>So while the supply shock is still on balance bad for the American economy
Are we sure this is true? Not obvious to me that a net exporter of an extraction resource is worse off with a supply shock somewhere else.
What is obvious is that regardless of the net impact, the weighted-by-voter impact is a huge net negative (plus the 'seen' impact of gas at pump vs 'unseen' impact of your index fund that owns domestic oil company stock increasing more than enough to cover the at-the-pump cost also probably being a political loser even for most of the technically winning US citizens)
Also, I'd advocate strongly for not strongly hurting the GDP of everyone else for small GDP benefits to the US on ethical grounds. And then the practical considerations if they start playing tit-for-tat... so maybe it is obvious it's on balance bad for the American economy once you consider third order effects.
Probably before, but certainly ever since Trump took out the full-page ad in the NYT calling for a reinstatement of the death penalty, with regard to the Central Park Five, I haven't thought anything he says or does is funny.
Republicans have won presidential elections with increasingly incompetent candidates. What that says is the guardrails are gone. Is his mastery of Republican primary candidates a sign of his ability or a sign of the lack of standards? That Republican voters have made a hero of a lifeling grifter with 6 bankruptcies, convictions for sexual assault and 34 other criminal convictions says to me they lack discernment.And policy accomplishments, well in his first term the US had the 2nd highest death rate from covid among major nations. In his second he has proceeded to rake in over 2 billion dollars. Again where you see ability I see a toxic combination of racism, greed, and stupidity among those who support him.
As always Matt's writing was well worth reading but I'd suggest that the general public of most nations are not aware of the benefits China has given the world by reducing it's imports of oil at a key time and exporting lots and lots of electric cars.
The reason for the massive drop in America's standing thanks to Trump is much simpler. The world looks upon America as a not particularly bright rogue elephant. They may not say it out loud (who wants to annoy a rogue elephant?) but it is seen as a problem to be managed and certainly not an ally to be trusted.
The problem with trust is deeper than many US citizens understand. While many reaading thsi did not vote for Trump the horrible truth is that Trump was elected...twice. Once was bad enough but the world knew perfectly well what sort of a leader Trump would be after 2020 and he still got elected. So even if the next President is a sensible one (a likely outcome) no one is going to feel they can trust the US past the next Presidential election. At least not as long as the Republican Party has a realistic chance of winning elections and has not utterly renounced Trump with a sort of rejection that post War West Germany made about Hitler.
China in contrast is not a benign power but is seen as rational and predictable. It's sensitivities are well known and can be avoided in a way that Canada, Mexico and Western Europe couldn't avoid Trump's malevolent attention.
So well done all you Trump voters of 2024. You've done your bit to de-throne your country from the title of 'leader of the free world' and arguably lose its status as super power. It's now just seen as a big, rich country that's good at blowing things up.
It's difficult for me to take this kind of polling too seriously. Answers are costless, and I think many people take polling like this as an opportunity to express frustration or annoyance unrelated to the question.
For example, look at Pew's polling from a year ago on what people think their country's greatest threat is.
Spaniards consider the US their greatest threat, higher than Morocco (with which Spain actually has a live territorial dispute).
17% of Indonesians consider Israel the biggest threat to Indonesia.
Argentinians consider the US, Russia, and China their top three threats. It's difficult for me to understand how any of these countries is a threat to Argentina, much less how the UK is not on the list.
If I lived a thousand years, I would never understand how some people can consider Trump "funny." His humor consists of juvenile taunts and insults, almost always directed at someone he perceives as weaker/lower-status than himself.
What is it that Matt Y considers funny?
Is it Trump mocking a disabled reporter during the 2016 campaign?
Or saying "shut up, piggy" to a female reporter who challenged him?
Or posting AI-generated crap on social media, with a special shout-out to the video of himself dumping shit all over protesters from a plane? Honorable mention to the image of himself as a Jesus-like healer figure, with a headless kaiju-like abomination floating in the sky above him.
Or incoherently blathering about sharks and batteries and Hannibal Lecter and who knows what else?
Or that dumbass little dance he does that looks like he's giving a hand job to two giraffes at once?
He’s funny for the same reason impressions of him are funny.
