To suspect the "deal" between the US and Russia Greenland for Ukraine?

[FancyRedRobin]

The way things are shaping up I'm beginning to think the USAs negotiations with Putin were for USA to stand aside and let Putin have part of Ukraine and for Russia to support the US to take Greenland.

Executive orders are how a president issues orders to his staff. If a permanent change is needed, legislation is enacted. If the EO is about a temporary issue that can be resolved within the executive branch, legislation isn't needed. Congress is working on a bunch of legislation to codify many of Trump's EOs into law.

Hey, Loving, don't accept the premise. The US system isn't "designed for corruption." Any system that involves humans can become corrupt, but for anyone to suggest that the UK is somehow designed not to be corrupt while the US is designed to be corrupt is just parading their provincialism and narrow-mindedness.

They don't understand us. They thought they did. The UK has long labored under the illusion that the US is some sort of UK maxi-me because we speak the same language. That's what all of the "special relationship" nonsense is about. But if you asked the average American what country we have a special relationship with, I doubt 10% would say the UK. The vast majority would have no idea what you were talking about. Anyway they're realizing that they don't understand us and now they don't know what to think. And some of them are big mad about it.

But these are SCANDALS because they're not allowed! And we have a robust press who uncover these scandals and take our politicians to task (I highly recommend you listen to any political interview on BBC radio 4). I can't fathom the fawning, sycophantic way American journalists speak to their president.

How can anyone even call an election democratic when there's no spending limits, no obligation to name your donors, and you've got Elon Musk literally paying voters with his million dollar draws?

Trump is the one announcing he’s withdrawing the tariffs. They were totally unnecessary.

Its shocking to see Americans coming onto a thread doing what only pro-Russian accounts used to do - arguing, twisting facts, saying "but you are as bad"... Seriously.

America is screwed. Your president is not normal nor he is acting in your interests. He is literally destroying your country while destabilizing the whole world order. If you think its acceptable of justified - well, I have nothing to say to you. I just feel sorry for the country I used to like, and for the Americans who did not chose this shit show to be inflicted upon them.

saw this post by a Canadian which sums it up well

America doesn't get it. We are not offended by the tariffs. Trade could have been negotiated without a fraction of the bad blood. It is the constant "51st State" and "governor" talk, while his people snicker. We became a country in 1867, specifically not to be American.
It would be like the British Prime Minister saying daily that America will swear an oath to the king, become a colony, and pay back taxes on tea. Most Americans would feel offended to their core at this - and it is bad blood that would linger for a long time. Why? Why do it?

Can you give us some practical tips about how to go about boycotting American stuff (preferably without too much impact on British owned franchises and employees etc)?

Hopefully somebody somewhere is figuring out how we can extricate ourselves if needs be. If we ever have to freeze US assets I guess that should give us a tidy sum at least!

The most obvious things for me are twitter and meta

So you have all this information handy but claim not to be aware of the rules or regulations our MPs are supposed to stick to. Hmmm. Good preparation!

Here in Canada the shelves are being labelled to help spot Canadian products.
Fruit and vegetables usually indicate the country they come from? Other products can be more difficult to work out who owns which producers - it can come down to looking on the back of the packaging.

They don't understand us. They thought they did. The UK has long labored under the illusion that the US is some sort of UK maxi-me because we speak the same language. That's what all of the "special relationship" nonsense is about. But if you asked the average American what country we have a special relationship with, I doubt 10% would say the UK. The vast majority would have no idea what you were talking about. Anyway they're realizing that they don't understand us and now they don't know what to think. And some of them are big mad about it.

The "special relationship" is just politics. If you asked the average Brit which country they thought they were closest to, it wouldn't be the US. Most Brits can see they are very very different to Americans. They would maybe say Canada, or countries like France, Spain and Portugal, where a huge majority of Brits have moved to.

The British Empire was wound down because of the cost of defending it and policing the borders. Independence with ties via the common law, which is still the norm in most Commonwealth countries, was the solution.

The USA is finding that the role of global policeman has become financially burdensome.

