Except the kompromat part.
Trump did have any ideology shift after coming back from Moscow. He spoke of how people he met with laughed that the US was suckers for paying for the defense of many nations with little return from those nations, not even them paying their fair share of it.
A 1987 Washington Post article about full page ads Trump paid for shortly after returning from Moscow.
https://archive.is/20250309102152/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/09/02/between-the-lines-of-a-millionaires-ad/9c6db9c3-f7d6-4aa4-9ec4-a312feb2639e/
I don’t think Europe has been screwing the US on trade. I do think they’ve spent decades living off US defense spending, redirecting their defense budgets into social programs. Those social programs in essence being subsidized by the US.
Edited by TigerMatt at 01:00:10 on 05/30/25