Originally Posted by
HipKat
Really???
Truth is, he's disrespected almost all of our allies
Standing up to Mexico, Canada, Germany or France is not equal to disrespect. That's how they want to play it but it's not. Here is a good read from The Guardian. Excerpt below and emphasis mine:
He gets almost everything wrong. But last weekend Donald Trump got something right. To the horror of the other leaders of the rich world, he defended democracy against its detractors. Perhaps predictably, he has been universally condemned for it.
His crime was to insist that the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) should have a sunset clause. In other words, it should not remain valid indefinitely, but expire after five years, allowing its members either to renegotiate it or to walk away. To howls of execration from the world’s media, his insistence has torpedoed efforts to update the treaty.
In Rights of Man, published in 1791, Thomas Paine argued that: “Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.” This is widely accepted – in theory if not in practice – as a basic democratic principle.
Even if the people of the US, Canada and Mexico had explicitly consented to Nafta in 1994, the idea that a decision made then should bind everyone in North America for all time is repulsive. So is the notion, championed by the Canadian and Mexican governments, that any slightly modified version of the deal agreed now should bind all future governments.
But the people of North America did not explicitly consent to Nafta. They were never asked to vote on the deal, and its bipartisan support ensured that there was little scope for dissent. The huge grassroots resistance in all three nations was ignored or maligned. The deal was fixed between political and commercial elites, and granted immortality.
In seeking to update the treaty, governments in the three countries have candidly sought to thwart the will of the people. Their stated intention was to finish the job before Mexico’s presidential election in July. The leading candidate, Andrés Lopez Obrador, has expressed hostility to Nafta, so it had to be done before the people cast their vote. They might wonder why so many have lost faith in democracy.
There are things that need to be worked out. There are problems with trade. There are problems with immigration. There are problems with global policy. It's one thing to have an opinion on how these issues should be addressed and corrected. It's another to have the opinion that there is nothing wrong with the current state of things.
Personally, I am tired of being the big brother (military) and bank (aid) for the globe. Especially since it is with such disparity. I really DGAF what other leaders think when they still have their hand out and back covered when the cameras turn off and the press leave.
There are soooo many things I don't like about Trump. Things I hate about his Presidency. But this is not one of them.