt and is very reliant on the Dollar being a reserve currency. If the EU decides to trade oil in Euros the Dollar weakens and that US debt will be serviced at a much higher rate and the risks to the US economy will be climbing to potentially catastrophic levels.

@22Michelle Again though debt only matter is your creditors have the clout to collect on that debt. It is why you see countries like Argentina default but the US can run debt forever.

And ask Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein how well moving from the dollar went.....oh wait.