| ▲ | unmole 2 days ago |
| > Some people in the US deride it's close allies as "freeloaders" because they choose to use and buy US tech This is a disingenuous straw man. The allies are derided for literally freeloading on US military protection while underinvesting in their own defense. |
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| ▲ | jimnotgym 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Freeloading? My country spends less on defence as a percentage of GDP than the US. But it spends much of that with US companies. This is not Freeloading. It was a deal. Cancel TSR-2, and buy American and we will lend you some money. Cancel your nuclear program and buy US submarine launched missiles and we will help you look after yourself. Now let Visa and Mastercard skim off all your transactions and we will keep you secure to keep the money flowing. Sweetheart tax deals for US companies to operate, and we will keep you safe to keep the money flowing. It is not Freeloading, it is colonialism |
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| ▲ | mlrtime 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Agreed those things exist, in most contracts one or both parties feel they are not getting a 'fair' deal and will renegotiate terms, this is very common. | |
| ▲ | LightBug1 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I can hear the whoosh going over the head of anyone associated with Trump. Thanks for trying though. |
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| ▲ | oliwarner 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| How's that? How many Middle Eastern refugees are America sheltering from the fallout of American aggression and the regimes it props up? The US isn't anywhere close to paying its way. |
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| ▲ | hshdhdhj4444 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The current U.S. President has insisted that Europeans are freeloading. Given that he’s been the primary proponent of this idea, and given that he’s been cutting off aid and has made cutting off this “freeloading” the central plank of his defense strategy, the U.S. defense budget must have gone down significantly right? https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5656174-trump-si... > The bill approves a record $901 billion in military spending for fiscal 2026 Oh… |
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| ▲ | kyboren 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | Obviously faulty logic. This isn't a zero-sum game. In fact, the whole point is to increase our combined combat power. For too long European NATO countries have kept token militaries lacking any substantial combat power. They have centered their national defense strategies around holding off Russia for just long enough for Uncle Sam to swoop in, fight the Russians, and save the day. But the US does not have the combat power to fight both Russia and China. So our total combat power must increase. Should the US bear this increased burden alone? Or should the rest of NATO finally get serious about funding and fielding effective militaries? European states have been freeloading, and US defense budgets are not going to decrease just because Europe finally starts to take some responsibility for its own defense. |
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| ▲ | xorcist 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Pray tell, how much of, say, the latest Afghanistan war did the US pay and how much do their allies need to bear? The rebuilding of a whole country, the reinstatement of the Taliban regime, the destabilization of the region, and the still ongoing stream of refugees? The political aftermath of which is still felt in Europe. |
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| ▲ | Amezarak 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Europe could have simply denied entry to the refugees and avoided their entire refugee problem. It's especially silly to blame the US when most EU states strongly supported the downfall of Qaddafi and Assad. | |
| ▲ | ExoticPearTree 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | a day ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | jeltz 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Does the US plan to pay for this wall? | |
| ▲ | avianlyric 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Building a wall and shooting on site anyone who crosses it is a very simple and effective method of keeping immigration in check. Ah yes a wall, like that famously effective one that Trump built. Tell me has US managed to actually finish it yet? | |
| ▲ | saubeidl 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'd argue the savages are the people shooting civilians. | | |
| ▲ | alephnerd 2 days ago | parent [-] | | The EU is so much more civilized by bribing Turkiye [0], Libya [1], Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia [2], and other nations to shoot and/or indefinitely detain them for you guys instead. Yet we as Americans are the savages. European civil society needs to drop this charade of moralizing and being "rules based". The reality is EU policymakers are equally as mercurial and open to making deals with devils. The issue is a subset of you guys have a weird form of "white saviourship" and sense of exceptionalism. Finally, a plurality of us Americans either never had or no longer have blood ties with Europe. As an Asian American who used to work om the Hill, I myself and my peers increasingly ignore or overlook Europe despite having went to college with a number of your up-and-coming decisionmakers. In 2025, the majority of us Americans are Latino, Black, Mixed, Asian, or multi-generational White American. Any positive historical ties we had with Europe (in reality, a fluke from 1939-2011) was because of 1.5 gen Central and Eastern European immigrants turned NatSec Advisers like Kissinger (German), Albright (Czech), and Brzezinski (Polish). From a soft power perspective, when we don't look inward we increasingly look to Latin America or Asia. And economically as well - our total trade with all of Europe is barely $975B compared to $1.5T with all of the Americas and around $2-2.5T with Asia. [0] - https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/03/the-eu-turkey... [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/05/eu-dea... [2] - https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-06-01/mass-arr... | | |
| ▲ | saubeidl 2 days ago | parent [-] | | What are you talking about? Are you guys shooting people at the border? I was reacting to the guy above, not Americans. | | |
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| ▲ | throw0101c 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > The allies are derided for literally freeloading on US military protection while underinvesting in their own defense. 1. No one forced the US to spend a bajillion dollars on defense. 2. The US did so out of their own free will, and out of self-interest: their power hegemony allowed for peaceful trade routes that benefited the US economy and US corporations. 3. Their own defense against what? What threats, until fairly recently, did the Europeans face that they needed to spend money protecting against? |
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| ▲ | baq a day ago | parent [-] | | > Their own defense against what? What threats, until fairly recently, did the Europeans face that they needed to spend money protecting against? Same ones the US built the most expensive army in the world to defend against |
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| ▲ | tonyedgecombe 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Let's not pretend this was something the US didn't want for most of the last seventy years. |
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| ▲ | Wilder7977 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Guess which country had never any interest in a strong (politically and militarily) Europe, to maintain the world hegemony? A Europe with an independent defense is dangerous competition for the US. Maybe it means that some international trade will be done in Euro. Maybe it means foreign policies in Europe's interests. |