He’s shocking, brazen, busts out memorable phrasings that will become permanent idioms forever going forward, talks in a bizarre and hard to predict way, and is a caricature of a narcissistic snake oil salesman type of guy.. He makes hilarious cartoon character faces while he is doing this as a bonus. Remember his silly little dance?
I think he is hilarious. If he were a character in arrested development he would fit right in.
Trump is unlikely previous republicans - but to a large extent, this Iran War is exactly who the Republicans have been. They proclaimed that Obama (and way back, that Clinton) were too timid, and that directly led to pulling out of the Iran deal that directly led to this war. They, and Trump, qere convinced that Obama was not good, and that explains many of their self harming actions, but it apecifically explains how Trump made a blunder worse than W.
On some things Trump is different. But here he is as much a standard republican as any other of the last 30 years. And even after Trump, Americans should expect this behavior from any republican president - even if they claim otherwise, as Trump did. I sont think we can trust them unless they admit that Obama was a pretty good president.
Not to disagree with what you said, but I need to point out what you leave out.
The blue half of the country takes it as a matter of faith that we want to be liked by the rest of the world. They take it as a matter of faith that it is a matter of utmost importance to behave morally in regards to the rest of the world, which includes the encouragement of human rights and liberal values.
I think that it is important to remember that none of this is a historical norm. Nations generally look out for their own interests. And Trump has used his charisma to encourage a large segment of the American population to believe that this is what we need to return to, in order to recover things that we -- particularly working people -- have lost.
So, if you are trying to do more than preach to the choir, I think it is crucial to make the case that this lack of international popularity is a trend that is working against the goals of working people. Bluntly put, a whole lot of red and purple voters need to know how the disdain of Indonesia, Turkey, Singapore and Italy in any sense interferes with their fantasy of recreating the good old days.
Americans may largely not understand or appreciate the benefits that we get from our superpower status: reserve currency, security alliances, global trade. But we'll miss it when it's gone. Trump is actively pissing this away, all for... what exactly? It's not even clear to me what the America First Crowd even wants besides a "return" to an imaginary past that never existed.
I agree with those benefits. And I would add to that total production capacity. The US, on its own, would be up against it competing one on one against China. But in an alliance with our erstwhile close allies, yes.
My point is that the post just assumes that people not already onboard have any real appreciation of what this means to their own interests. (I would delete the reference to global trade in the generality, not because I personally disagree but because its persuasive impact is low. Working people, including the old Labor Democrats, have long been skeptical of this, so I would emphasize the other points, assuming my point is to best win over converts.)
I can't speak for anyone else, but my concern about how Trump has handled international affairs has less to do with morality or protection of human rights than it does about him permanently degrading our ability to effectively project power around the world, further our interests, and protect our way of life and that of our friends around the world.
Being liked or being respected is a rough proxy for US soft power and Trump has squandered decades worth of investments that were made on a bipartisan basis. Every nation is ultimately looking out for its own interests first and foremost and the US has been no exception historically. Everyone has long understood this, but they also trusted the US to mostly operate with integrity, or at least work hard to keep up that appearance and to mostly honor its official commitments except in the most extreme circumstances.
Our reputation as a reliable ally and trade partner is what Trump has destroyed and imo is what Dems are most upset about.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the definition of American exceptionalism included "we are not like other nations! We are a Shining City on a Hill, the Leader of the Free World!" You can't believe that and then turn around and be like "so what if we're selfish, everyone else is selfish too, and those pro-human rights idealists can go f themselves."
The Orange man’s idea of power is very limited. The U.S. was the preeminent superpower, and he imagined that other countries “bowed down” to the U.S., and as leader they would bow down to him. (His limited idea of what power is.)
I see a few commenters are like, "What are those foreigners talking about, favoring China over the United States! How would they like it if the U.S. started acting like China, oppressing ethnic minorities and imprisoning political dissidents! Those foreigners are just full of shit!"
And you know what? You're right. China really is worse than the U.S. on human rights, even the MAGA-fied U.S. But also, is this some kind of gotcha? Is this something to be proud of? Sure, we are less oppressive than China. Yay us! Here, Americans, let's have a pat on the back and a cookie!
