There are still doubts as to whether the new Trumpian reality is permanent. Politicians in Europe are still hoping that this is all a bad dream. So I guess the orders will somehow (by delaying payments, inventing some requirements, finding problems in deliveries that have to be endlessly discussed and fixed, ...) be delayed for 4 years. If the next president is still looking as anti-European as Trump, orders will for sure be cancelled.
I doubt "until the administration ceases to act insane" is going to be enough. The current administration has proven to be untrustworthy, so nothing they say is going to restore trust in the US. On top of that, what guarantees could the US give that a future Trump 2.0 isn't going to break on their first day?
The problem is systemic: The US doesn't have a functioning democracy. FPTP, gerrymandering, unchecked campaign financing, the electoral college? It just isn't working, and the US is permanently stuck in a dysfunctional two-party system. If that doesn't get fixed (and let's be honest, it won't), the rest of the world won't be trusting the US until it can demonstrate a few decades of continuous trustworthy leadership after Trump is gone.
Still. None of the desired 800B of investment in defense equipment and technology can have US suppliers after the last couple of weeks. Even if the US eventually gets rid of this cancerous development.
As a side thought: it is oft remarked in the defence industry circles how buying local might be more expensive but more of the money stays at home.
Quite apart from any sovereignty arguments, cash spent at home goes to purchase of hopefully local components, materials, all along paying for local salaries, which drives local economies. And this is taxed along the way too, as income tax, VAT and ultimate corporate tax.
I wonder if that's really true to a significant amount, and if so, how much does that matter. Eg if I can buy something for X abroad, or c*X locally, for what value of c is this overall breakeven?
I think this is overly optimistic. Countries around the world can't build strategies around the US that will only hold when the Democrats are in power. Trump and the Republican party as a whole have thrown reliability out the window. Even if the GOP come to their senses and reject the America First ideology and pop their disinformation bubble the damage has still be done to the character of state. The only option for the US is to hold on to its power by sheer muscle power, but that will only last so long.
Doubts? Maybe officially in PR statements, otherwise you would have to be mad to think this is temporary. Its as temporary as his lifespan. People with actual power are not that stupid anywhere.
I am not holding my breath that he will just walk away in 4 years, why would anybody be so naive? He thinks US constitution is an old toilet paper, its mememe. Look at what happened last time he was supposed to go out.
> There are still doubts as to whether the new Trumpian reality is permanent
We have to assume that the US cannot be trusted as a military ally for at least the next 4 years. In fact, we have to be open to the possibility that they will be willing to be hostile. Including, but not limited to, extortion tactics. That's the hard baseline here.
We also have to be open to the possibility that the US either won't or can't have a proper election in 2028. And even if there is a proper election, that even a "sensible" president will not repair the damage.
What is already permanent is that Europe will never have the same level of trust in the US ever again. Perhaps some of it can grow back over a few decades, but the former level of trust will not return.
Trump has been here clearly signaling that a large portion of the US population does not support international military subsidies and Europe has done nearly nothing to prepare. Pushing forward a head-in-the-sand narrative is hugely detrimental to Europe’s independent future and requires a degree of blindness that is absurd
By "military subsidies" you mean US government money subsidizing US defense industry I assume?
Because that is where most of the money ends up when the US "supports" other countries. The US unloads weapons from its stockpiles (that need to be replaced at some point anyway) and then replenish the US stockpiles. This is both a huge injection of funds into US defense industry, and it takes care of the expensive problem of dealing with old ordnance.
US defense industry is going to be busy restocking the US stockpiles for a while longer.
If revenue were to soften before that, the Trump administration can distract from this reality by pumping more money into the industry short term. This may actually push the problem forward in time to the next president if they can keep pumping in enough money to hide the problem. It looks as if they are doing exactly this.
Of course, a few years down the line the defense industry will be in trouble as "consumer trust" is gone, Europe have ramped up their production and revenues will start to plummet.
