Donald Trump calls for Taiwan to ‘pay’ for its own defence

schizoidman@lemmy.ml to World News@lemmy.world – 210 points –
ft.com
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Donald wants everyone to pay for their own defence yet will also charge the taxpayer extra for this own protection (while not paying taxes himself).

I wonder if he share the same view on “israel” paying for own “defence”

That's a very interesting thing to point out. I'd like to hear his followers respond to it.

I guess "changed man" has nothing to do with mental acuity.

My take is the bullet actually passed through his head, but there’s nothing there so he was fine

Trump is literally a foreign agent, working on behalf of China and Russia.

Don't forget the Saudis! They'd love to entice Trump with a tacky golf resort in the middle of the desert in exchange for some more environmental deregulation and looking the other way on human rights violations

I feel like that’s the case for all the far-right populists around the world. Viktor Orban in Hungary, Erdogan in Turkey, the AfD party in Germany, etc. AfD members of the European parliament literally got caught taking money from the Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies, and in exchange doing some stuff in the parliament.

Erdoğan doesn't fit the list in my opinion.

He's obviously a right wing stooge that uses religious extremism to his advantage, and I hope his reign ends soon, but he's only been blocking stuff temporarily to advance his position (to get EU membership for example, or to advance at the borders), but he has been an important ally to Ukraine and NATO during the war.

I haven't seen him repeat Russian propaganda at all.

Correct me if my feeling is wrong though. I didn't look deeper into it.

Does he think Taiwan sends us a bill or something?

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That's exactly what he thinks, isn't it?

He thinks the US sends them a bill and they don't pay.

He's very transactional.

This really shows how clueless this "businessman" is about business. Imagine China invades in Taiwan. About any business in the electronic sector will go down hard. Really hard. All over the world.

I posted a similar comment on some of the news around the US Republican's withholding aid to Ukraine for 6 months but this is insane.

Sure in the case of Taiwan specifically, the semiconductors is an obvious and immediate issue. But it's also worth noting that the US has spent countless trillions of dollars and worked through consecutive administrations for decades to establish itself as a reliable, irreplaceable and necessary defence partner.

This isn't just about Taiwan or Ukraine, but the geopolitical status of the US as a whole. It seems insane to me to jeopardize that. I'm no political scientist or anything so if this is actually in some way good for the US I'd be very interested to hear that perspective.

Think about it. Who loses if the US becomes anything other than a reliable, irreplaceable and necessary defense partner? Who gains?

Putin is waging war against the rest of the world on multiple fronts and our definitions and rules of engagement when it comes to hybrid warfare aren't up to date.

Rolling back US empire is an unalloyed good.

I think there's definitely merit to that. There are multiple avenues to achieving that end though and the US suddenly leaving its allies unprotected is probably the worst possible one imo. I am biased though living in Taiwan and having my home country also dependent on our alliance with the US for defence.

Taiwan isn't an ally it's a vassal. And you shouldn't be so excited to be a meat shield for their aggression on the opposite side of the world. Even if you have sympathies for your fascist, genocidal government.

Uhhh, ok now you've lost me. I'd kinda just like to not have myelf or my family bombed or shot at and be able to have self determination. Being under the umbrella of US protection is the best way to have both of those things right now.

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Maybe Taiwan should just sell their chips at way higher price to America ♻️

Taiwan will just say American corporations should pay more for those precious chips to fund it's defense

Why is it only American corps that have to find it's defense?

my understanding is that Taiwan buys weapons from the us, so he is demanding something that is already a common practice

I guess we don’t know the motivation for the last shooter’s actions. But I’m pretty sure he’s going to get himself whacked sooner or later.

Does Donny know where the processor of the phone that he posts all his verbal vomit comes from?

What are we, the protection racket? Defend the nerd from the bully and then demand the lunch money for ourselves? FFS, can nobody be good for the sake of what's right and won't without expectation of a return?

America never did it because it was right. That's a happy side effect. It did it as its in its own interest. Just like with israel, which now leads to Palestinian genocide. They aren't moral decisions being made.

So Trump is making it seem like it will save the USA money but it won't. It will cost much more in the long run. I wodner how many Chinese votes will be won and lost, or other Asian votes, knowing it risks destabilizing the region.