That we went from "leader of the Free World" to "at least we're not as bad as China" is not something to be happy about, just as a husband whose biggest achievement is "I don't hit my wife or cheat on her" is a shitty husband.
I think it's more that the US is actively screwing them, nationally and even individually, while China is selling them increasingly high-quality stuff for cheap. What China does to its own people is abhorrent, but the people being polled care more about what China and the US are doing to *them*.
The fact that China an oppresive atheist country that persecutes Muslims is popular in most Muslim countries is fascinating irrespective of what it says about America.
1. Pan-Muslim solidarity is weak/the average Arab Muslim in the Middle East just doesn't care that much about Uighur Muslims in China;
2. Providing military aid to Israel, which kills Palestinian civilians, is a much bigger wrong in the eyes of the average Muslim than oppression of Uighurs.
The Palestinians are remarkably unpopular in the Arab world, the Shia/Sunni divide is real, and I agree that Pan-Islam solidarity doesn't seem to exist broadly in the street, it's mostly academic and realpolitik which leverages the idea.
I'm less charitable. I think China consistently has less concern for human rights violations than the US. And I think that makes them a more valuable ally for countries that consistently commit massive human rights violations.
I don't think the murder of Muslim civilians is unpopular in Muslim countries. Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami got 31% of the vote in the most recent elections and they had comitted a genocide in Bangladesh in living memory.
So much in this discourse of: I am really concerned about the death of civilians but not there, there or there or the country next to me.
There is a more obvious explanation. State media control is surprisingly good at controlling what most people there think. I'd wager heavy money knowledge of the oppression of the Uighurs is just not known in these places.
Late to comment here, but Trump deserves a lot of credit for bringing “competition with China” to the forefront of American politics. But he has utterly failed to execute a coherent strategy to keep America the world’s leading superpower. Biden was much, much more effective in this area.
Apart of that failure is a failure of industrial policy and tariffs. But there’s another side of it that’s “Trump is making it so other countries don’t even really care if the US is the world’s leading superpower.”
No he doesn't. Obama had already been pivoting to Asia for most of his second term. The foreign policy establishment in the US was clearly already moving in this direction, with China's rise in the 2010s, and I don't think Trump droveuch of anything important. If anything, he killed our best shot at counterbalancing China by killing the TPP, and locking us further into the quagmire of the Middle East by pulling out of the Iran deal.
I still see comments from USians along the lines of “don’t worry guys we’re gonna win the House this fall and he’s a lame duck”
This reflects a massive misunderstanding of what has happened.
I can report that almost nobody in Canada is a putting any stock into a Democratic win in any future election.
From existential betrayals like the Budapest Memorandum to more minor thefts like the Gordie Howe Bridge shakedown, the USA has proven itself to be fundamentally untrustworthy. You’ve permanently lost enormous power and influence and mostly don’t seem to have realized it.
While Canadians are in the right to be proud of their nationality and opposed to Trump's reckless comments mocking their national sovereignty, the CUSMA is essentially a very large stock in the present and future US. That is probably because the CUSMA is a very good idea for both Canada and the US, which Trump can only nibble around the edges of. The Canadian government as of February 2026[1] says "85% of Canada's trade with the U.S. remains tariff-free, and the average tariff rate on Canadian goods is about 5.4%—the lowest among U.S. trading partners."
I imagine that could go up to 7.5% with Trump's proposed higher tariffs in effect for cars, liquor, and cheese. But it depends on what gets negotiated. At any rate, CUSMA doesn't expire until 2036, and I would bet Mark Carney will not abandon it prior to that. It seems like a massive boring stock that just doesn't get the headlines as much. Makes sense given discussing the composition of trade between the US and Canada is extremely boring to most readers of politics.
That’s what I mean though: It’s not just orange man. I’m actually a pretty big Biden fan (you guys don’t realize how jealous the rest of the world was of his economy) but he was the one who didn’t fulfill the Budapest Memorandum Assurance and he didn’t reverse all of Trump One’s tariffs.