I haven't the statistics or detailed intellectual grasp on history to offer a detailed explanation but Niall Ferguson's book Empire set it out quite well. And for a post-2000 view on geo-politics, Tim Marshall's books about the interplay of history and geography are well worth reading.

Erm, no, nowhere close.

The question now is: Will America manage its global retreat as smoothly as Britain did, or will the unraveling be more chaotic?

The shifting balance of power, particularly with China and other regional players asserting themselves, suggests that the next few decades will be turbulent.

Its a little different for us in Canada, as we have more American products in stores but so far I have:

• cancelled Amazon Prime, Netflix, Audible, Disney+ and Paramount Plus. If you do not want to give these up entirely, consider cancelling them for now, then dipping back in for a month-long binge every now and then.

• in supermarkets, I've been label-checking (the stores themselves have made this easier). Order of preference:

1. Made in Canada, Canada owned
2. Made in, and owned by, another non-US nation
3. Packaged in Canada, US parent company (would only get this in a pinch).

• I'm in the process of shutting down US social media accounts and messenger apps, am using Firefox instead of Chrome and am trying out some Google alternatives.

*While I have retained one guilty pleasure (a mobile game where I spend on micro-transactions), I am making an equivalent donation to a different Canadian charity, each time, to offset that guilt a little.

Unfortunately, some US-owned franchise owners and licenses will get caught in the crossfire. That said, so long as you divert your spending back into the British (or for me, Canadain) economy as much as possible, that will hopefully limit job losses overall.

If America raising the stakes makes people uncomfortable, maybe they should question why they aren’t strong enough to do the same.

Or because they're not a gang of thieving, murderous thugs.

At the end of the day, divesting from the US is not going to be pain free, but the more money we can keep in our own countries (or at least, away from adversaries) the better in the long run - not least because the more entwined and reliant we are on the US, the more exposed we are to trade wars and threats on annexation.

The war has started with the US flexing it's economic might and that should be an obvious reason for the rest of us to undermine it.

The drop in Canadian tourism to the US, alone, looks set to cost the US several billion dollars and result in tens of thousands of job losses. US consumers will also be paying more for goods. If job losses ramp up, the economy stutters and CoL continues to increase, it can pressure Trump into changing tact. He's clearly felt the need to back down a little on tariffs, already.

It's not retreating, it's advancing. And turbulent is the best we can hope for. So much for Fukuyama. (To be fair, he did retract his original analysis a few years ago.)

You act like America’s expansion of influence is uniquely evil...

No, just uniquely hypocritical.

I fear that unravelling empires and adjusting to a post-imperial retirement has always been a messy and painful process for both the colonised subjects and the imperial former power.

The USA achieved independence in 1776, and triumphed, eventually superseding the UK, but did so without acquiring direct governance of its economic empire, but there were enough shared values to forge a common set of interests. A (more or less) shared language helped.

I am not convinced that either Russia or China would wish to co-operate so much: my personal view is that either would prefer/demand vassal status as a pre-condition.

We DID have a common set of interests and values up until about 2 months ago. Now, the US is potentially as much of a menace as any imperial hegemony.

I suppose we should have seen the signs, and definitely should have been taking responsibility for more of our own defence along with other, looser alliances such as the EU and Commonwealth, but now it's happened it's been one heck of a shock. As the US's about-face is so recent we don't know for certain whether they'll turn out better, worse or about the same as the other two.

And, off-topic, but somewhat relevant IMO, English is an easy language to speak badly. How many people could ask for bread or rice in Chinese or Russian? I'm not monolingual and could manage it in most countries using Roman script, but in Cyrillic or Tamil, no chance.

It was interesting to see clips of the EU security meeting press debrief today. Everyone spoke to the world in English. I saw it in the UK, granted, but it is the lingua franca.

@Anniegetyourgun , the Commonwealth is I think the only post-colonial organisation mainly designed to maintain ties that has gained members which were not part of the Empire. Mozambique applied and became a member, joined of its own free will.

The US may be about to discover that its economic version of colonialism has not endeared America to the countries it has exploited. But it hasn't transplanted its best bits, like strong property rights and equality before the power of law.

I'm assuming you already boycott Chinese goods? Or do you consider their human rights abuses ok?