Interesting Point of View
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Yep, tell him (behind closed doors) back off of Greenland and wind your neck in on Tariffs or you can pack up your bags and take ‘em all home.
Let his Generals explain to him what the loss of Fairford, Rammstein and Aviano does for US global reach and power projection.
If he doesn’t get the message go through with it and when a more reasonable President comes in they can negotiate coming back at full economic cost, including rent and upkeep.
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And lets add Diego Garcia whilst we can - we will be leasing it when we give it back - that one would hurt!!
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Not to mention Ascension Island and Cyprus
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Regrettably he could easily take Ascension & Diego Garcia and nothing we could do about it!
The man’s a madman as bad as Putin!
The west must be firm and let USA know he’s going much too far!
Are we giving it to the Chagosians now?
If he takes something because we’ve pushed back, he’d have taken it anyway.
Appeasement doesn’t work, it just lets them take more without having to work for it.
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This is the key point.
Whatever we do it’s going to hurt us too, that’s unavoidable. But let’s make sure we’re not empowering a wannabe Putin in the meantime.
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There’s also a slight psychological aspect - if we are generally supportive & positive but when they cross line we say no - that no will have more impact than saying no all the time & means we are more likely to be listened to in the future.
The fact we have sent a single person is almost symbolic & just highlights the absurdity’s
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This is what we’re dealing with…
I feel like we need a movement to boycott anything American right away. Speak his language.
It worked wonders when everyone cancelled Disney+.
Is there a “call to arms” website that acts like a petition of sorts?
There’s a lot of this already being organised. Frustratingly, it mostly appears to be being organised using American-led social media sites - and we’ve all already seen how willing they are to kiss Don’s ring.
Certainly I’m being much more careful about what I purchase already, using British or European alternatives if appropriate replacements exist. The difficulty here being the obscure ownership models some companies employ.
I’ve been trying to do that with China for years and it’s more difficult than I ever imagined.
And here’s me in McDonald’s to take advantage of the only soft play not fully booked
Unfortunately horrifically difficult when you look at global investment markets
I have realised in recent years how clever getting everyone to invest a bit in the stock market has been for making us feel we can’t challenge the way things work…
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Or how dumb it was that we’ve baked Microsoft into everything.
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We could shift to a French style system for our ISAs where you are forced to invest more locally. The French PEA, ISA equivalent, forces you into French/EU investments only.
It would be a pain though. Looking at where my money is, it’s mostly American.
A large chunk of my high risk stuff is specifically reliant on America’s Golden Dome project.
USA Treasury debt - fiscal liabilities.
I’m sure that an element of the UK holdings is based on the overall central role that the UK plays capital global markets, etc.
However, if there was a concerted UK / EU move to liquidate these, I wonder what the outcome would be. All previous circumstances for this USA debt revolved around everyone being friendly & on (broadly) similar economic terms. That could well change
https://ticdata.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/slt_table5.html
If you really want some fun & games, the world’s only known source of quartz that’s of high enough quality to make the silicon required for nanotechnology is located in… the United States.
There’s obviously other key components, the laser etching is only possible with the Dutch for example, but divesting from the US (or any other part of this highly complex global value chain) would also lead to the collapse of all smart technology manufacturing within 6 months. You may ask so what? Well, the phones and computers you’re accessing this website are reliant upon the chips this chain creates.