> he was the one who didn’t fulfill the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances
What specific provision of the Budapest memorandum did America fail to fulfill? There were 6 of them, and the US more than upheld its side of the bargain both in 2014 and 2022 by calling for a Security Council resolution to affirm Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the withdrawal of Russian troops, and entering consultations with all parties of the memorandum when Ukraine invoked the relevant clause. Yes, the Russian language text referred to the signatories as having a “security guarantee” but no nation received a promise that any party might use lethal force on their behalf, as for example NATO article V does.
I really can’t take anyone seriously that pretends the US had an obligation to do more than it has following Russia’s 2022 invasion. There are fair criticisms to be had of both the Obama and Biden administrations responses, but it’s a joke to suggest either administration seriously undermined the credibility of America’s other treaty commitments with their actions on Ukraine. Ukraine never had a mutual defense treaty with the US, full stop.
“Nah all we promised the Ukrainians was that we would file the appropriate paperwork to affirm their territory” thanks for proving my point that the world absolutely does not trust the USA anymore
It took trust for them to give up their nukes. Do you think anyone would ever do anything similar based solely on a USA promise?
That is not all we promised, and that is not all we did. We have consistently provided both lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine. You’re the one arguing that our commitment was somehow not upheld, so I ask again, what specific provision of the Budapest memorandum did America fail to fulfill?
Also, let’s not pretend that Ukraine gave up their nukes solely because of some deep trust in the US. They did not ask for an equivalent commitment to NATO article V because they knew they could not extract that concession. Why did they not hold out for more? Because their negotiating position was weak; they did not have the ability to actually deliver the nuclear warheads they had and they probably couldn’t have developed that capability for several years, during which time they would been a pariah state like North Korea or Iran.
Nuclear risk drove Biden's decision to not directly intervene in Ukraine. I'm 100% on board with Team Ukraine (in terms of providing aid), but even I don't think the US should have attacked Russia.
Also, it should be mentioned that Trump absolutely threw Ukraine under the bus and not even in exchange for anything (unless he got cash on the side from Vlad).
I personally think the Biden administration was cowed from providing more lethal aid to Ukraine by Russian nuclear saber rattling, but I’m in broad agreement that the Biden admin basically made the right moves in providing substantial lethal aid, aggressively sanctioning Russia, and refraining from going to war ourselves.
I think there was also some concern that Ukraine might either not last long or be able to handle higher tech items, so providing them with expensive and complex systems like Patriots, HIMARS, and F-16's seemed like a nonstarter.
But after they proved themselves in battle, the Biden Administration agreed to provide these things and more.
But Biden didn't threaten Denmark/Canada, shit on NATO, attack Iran for flimsy reasons, etc. That is what is destroying our power, not a handful of industry specific tarriffs.
I don't know how much the soft power thing is hurting us compared to the waning reach of American hard power.
We don't have the advantage in hard power we used to, we don't have the industrial base to be the arsenal of democracy and just like of course we could handle fighting a large war across a broad front. We can't even strike in a way to crush a relatively small-mid sized power can't endure.
I think its actually less that "America is weaker than we used to be" rather than the rest of the world is catching up to us economically & technologically - as well as the advent of new military technology (drones) works against us.
Some of that though that our military industrial base isn’t able to reload our planes for enough strikes and that we don’t have anything like the drone production capacity is worrying.
It feels like it’s possible to contemplate a blockade of Taiwan in a way that wasn’t true 30 years ago. Also great power contest is zero sum in a way that’s hard to replicate.
There's all kinds of regional variation in the domestic prices of natural gas, not just NE. Natural Gas facilities in the same RTOs can have much different prices depending on pipelines.
>So while the supply shock is still on balance bad for the American economy
Are we sure this is true? Not obvious to me that a net exporter of an extraction resource is worse off with a supply shock somewhere else.
What is obvious is that regardless of the net impact, the weighted-by-voter impact is a huge net negative (plus the 'seen' impact of gas at pump vs 'unseen' impact of your index fund that owns domestic oil company stock increasing more than enough to cover the at-the-pump cost also probably being a political loser even for most of the technically winning US citizens)
Also, I'd advocate strongly for not strongly hurting the GDP of everyone else for small GDP benefits to the US on ethical grounds. And then the practical considerations if they start playing tit-for-tat... so maybe it is obvious it's on balance bad for the American economy once you consider third order effects.
