[noduerme]

>> If people would not trade with USA because of racism?

Are you trying to make a consistent argument that no one should use trade to pressure other countries to change policies they disagree with?

So you're okay with buying goods made by Israeli companies in the West Bank, right? And buying Russian oil? How about sneakers made by Uighur slaves in Chinese concentration camps? How about buying blood diamonds? Should companies not pressure countries they do business with to prevent child labor, or enforce minimal worker safety regulations?

If people didn't trade with us because our policies were abhorrent to them, then maybe our policies are abhorrent and that would put pressure on us to stop those policies, which would be good. For example, if Europe passed a law banning the import of goods made in US for-profit prisons, that would be good.

This tired argument that "US is evil, everything it does must be bad" is absurd if you have any knowledge of what goes on in the rest of the world. The US can be flawed without making it as flawed as a country that hangs homosexuals from cranes (Iran), or as flawed as one that prohibits all forms of speech against the government (China, Vietnam, Russia, and on, and on).

So if you don't think it's a problem to trade with anyone, you aren't really standing up for the moral position you claim to hold against the US.

[worik]

My point, which you missed, is that the USA is one of the bad ones not one of the good ones.

I am not sure there are any good ones, a tangential point.

This in the context of:

> But in this case we're simply exporting our values through soft power, money and influence

To Singapore. There are values from Singapore that the USA could do with, so the fact that Goldman Sachs gets to tell Singapore what laws to make - what if that shoe was on the other foot? What of "your values" need up dating - but wait. Never mind soft power. The USA has the Pacific Fleet (and another half dozen fleets) so fuck you and you values.

[noduerme]

>> I am not sure there are any good ones, a tangential point.

I agree, but it's not tangential at all. In fact, it is the whole point. As Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."

There are plenty of things which are not perfect, but are preferable to the other options. You might consider what position Singapore or the Philippines would be in without the US Navy sailing regularly through the South China Sea. Most likely they would be territories or dependencies of China. If Chinese Communist Party values are something you prefer to American values, then feel free to enumerate which, exactly, make it a system you would prefer to live under. (And note that this is a freedom you wouldn't have if you were posting on a Chinese message board).

Other countries can, and do, influence US policy as well as culture, in positive ways. This is also for the good. It is precisely why there is a powerful Pacific Fleet composed of people from over 100 nationalities under the US flag. When and if the Han empire begins to utilize the full capabilities of all its citizens by granting them freedom of thought, speech and movement, perhaps it will outcompete the US - other ethno-nationalist states with wise leaders have done so in the past. Even Singapore has done a fairly remarkable job of balancing speech and numerous ethnicities. Certainly better than the larger, equally strategic and yet doomed UAE.

But which values exactly do you wish to see imposed on the US which actually are practiced somewhere, and where are they practiced? That's a more interesting and fertile ground for discussion than simply "you're the bad guys"... and again, the bad guys in world history don't normally ask or care, whereas this is an intense and open topic of public debate in the US.