Donald Trump's bruising return to the White House has sent many longtime foreign allies scrambling to get their distance, and according to a new piece from The Atlantic, that distance will last long after Trump is gone.

Trump's second term as president has been marked by notable and widespread disrespect toward nations once seen as close U.S. allies. Between his attempts to level massive tariffs against nearly every nation in the world and his frequent breaches of diplomatic norms, Trump has created a hostile global environment in which allies no longer feel safe trusting in the stability of the U.S.

In a new piece for The Atlantic on Tuesday, staff writer Vivian Salama argued that this new dynamic, in which the nations of the world are working to establish a safe distance from the U.S., is bound to become the new normal for years to come, even after Trump leaves office and is potentially replaced by a more traditional, dependable administration.

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[–] 12 points 5 days ago (101 children)

As an American I have no doubt that our relationship with our allies will improve once we restore some sanity to the White House, but we’ve forced our allies to diversify their trade to brunt the impact of our tariffs and now that they’ve done so I don’t see any sane reason why they would undo that.

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  • [–] 26 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    Its going to take at least 50 years of good faith, and I wish you good fucking luck with the insane 4 year flip flop political bias your country has.

    We Canadians have been scratching our heads over the course of your increasing instability for 20 years, and we aren't going to forget that over night.

    Trump is a sign that the political landscape in the US is so unstable that nothing promised by any political figure can be trusted by your allies.

    Only a foolish nation forgets that overnight. We won't.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 days ago

    If it was only the US, that would be something, but it's happening to a lesser extent elsewhere too. The UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, and probably more I missed, are all showing a surge in right-wing support despite the mess Dumold Trump is making. In the UK Nigel Farage is like mini-Trump, and despite proof of his lies and corruption his support seems to grow.

    Something is rotten in the societies that are allowing this to happen, and I envy Canada for how it seems to be resisting it. Long may it continue.

    The damage being caused to US reputation on the world stage won't be fixable without fixing the rot first, because without that it could all happen again, and US allies know it.

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  • [–] 24 points 5 days ago (7 children)

    Well then you haven't been paying attention.

    We have committed some of the worst war crimes of the modern era

    We threatened to INVADE MULTIPLE ALLIES

    We have constantly lied and broken multiple signed agreements

    Our allies have permanently changed large scale trade operations to China for stability

    The dollar has decreased in value

    Allies have removed bonds and gold reserves from our country.

    Allowed a bloated and swollen pedophilic rapist to go on tv and threaten to nuke a civilization at the UN

    Ostracized ourselves by launching state run media and threatening to dismantle the ICC (which is investigating us for warcrimes)

    Allowed the president's family to invade and steal islands from sovereign nations (we all know what they want islands for)

    And more!

    No. There is no going back. The country was couped and is dead. Take a look at who is running every agency within government and you go ahead and tell yourself in the mirror that when trump doesn't accept the election results, he won't, that Kash Patel and Tom Homan will send DHS and the FBI to arrest trump. Maybe the Military run by kegsbreath and the businessman secretaries will come get him? Maybe the US Marshals will come get him- oh wait, they gave Trump a marshal badge and said he is the "highest law enforcement officer in the land"

    A country of delusional peasants.

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  • [–] 14 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Trump is just a symptom of a rot that goes so much deeper. Nixon was forced to resign because he was caught spying on his political rivals. Trump tried to overthrow the government, faced no consequences, ran for president again, and won.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 days ago

    That's what I am saying.

    If anyone in the government wanted to keep him out of office,because they absolutely knew what Trump was before he was in the political spotlight, they could have..

    If they ever wanted to arrest him, they could have.

    They could all stop him at any point right now, but they won't.

    None of that is going to change when he says, "the election wasn't fair" or "it was rigged" or some lame fake AI attack.

    He will just do it. Dems will feign outrage and then we will be mad about something else. Why is everyone ok with this?

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  • [–] 4 points 4 days ago*

    I hate it but you're right. No two ways about it.

    I think the only thing that could POSSIBLY put us on a positive path again would be if we were to wrest control back to the People again, and quite publicly show the world we're locking away all these nazis forever on some forgotten rock in the middle of the Pacific, and throwing away the key.

    But yeah, something like that would be truly incredible and unexpected...

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  • [–] 13 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    The problem is one of who comes next for America and after that.

    Now the world knows America is willing to vote people like Trump into office, it has to act accordingly.

    Trump Is what you expect from Argentina or some country already in trouble trying to find a way out.

    Not the biggest economy in the world! Now everyone has to plan accordingly that this can and probably will happen again.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 days ago

    Not the biggest economy in the world!

    Why would you not expect that of the U.S. because they’re the biggest economy in the world?

    Germany is the third biggest economy in the world and they’re currently dealing with a Huge surge in far-right extremism in their government.

    Japan is the fourth largest economy and they’ve seen a Rise in nationalist conservative government

    The UK is like the fifth or so largest economy in the world and let us not forget what happenened when they Elected their discount Trump

    Italy is the 8th largest and they’ve been Governed by the far right for the last four years

    Like the majority of the worlds top 10 economies have seen a far-right shift on some significant level in the last 5 years, so I’m not really sure how you came upon those expectations

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago

    The big problem with this is that the promise was secretly "forign policy is uniparty. Whether it's an" R" or a "D" our forign policy will be relatively consistent" and Trump broke that promise. Now every nation has to prepare for the eventuality that different presidents might have different policy toward their allies (and adversaries. No president before Trump would have canceled drills with South Korea on North Korea's behalf). That will take decades of consistency to repair, and as a fellow American, I'm not certain they will get that consistency going forward with the state of politics in the US.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

    The damage done will take decades to undo. No one trusts USA anymore. Even when Trump is gone, no one will trust you. We saw you vote him in TWICE. So who knows who you will vote for in the future.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 child)

    Germany voted in Hitler who was most certainly worse than Trump, and they recovered completely in just a few decades. I doubt you’ve told any Germans lately that you don’t trust who they might vote in in the future (though current events suggest perhaps you should). America will sort itself out, and the world keeps spinning.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 days ago

    White House? You are blind to the gravity of the problem. The supreme courts will still be stuffed. The federal agencies will still be full and led by his cronies. Congress will still be gerrymandered to hell. Voting is now on its way to be directly compromised as well on every level. There are more lobbyists with deeper pockets willing to feed the DINOs, and the protections against their corruption has eroded. Even public sentiment is too stupid to survive the amount of time and administrations it would take to fix the whole system, they will accept that both parties are the same on a dime even when the specifics are on radically different scales.

    To be fair, the US isn't the only country that is having a corruption problem. We are living through a time where corruption continues to get easier and the ultra rich think they have an out with AI and robotics for the future apocalypse.

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