Probably before, but certainly ever since Trump took out the full-page ad in the NYT calling for a reinstatement of the death penalty, with regard to the Central Park Five, I haven't thought anything he says or does is funny.
Republicans have won presidential elections with increasingly incompetent candidates. What that says is the guardrails are gone. Is his mastery of Republican primary candidates a sign of his ability or a sign of the lack of standards? That Republican voters have made a hero of a lifeling grifter with 6 bankruptcies, convictions for sexual assault and 34 other criminal convictions says to me they lack discernment.And policy accomplishments, well in his first term the US had the 2nd highest death rate from covid among major nations. In his second he has proceeded to rake in over 2 billion dollars. Again where you see ability I see a toxic combination of racism, greed, and stupidity among those who support him.
As always Matt's writing was well worth reading but I'd suggest that the general public of most nations are not aware of the benefits China has given the world by reducing it's imports of oil at a key time and exporting lots and lots of electric cars.
The reason for the massive drop in America's standing thanks to Trump is much simpler. The world looks upon America as a not particularly bright rogue elephant. They may not say it out loud (who wants to annoy a rogue elephant?) but it is seen as a problem to be managed and certainly not an ally to be trusted.
The problem with trust is deeper than many US citizens understand. While many reaading thsi did not vote for Trump the horrible truth is that Trump was elected...twice. Once was bad enough but the world knew perfectly well what sort of a leader Trump would be after 2020 and he still got elected. So even if the next President is a sensible one (a likely outcome) no one is going to feel they can trust the US past the next Presidential election. At least not as long as the Republican Party has a realistic chance of winning elections and has not utterly renounced Trump with a sort of rejection that post War West Germany made about Hitler.
China in contrast is not a benign power but is seen as rational and predictable. It's sensitivities are well known and can be avoided in a way that Canada, Mexico and Western Europe couldn't avoid Trump's malevolent attention.
So well done all you Trump voters of 2024. You've done your bit to de-throne your country from the title of 'leader of the free world' and arguably lose its status as super power. It's now just seen as a big, rich country that's good at blowing things up.
It's difficult for me to take this kind of polling too seriously. Answers are costless, and I think many people take polling like this as an opportunity to express frustration or annoyance unrelated to the question.
For example, look at Pew's polling from a year ago on what people think their country's greatest threat is.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/07/08/who-do-people-think-is-their-countrys-greatest-threat/
Spaniards consider the US their greatest threat, higher than Morocco (with which Spain actually has a live territorial dispute).
17% of Indonesians consider Israel the biggest threat to Indonesia.
Argentinians consider the US, Russia, and China their top three threats. It's difficult for me to understand how any of these countries is a threat to Argentina, much less how the UK is not on the list.
> Spaniards consider the US their greatest threat, higher than Morocco (with which Spain actually has a live territorial dispute).
They really hate tourists there!
If I lived a thousand years, I would never understand how some people can consider Trump "funny." His humor consists of juvenile taunts and insults, almost always directed at someone he perceives as weaker/lower-status than himself.
What is it that Matt Y considers funny?
Is it Trump mocking a disabled reporter during the 2016 campaign?
Or saying "shut up, piggy" to a female reporter who challenged him?
Or posting AI-generated crap on social media, with a special shout-out to the video of himself dumping shit all over protesters from a plane? Honorable mention to the image of himself as a Jesus-like healer figure, with a headless kaiju-like abomination floating in the sky above him.
Or incoherently blathering about sharks and batteries and Hannibal Lecter and who knows what else?
Or that dumbass little dance he does that looks like he's giving a hand job to two giraffes at once?
I truly, genuinely don't get it.
He’s funny for the same reason impressions of him are funny.
He’s shocking, brazen, busts out memorable phrasings that will become permanent idioms forever going forward, talks in a bizarre and hard to predict way, and is a caricature of a narcissistic snake oil salesman type of guy.. He makes hilarious cartoon character faces while he is doing this as a bonus. Remember his silly little dance?
I think he is hilarious. If he were a character in arrested development he would fit right in.
