https://archive.ph/ktDRE

U.S. officials have told European allies they want them to keep buying American-made arms, amid recent moves by the European Union to limit U.S. manufacturers’ participation in weapons tenders, five sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

  • jonne@infosec.pub
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    2 days ago

    Yep, they were fine with ‘footing the bill for European defense’ as long as enough members bought F35s and whatever other pointless toys the US produced. Only France basically stuck with producing everything domestically.

    Trump never really understood what that unspoken part of the bargain really was about. If Europe is going to actually spend 2% of GDP, they’re going to keep that money domestically as much as possible instead of sending all that spending overseas in dollars.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Trump never really understood that most US “aid” is literally the US gov recycling old ordinance and equipment to continue siphoning tax dollars into the military industrial complex and it’s oligarchs — expenses DOGE have not touched and do not consider “waste”… for some, certainly not fascist imperialism, reason…

    • Baggins@beehaw.org
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      2 days ago

      You’d think a businessman as bigly smart (people tell him all the time, many people) as he is would understand this.

      • jonne@infosec.pub
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        2 days ago

        I still don’t know if he’s just stupid or if he’s just doing what Putin wants by undermining NATO. I guess both could be true at the same time.

      • Kornblumenratte@feddit.org
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        2 days ago

        He’s a dealer, not a businessman. Deal ≠ business economics ≠ national economics ≠ global economics.

        If you apply the “art of the deal” to the global economy, you’ll wreck it. Well, if you apply his “art of the deal”, you’ll wreck basically anything except you’re own wallet.

        • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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          20 hours ago

          A del would imply he’s good at negotiation. He isn’t. He’s good at leveraging people, but mostly that’s been illegal. If he was good at deals, he wouldn’t have messed up international relations, which is deal making, but more complex. He’s a rich kid that fell upwards and inspired a cult following through sheer luck.