[jmyeet]

There are two silver linings to all this:

1. The evisceration of American soft power will really diminish the direct and indirect harm the US intentionally and unintentionally causes. Just look at China, South Korea and Japan deciding to respond to tariffs together [1]. That is an absolutely astonishing event given fairly recent history. Future retellings of history will correct portray the US as the actual Evil Empire; and

2. All of these actions are doing a ton to break the myth of meritocracy. The people involved in this, at the highest levels, are clearly demonstrating just what complete and utter morons they are. This is why fascism flames out: valuing loyalty above all else results in an administration of sycophantic morons.

This is going to do untold economic harm in the interim but ironically it's accelerating the rise of China as a global power, despite the fact that this administration are China hawks and see these tariffs as a means reducing China's power, which it won't.

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/china-japan-south-korea-will-j...

[jeeeb]

From the first paragraph of your linked article:

> BEIJING, March 31 (Reuters) - China, Japan and South Korea agreed to jointly respond to U.S. tariffs, a social media account affiliated with Chinese state media said on Monday, an assertion Seoul called "somewhat exaggerated", while Tokyo said there was no such discussion.

[paradox242]

Given the amount of military and economic power wielded by the US compared to our nearest competitor, we are one of the most benign great powers in history, which is saying a lot about considering the harm that we have caused. Calling the US "the real evil empire" is puzzling when we have still have the regimes in Russia, China and North Korea still at large.

[jmyeet]

Benign? Native American genocide, the transatlantic slave trade, chattel slavery, segregation, Japanese interment, suplying drug cartels with weapons and money, the havoc that's caused in virtually every Central and South American country, the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons against a foe (twice, and against civilian population centers no less), Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, all the CIA-backed coups and regime changes, becoming the world's arms dealer, economic imperialism and almost starting World War Three (the Cuban Missile Crisis should really be called the Turkey Missile Crisis).

We also end up consistently on the wrong side: apartheid South Africa, Pinochet's Chile, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the list goes on.

Russia? We enabled the looting of Russia after the collapse of the USSR that directly created Vladimir Putin.

North Korea? This continues a long trend of simply starving countries for the hell of it, just like Iraq [1], Venezuela and Cuba.

China? What's China done exactly? I'll tell you what: it singlehandedly lifted hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty in the 20th century. Remove China from the stats and poverty grew in the 20th century. China became an economic powerhouse while having a much fairer distribution of wealth than the US has had or currently has. And they continue to build infrastructure rather than minting a few more billionaires.

[1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...

[Auracle]

Native American genocide - the same thing happened everywhere, for all of history, except we at least gave them reservations instead of killing literally everyone. The transatlantic slave trade - one country among many involved. Chattel slavery - also the country that fought itself to end it.

I could easily go on.

You're looking at the world with very..uh, anti red white and blue glasses.