Trump is unlikely previous republicans - but to a large extent, this Iran War is exactly who the Republicans have been. They proclaimed that Obama (and way back, that Clinton) were too timid, and that directly led to pulling out of the Iran deal that directly led to this war. They, and Trump, qere convinced that Obama was not good, and that explains many of their self harming actions, but it apecifically explains how Trump made a blunder worse than W.
On some things Trump is different. But here he is as much a standard republican as any other of the last 30 years. And even after Trump, Americans should expect this behavior from any republican president - even if they claim otherwise, as Trump did. I sont think we can trust them unless they admit that Obama was a pretty good president.
Its hard to take surveys like this all that seriously. For European countries especially, it feels like "the man or the bear" all over again.
"The man or the bear" looks different if the man is that dude from The Shining. That's sort of what all the Greenland stuff, the tariffs, etc are.
Not to disagree with what you said, but I need to point out what you leave out.
The blue half of the country takes it as a matter of faith that we want to be liked by the rest of the world. They take it as a matter of faith that it is a matter of utmost importance to behave morally in regards to the rest of the world, which includes the encouragement of human rights and liberal values.
I think that it is important to remember that none of this is a historical norm. Nations generally look out for their own interests. And Trump has used his charisma to encourage a large segment of the American population to believe that this is what we need to return to, in order to recover things that we -- particularly working people -- have lost.
So, if you are trying to do more than preach to the choir, I think it is crucial to make the case that this lack of international popularity is a trend that is working against the goals of working people. Bluntly put, a whole lot of red and purple voters need to know how the disdain of Indonesia, Turkey, Singapore and Italy in any sense interferes with their fantasy of recreating the good old days.
Americans may largely not understand or appreciate the benefits that we get from our superpower status: reserve currency, security alliances, global trade. But we'll miss it when it's gone. Trump is actively pissing this away, all for... what exactly? It's not even clear to me what the America First Crowd even wants besides a "return" to an imaginary past that never existed.
I agree with those benefits. And I would add to that total production capacity. The US, on its own, would be up against it competing one on one against China. But in an alliance with our erstwhile close allies, yes.
My point is that the post just assumes that people not already onboard have any real appreciation of what this means to their own interests. (I would delete the reference to global trade in the generality, not because I personally disagree but because its persuasive impact is low. Working people, including the old Labor Democrats, have long been skeptical of this, so I would emphasize the other points, assuming my point is to best win over converts.)
I can't speak for anyone else, but my concern about how Trump has handled international affairs has less to do with morality or protection of human rights than it does about him permanently degrading our ability to effectively project power around the world, further our interests, and protect our way of life and that of our friends around the world.
Being liked or being respected is a rough proxy for US soft power and Trump has squandered decades worth of investments that were made on a bipartisan basis. Every nation is ultimately looking out for its own interests first and foremost and the US has been no exception historically. Everyone has long understood this, but they also trusted the US to mostly operate with integrity, or at least work hard to keep up that appearance and to mostly honor its official commitments except in the most extreme circumstances.
Our reputation as a reliable ally and trade partner is what Trump has destroyed and imo is what Dems are most upset about.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the definition of American exceptionalism included "we are not like other nations! We are a Shining City on a Hill, the Leader of the Free World!" You can't believe that and then turn around and be like "so what if we're selfish, everyone else is selfish too, and those pro-human rights idealists can go f themselves."
The Orange man’s idea of power is very limited. The U.S. was the preeminent superpower, and he imagined that other countries “bowed down” to the U.S., and as leader they would bow down to him. (His limited idea of what power is.)
Of course, power is more complicated than that.
I see a few commenters are like, "What are those foreigners talking about, favoring China over the United States! How would they like it if the U.S. started acting like China, oppressing ethnic minorities and imprisoning political dissidents! Those foreigners are just full of shit!"
And you know what? You're right. China really is worse than the U.S. on human rights, even the MAGA-fied U.S. But also, is this some kind of gotcha? Is this something to be proud of? Sure, we are less oppressive than China. Yay us! Here, Americans, let's have a pat on the back and a cookie!
That we went from "leader of the Free World" to "at least we're not as bad as China" is not something to be happy about, just as a husband whose biggest achievement is "I don't hit my wife or cheat on her" is a shitty husband.
