Re: OT: Cracking Speech by JDV!

On 17/02/2025 3:32 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
 

On 17/02/2025 12:50 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
>

On 16/02/2025 11:48 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
>

On 16/02/2025 6:41 am, Cursitor Doom wrote:

On Sat, 15 Feb 2025 10:53:37 -0700, Don Y
<blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
>

On 2/15/2025 3:07 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

>
<snip>
>

So, if he was afraid of having a NATO Ukraine on his border, he
hasn't yet realized what a threat a re-ARMED Europe would pose in
that same geographical position.  Trump's trash talking may result
in a EUTO (without the US) that feels empowered to push back on
future issues without "consent" from the US.

>
Getting Europe's military up to the job would take at least a decade.
But there's no money available. Germany - once the economic powerhouse
of the continent - is on its knees and France likewise. And even if it
could be afforded - which it can't - we now know Putin can call upon
China and N. Korea, so if push ever came to shove, continental Europe
would be toast.

>
The US Abrahams tank relies on a German gun and UK (Chobham) armour.

>
But the Americans won't have to fight if Trump has his way.  He thinks
he can just keep Putin happy by feeding him European countries,
one-by-one.

>
NATO exists so that he can't do that. An attack on one NATO member is an
attack on all of them. Ukraine is a not a member of NATO (and Putin
doesn't want it to join).

>
A flourish of the pen is all it needs to destroy that.  Trunp has pulled
out of other alliances when it suits him, why not this one?

>
Trump pulling America out of NATO won't destroy the agreements between
all the other countries involved.

 I know, but he thinks he rules most of the World and NATO will fall
apart without him.  Then, once the unity is broken, he can manipulate
the individual countries in any way that suits him.
 We need to make ourselves as independent of America as quickly as
possible so as to be free to fight whatever threat appears without being
coerced because our food supplies and military equipment depend on doing
what Trump wants.

The US is a trading partner for Europe and Australia. We are no more dependent on it than we are on all our other trading partners. Trump wants less trade so the rest of us will have to make more of what the US currently supplies. The US may be the sole supplier of some of their more baroque military equipment, and their farm subsidies mean that they do ship cheap food overseas, but Trump isn't in a position to coerce anybody, though he likes to pose as if he is.

Can you see the present UK politicians taking the lead
and taking the population along with them?

They don't have to take any kind of lead. If the US doesn't want to sell stuff, other suppliers will exploit the market that this creates.

It will only happen when things have become so bad that we are clutching at straws.

Twaddle. International trade is now largely a free market, and if the US wants to sell and buy less stuff, the rest of the world will adapt essentially automatically.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney