David Perdue’s remarks come after a Taiwanese minister spoke of the ‘severe’ military threat posed by Beijing to the self-ruled island
Donald Trump offered to sell weapons to China while hosting its leader, Xi Jinping, last week, the US ambassador to China said on Sunday.
David Perdue told Fox News on Sunday: “President Trump continues to say, hey, we sell arms to other people around the world. He actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some at one point.”
The extraordinary claim came during an interview about US policy on Taiwan, which has been waiting for months for Trump to approve a new arms sales package worth $14bn, after a record multi-billion dollar deal was unveiled in December last year.
Trump’s level of commitment to protecting Taiwan has previously been questioned. At a meeting with Xi in Beijing in May, Trump said he was keeping the $14bn Taiwan arms sales package in abeyance, describing it as a “very good negotiating chip” in dealings with China.
Selling off every advantage America has over their geopolitical rivals. Americans, your country will never be the same again…
Good. There’s a massive misunderstanding I think from most of the world they Americans wanted America to operate the way it was, we don’t. We haven’t for a long time.
There was always this double edged sword that we both weren’t supposed to be the global police force but also expected to be one? I’m glad it’s been flushed away. Too cushy for too long.
In the wake of WWII, America set up a global system that bent the whole world to its service.
Its companies crushed competition worldwide, it created a global baking system that was subject to US needs first while it’s diplomats coerced every sovereign elected government to fit it’s narrow definitions of acceptability backed by US military bases that could strike any nation on the world.
But no it’s everyone else who’s had it too cushy for too long.
Real footage of FDR and Truman sealing away the world in a single night.
Yes. The US used it’s new position as a global leader to leverage itself into a strong position. As I said before this is exactly how you’d expect any country to act.
They helped rebuild Europe, helped establish NATO and the World Bank, the WHO, , and were able to spread US cultural to the globe. Just as any single country would’ve done. Over the next century they managed to continue developing that same game plan. This genuinely helped stabilize the globe.
The civil rights activists in the US ironically also formulated the blueprint for oppressed people across the world to fight for their civil rights in the era that followed alongside the Nuremberg Trials.
They also leveraged their military might to set up a new type of colonialism in countries like Greece, Guatemala, Korea and Vietnam, among others.
You’re desire to continue to paint the US as this big bad creature that only wanted to conquer is genuinely ignorance. I’ll repeat what I said, the US acted exactly like I’d expect any other country to act. It is not black and white, it is history which is almost always grey.
Uhh what the fuck are you talking about? When I said this in referring directly to the US being too cushy for too long.
Never forget the great flour embargo of the late 20th century. Or the yeast fiasco that ensued.
War and petroleum, the two remaining pillars of American economic might.
We used to manufacture things, until the capital class realized we can sell off that productive capacity to developing nations, nations that don’t protect worker’s rights, to the lowest bidder. Even the weapons we manufacture here are sourced from parts in Asia.
So whole proposal is fucking stupid. Why would China buy weapons from the USA at a premium, when they could just manufacture weapons themselves? They have the parts and raw materials right there.
America was never the worlds police force.
I’m not saying it was. There was an expectation from allies to act as such.
Was there? When did the world ever ask America to police it?
Uhh disaster relief? Humanitarian aid? The US military might be one of the best logistical avenues for dispersing aid in the world.
Militarily - Iraq under Obama. Liberia in 2000. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the 90s. The Philippines multiple times. Lebanon and South Korea in the 50s. Most notably WWII.
Those are the ones off the top of my head.
Despite what the Internet wants to tell you about American intervention, it is often requested by governments under threat.
You’re gonna snap back about something something imperialism I can feel it but as I said above, most Americans don’t really want to be doing that at all. It is often America is looked to for aid both humanitarian and militarily and for good reason, the Ebola outbreak, various famines, the United States dedicated more effort to eradicating AIDS/HIV and malaria. So yeah. People looked to America for help quite often.
Those are all self serving and profited America. Even the humanitarian aid is strategic soft power. Also none of that is being a police force.