I think it's more that the US is actively screwing them, nationally and even individually, while China is selling them increasingly high-quality stuff for cheap. What China does to its own people is abhorrent, but the people being polled care more about what China and the US are doing to *them*.
I don't think these commenters consider "better than China" something to be proud of.
I think the point is that this polling isn't very valuable.
The fact that China an oppresive atheist country that persecutes Muslims is popular in most Muslim countries is fascinating irrespective of what it says about America.
It can mean either of two things:
1. Pan-Muslim solidarity is weak/the average Arab Muslim in the Middle East just doesn't care that much about Uighur Muslims in China;
2. Providing military aid to Israel, which kills Palestinian civilians, is a much bigger wrong in the eyes of the average Muslim than oppression of Uighurs.
The Palestinians are remarkably unpopular in the Arab world, the Shia/Sunni divide is real, and I agree that Pan-Islam solidarity doesn't seem to exist broadly in the street, it's mostly academic and realpolitik which leverages the idea.
I'm less charitable. I think China consistently has less concern for human rights violations than the US. And I think that makes them a more valuable ally for countries that consistently commit massive human rights violations.
We are talking about popularity with the public not political leaders.
I don't think the murder of Muslim civilians is unpopular in Muslim countries. Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami got 31% of the vote in the most recent elections and they had comitted a genocide in Bangladesh in living memory.
So much in this discourse of: I am really concerned about the death of civilians but not there, there or there or the country next to me.
There is a more obvious explanation. State media control is surprisingly good at controlling what most people there think. I'd wager heavy money knowledge of the oppression of the Uighurs is just not known in these places.
Consider how people in Russia feel about Ukraine.
Or invading their neighbours is popular in Russia?
That is... my point? It is not less popular because of some of the absurd crap they believe about Ukraine.
Good point
Late to comment here, but Trump deserves a lot of credit for bringing “competition with China” to the forefront of American politics. But he has utterly failed to execute a coherent strategy to keep America the world’s leading superpower. Biden was much, much more effective in this area.
Apart of that failure is a failure of industrial policy and tariffs. But there’s another side of it that’s “Trump is making it so other countries don’t even really care if the US is the world’s leading superpower.”
No he doesn't. Obama had already been pivoting to Asia for most of his second term. The foreign policy establishment in the US was clearly already moving in this direction, with China's rise in the 2010s, and I don't think Trump droveuch of anything important. If anything, he killed our best shot at counterbalancing China by killing the TPP, and locking us further into the quagmire of the Middle East by pulling out of the Iran deal.
Bill Maher said it best, "We are not a serious people." Not any more.
I still see comments from USians along the lines of “don’t worry guys we’re gonna win the House this fall and he’s a lame duck”
This reflects a massive misunderstanding of what has happened.
I can report that almost nobody in Canada is a putting any stock into a Democratic win in any future election.
From existential betrayals like the Budapest Memorandum to more minor thefts like the Gordie Howe Bridge shakedown, the USA has proven itself to be fundamentally untrustworthy. You’ve permanently lost enormous power and influence and mostly don’t seem to have realized it.
The US and UK kept their agreement in the Budapest Memorandum, the fact it was worthless is a mistake made by Ukrainian leadership in 1994.
While Canadians are in the right to be proud of their nationality and opposed to Trump's reckless comments mocking their national sovereignty, the CUSMA is essentially a very large stock in the present and future US. That is probably because the CUSMA is a very good idea for both Canada and the US, which Trump can only nibble around the edges of. The Canadian government as of February 2026[1] says "85% of Canada's trade with the U.S. remains tariff-free, and the average tariff rate on Canadian goods is about 5.4%—the lowest among U.S. trading partners."
I imagine that could go up to 7.5% with Trump's proposed higher tariffs in effect for cars, liquor, and cheese. But it depends on what gets negotiated. At any rate, CUSMA doesn't expire until 2036, and I would bet Mark Carney will not abandon it prior to that. It seems like a massive boring stock that just doesn't get the headlines as much. Makes sense given discussing the composition of trade between the US and Canada is extremely boring to most readers of politics.
[1] https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/corporate/transparency/briefing-materials/2026/c19-eng.html
What do you mean about the Budapest Memorandum?
