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Which country do you like the most? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
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Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/usa-popularity-collapse-worldwide-trump-return/

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[–] 21 points 1 year ago (10 children)

You'll notice a lot of the "Likes China" nations are consumer economies and a lot of the "Likes US" nations are export economies (particularly those in direct competition with China).

If I was working at Toyota, I wouldn't like the folks exporting BYDs to all my biggest customers, either.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

    That may be a factor, but Germany is maybe the country in the world with the most auto industry. Possibly tied with Japan.
    And while Japan favors USA, which may be in line with your thinking, Japan has always had problematic relations with China. Which is a more likely explanation IMO.
    Still Germany favors China, so that speaks against your idea. And what's notable is that most traditional American allies, now doesn't even favor USA over China which has been a strained relation to mostly all those countries for a long time.

    I think what pisses people off is that USA is clearly abandoning their allies, friends and core values about international law and both political and trade relations, we've agreed on for more than 80 years.

    USA abandoning Ukraine after they promised to protect Ukraine when they gave up their nukes, is a very strong political signal that USA can't be trusted as a friend or ally.

    We don't expect much from China, as long as they don't invade Taiwan that's a plus!
    With low expectations it's much easier for China to live up to them.
    USA on the other hand, is failing completely with Trump threats lies and manipulation, and not only Trump, but the entire administration and MAGA and GOP. So USA is looking more and more as no better than China.
    And with China being the more reliable of the two, the favor tilts towards China now!

    It's really really sad that USA has fallen so deeply away from decency and respect of human rights, and have so little intention of following any promises previously made in international political agreements. Fuck Trump even abandoned his own trade agreement with Canada for no rational reason! And USA is threatening to invade an allied country!

    IMO this has little to do with working in a car factory, but much more to do with Trump creating insecurity, and fucking everybody over, and looking more and more like a Nazi doesn't help either.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Still Germany favors China, so that speaks against your idea.

    This is a race to the bottom. Germans blame the US for a host of domestic problems - high cost of energy, repeated large influxes of migrants (particularly from the Middle East), the repeated threat of high tariffs with a big trading partner, escalation with Russia over Ukraine which has cut Germany off from a number of major markets for cheap raw materials - that have eclipsed their nativist disgust for East Asian businesses.

    It's for the same reason Canadians hate the US, atm. Could change on a dime if the AfD takes over the German Parliament and Euro-centric white nationalism becomes an axis around which Russia, Germany, and the US can align.

    I think what pisses people off is that USA is clearly abandoning their allies, friends and core values about international law

    There's a lot of rhetoric around Trump's fickle ham-handedness. But Germans weren't terribly positive about Biden or Bush, either. The Germans (and the French) are trying to corral the rest of Europe into operating as their client states. That's turf the Americans staked out decades ago, and its one they're struggling to hang onto. So there's a natural tension between German and American capital that doesn't exist in the same way with China, as China's not an occupying military in the region.

    Chinese imports are, if anything, easing Germany off the US market system and into an Eastern facing market with German banks and German-owned shipping companies at the center. Chinese and German business people are happy to play ball in the same way that American and Chinese business people worked together to undermine the American working class back in the 80s/90s.

    It’s really really sad that USA has fallen so deeply away from decency and respect of human rights

    The Americans never had any decency or respect for human rights. What they had was advanced technology and an enormous economic surplus to spread around. Now, the US is in an intellectual and economic retreat, having invested too much of their surplus into a hyper-automated AI pipe dream.

    Europe has nothing to gain by wedding itself to an economy that only knows how to make advertisements and bombs (and barely remembers how to crank out the latter). So we're seeing a decoupling that was going to happen under any administration. Trump's just dumping lighter fluid on the dumpster fire.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    Nobody was positive about Bush, Bush started the slippery slope Trump is on now, for instance the war in Iraq was wildly unpopular, and the comment that if you aren't with us you are against us was disgusting, considering the war was based on false intelligence, which was reveled already at the time.

    Biden was at best a mediocre president, and he too made weird comments like USA will always stand by Ukraine at the same time Trump behaved as a Russian asset, and could possibly win the election. Still Trump has taken it to new lows in everything which even Bush didn't, and USA was also very unpopular after Bush. But Trump is breaking agreements left and right and both politically and economically attacking allies for rational reason. Neither Bush nor Biden did anything remotely close to that.
    Trump and Maga is really a new low in USA in so many ways, and even if Trump had a foreign policy of business as usual, he is obviously dangerous for his fascist policies, that would 100% eventually flow over to foreign affairs.

    But that besides the point I was trying to make above. You claimed it was mostly about being an export economy competing with China, I think I demonstrated that that is too simplistic.

    Maybe the simpler point I could have made is that everybody competes with China.

    But how you can even think of comparing Trump with Biden is beyond me, those are so different in almost every aspect that it's ridiculous to make that comparison IMO.
    I bet if there's a comparable poll from 2 years ago, USA would have much more support back then.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Nobody was positive about Bush

    Incidentally, the 9/11 Responder and Survivor Health Funding Correction Act did not pass until 2023.

    We are flush with Bush hagiographies.

    Maybe the simpler point I could have made is that everybody competes with China.

    They're the single largest manufacturing economy in the world. And they're on the cutting edge of a host of modern technical fields.

    Vanishingly few economies compete with China in any material way (Japan, India, Korea, maybe France and Brazil if we're being generous). They're a global wholesaler for everyone else.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Obviously some Americans liked him since he was elected twice, but nobody outside USA liked Bush.
    And when I write nobody, obviously I don't mean that literally, but Bush was a very disliked president outside USA.

    Vanishingly few economies compete with China in any material way

    That's a very weird claim, especially since you mention cars. Europe and China are in very steep competition also on cars. Countries highly affected by this area alone are: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Czechia, Sweden, Netherlands, and UK. That means ALL the major economies of Europe are competing with China.

    IDK if you are American, things may look different over there, you seem pretty ignorant of what happens in the rest of the world.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago*

    nobody outside USA liked Bush.

    Blair defends Iraq war and praises Bush

    Sept. 7, 2010

    You can find similar pledges of support and friendship from Shinzo Abe, Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon, Steven Harper, John Howard, Nicolas Sarkozy, Vladimir Putiny.. Practically every conservative government leader of the War on Terror era was expressing support for Bush late into his second term and beyond.

    Europe and China are in very steep competition also on cars.

    The Shift of German Car Parts Manufacturing to China Explained

    Oops. It's all China.

    IDK if you are American, things may look different over there

    It's not, that's the joke. The American business model of buying from the cheapest producer and then spending all your money on branding/marketing is everywhere.

    Both Volkswagen and Ford parts are coming from the same plants. Possibly made by the same exact machinists. The only thing you're paying a premium for is the ad reads.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago

    core values about international law

    decency and respect of human rights

    LOL you live in a fantasy world.

    Imperialism, wars, regime changes and supporting dictatorships are their values.
    And then you have the nerve to criticise China.
    A country that doesn't do this.
    Taiwan is part of China, even the US recognises that.
    And again, it's the US guilty of arming them and stirring trouble.

    Ukraine never had nukes, they were just placed there.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I give it 5-10 years, if that, before Brazil flips to China. Especially since Trump is trying to tell them how to run the country and China is proposing a transcontinental railroad.

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