Look I’m not arguing with you this is reality. Your position is clearly one of “boo hoo America” which is very not unique and your attempt to make people defend the US is silly.
Being asked by multiple countries for the last century to show up and help restore order, relied upon to ensure people have a degree of safety, food and water while providing means to fight some of the worst illnesses affecting the world is absolutely being looked to as a “global police force”
When Pol Pot was committing a genocide people asked why US didn’t continue to fight it, as the Rwandan genocide was happening America was expected to be doing something about it, when the Syrian civil war broke out and chemical weapons were used people asked why the US didn’t act, as Ukraine and Palestine are being genocided people literally curse America for not doing more. It is a constant expectation to act because the US has the means to act. You’re gonna tell me all the reasons X, Y and Z why it is their fault or something but if they did act you’d consider it them dredging up more soft power. So which is it?
On the same line why hasn’t China stopped the Palestinian genocide? Why didn’t China stop funding Pol Pot’s genocide? Why didn’t China stop selling weapons that contributed to the Rwandan genocide? Why doesn’t China stop funding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Why doesn’t China stop their predatory loans to Sri Lanka and Zambia which is causing an economic collapse? The Democratic Republic of Congo has 7 million people displaced because of fighting over minerals like cobalt that China buys, they’re literally funding that violence too. I guess China is allowed to engage in growing soft power at the cost of blood because of whatever dumb reason? You’re not running around in these comments crying about any of that.
Your views and expectations of these countries are different, and you don’t understand your own perspective in that.
The argument isn’t did the US benefit. It’s not “what was their motive”. The fact is other countries relied upon the US and asked for aid often. Literally just the truth, spin it however you like to fit your world view that’s fine but your position is transparent and very ignorant trying to frame everything as black and white because you have a single legume rolling around your skull in place of a brain.
The US can both be the reason why smallpox, polo and the guinea worm aren’t tearing through society and also have a history of terrible imperialist actions. The US is completely capable of dispensing aid and protection while also using that as a political resource. The world isn’t full of infinite resources, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours is probably the oldest human understanding.
Both China and the US and every other country operates exactly how I’d expect them to. So go on with your buts and denials, they’re silly. It’s “I got my opinion on Reddit and lack any complex thinking America bad!”
America only ‘helps’ countries when it aligns with its broader strategic goals. If the nature of American foreign policy makes you feel ‘boo hoo’, that’s a you thing. Your nationalistic ego is a burden to reason.
That’s not an advantage we want to have
You don’t want your nation to have military superiority over its rivals?
No, I don’t. I want peace, empathy, mutual respect, and the abolition of militaries.
If that even possible?
Love. Is. Possible.
With Putin?
It’s the only rational solution. We need to act better than chimps who kill each other for the nut tree.
Is love going to stop the chimps who are currently kill each other? Is Putin and his oligarchs going to stop because of love?
No but love, compassion and an attempt to understand one another would work miracles for the human species. Most of our suffering is preventable.
Killing and warfare has never lead to the cessation of killing and warfare, and it never will.
If Russia’s entire civilian population refuses peacefully to comply with Putin, there’s really not much he can do. When society’s wheels come to a halt, the oligarchs lose their power.
If we can’t be better than chimps, then we deserve to die off as a species. We’re no better than a scourge upon the planet if we don’t make an effort to rise aboove being mere destructive apes. Apes made even more dangerous through technology and culture. Gorillas, organgutans and bonobos are gentler than us.
People won’t change if they don’t want to and offering what you suggest open us up to significant risk. Offering compassion, understanding and acceptance of ppl who are already killing others doesn’t seem wise to me. Some of these people are epsychopaths and sociopaths, their empathy, neurologically, physically doesn’t function. No amount of love can change that.
Secondly those apes successfully got us to the top of the food chain and out of the reach of most natural hazards and predators. Those same apes getting more power is a massive liability though so the rest of us seem stuck between psychos with nukes and lovers who can’t protect themselves from physical harms.
I don’t think love is the answer here, certainly not on this own.
Only once we’ve sold enough weapons to a formidable enough enemy, and they finally put this shit show to rest