(before making any statements about what is in the Budapest Memorandum, please read the Budapest Memorandum and see if it says what you think it says)
I agree that we are certainly a declining power, and it is a completely unforced and unnecessary decline perpetuated by one orange-hued man.
That’s what I mean though: It’s not just orange man. I’m actually a pretty big Biden fan (you guys don’t realize how jealous the rest of the world was of his economy) but he was the one who didn’t fulfill the Budapest Memorandum Assurance and he didn’t reverse all of Trump One’s tariffs.
> he was the one who didn’t fulfill the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances
What specific provision of the Budapest memorandum did America fail to fulfill? There were 6 of them, and the US more than upheld its side of the bargain both in 2014 and 2022 by calling for a Security Council resolution to affirm Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the withdrawal of Russian troops, and entering consultations with all parties of the memorandum when Ukraine invoked the relevant clause. Yes, the Russian language text referred to the signatories as having a “security guarantee” but no nation received a promise that any party might use lethal force on their behalf, as for example NATO article V does.
I really can’t take anyone seriously that pretends the US had an obligation to do more than it has following Russia’s 2022 invasion. There are fair criticisms to be had of both the Obama and Biden administrations responses, but it’s a joke to suggest either administration seriously undermined the credibility of America’s other treaty commitments with their actions on Ukraine. Ukraine never had a mutual defense treaty with the US, full stop.
“Nah all we promised the Ukrainians was that we would file the appropriate paperwork to affirm their territory” thanks for proving my point that the world absolutely does not trust the USA anymore
It took trust for them to give up their nukes. Do you think anyone would ever do anything similar based solely on a USA promise?
That is not all we promised, and that is not all we did. We have consistently provided both lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine. You’re the one arguing that our commitment was somehow not upheld, so I ask again, what specific provision of the Budapest memorandum did America fail to fulfill?
Also, let’s not pretend that Ukraine gave up their nukes solely because of some deep trust in the US. They did not ask for an equivalent commitment to NATO article V because they knew they could not extract that concession. Why did they not hold out for more? Because their negotiating position was weak; they did not have the ability to actually deliver the nuclear warheads they had and they probably couldn’t have developed that capability for several years, during which time they would been a pariah state like North Korea or Iran.
Nuclear risk drove Biden's decision to not directly intervene in Ukraine. I'm 100% on board with Team Ukraine (in terms of providing aid), but even I don't think the US should have attacked Russia.
Also, it should be mentioned that Trump absolutely threw Ukraine under the bus and not even in exchange for anything (unless he got cash on the side from Vlad).
I personally think the Biden administration was cowed from providing more lethal aid to Ukraine by Russian nuclear saber rattling, but I’m in broad agreement that the Biden admin basically made the right moves in providing substantial lethal aid, aggressively sanctioning Russia, and refraining from going to war ourselves.
I think there was also some concern that Ukraine might either not last long or be able to handle higher tech items, so providing them with expensive and complex systems like Patriots, HIMARS, and F-16's seemed like a nonstarter.
But after they proved themselves in battle, the Biden Administration agreed to provide these things and more.
But Biden didn't threaten Denmark/Canada, shit on NATO, attack Iran for flimsy reasons, etc. That is what is destroying our power, not a handful of industry specific tarriffs.
I don't know how much the soft power thing is hurting us compared to the waning reach of American hard power.
We don't have the advantage in hard power we used to, we don't have the industrial base to be the arsenal of democracy and just like of course we could handle fighting a large war across a broad front. We can't even strike in a way to crush a relatively small-mid sized power can't endure.
I think its actually less that "America is weaker than we used to be" rather than the rest of the world is catching up to us economically & technologically - as well as the advent of new military technology (drones) works against us.
Some of that though that our military industrial base isn’t able to reload our planes for enough strikes and that we don’t have anything like the drone production capacity is worrying.
It feels like it’s possible to contemplate a blockade of Taiwan in a way that wasn’t true 30 years ago. Also great power contest is zero sum in a way that’s hard to replicate.
There's all kinds of regional variation in the domestic prices of natural gas, not just NE. Natural Gas facilities in the same RTOs can have much different prices depending on pipelines.