[addicted]

Well, yeah, that’s why the US loses the moral high ground. The entire point of the US is that it’s different. And without getting into how true that exceptionalism was in other areas of the country, it was certainly true in terms of the light touch with which the government operated vis a vis business. Government would have broad regulations, but rarely pick winners and losers (outside of defense, which is very different for obvious reasons).

In this case, the government is playing the game on both the sell side and the buy side (and in another weird twist appears to be demanding a fee from the buyer?). There isn’t even plausible deniability into the government’s high handedness.

I suspect the evaporation of benefits the US has accrued over the past decades/centuries will be much greater than any short term gains it may see out of this and potentially any other similar future deals.