Freeloading?

My country spends less on defence as a percentage of GDP than the US. But it spends much of that with US companies. This is not Freeloading. It was a deal. Cancel TSR-2, and buy American and we will lend you some money. Cancel your nuclear program and buy US submarine launched missiles and we will help you look after yourself. Now let Visa and Mastercard skim off all your transactions and we will keep you secure to keep the money flowing. Sweetheart tax deals for US companies to operate, and we will keep you safe to keep the money flowing. It is not Freeloading, it is colonialism

How's that? How many Middle Eastern refugees are America sheltering from the fallout of American aggression and the regimes it props up?

The US isn't anywhere close to paying its way.

The current U.S. President has insisted that Europeans are freeloading. Given that he’s been the primary proponent of this idea, and given that he’s been cutting off aid and has made cutting off this “freeloading” the central plank of his defense strategy, the U.S. defense budget must have gone down significantly right?

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5656174-trump-si...

> The bill approves a record $901 billion in military spending for fiscal 2026

Oh…

Pray tell, how much of, say, the latest Afghanistan war did the US pay and how much do their allies need to bear? The rebuilding of a whole country, the reinstatement of the Taliban regime, the destabilization of the region, and the still ongoing stream of refugees? The political aftermath of which is still felt in Europe.

> The allies are derided for literally freeloading on US military protection while underinvesting in their own defense.

1. No one forced the US to spend a bajillion dollars on defense.

2. The US did so out of their own free will, and out of self-interest: their power hegemony allowed for peaceful trade routes that benefited the US economy and US corporations.

3. Their own defense against what? What threats, until fairly recently, did the Europeans face that they needed to spend money protecting against?

Let's not pretend this was something the US didn't want for most of the last seventy years.

Guess which country had never any interest in a strong (politically and militarily) Europe, to maintain the world hegemony?

A Europe with an independent defense is dangerous competition for the US. Maybe it means that some international trade will be done in Euro. Maybe it means foreign policies in Europe's interests.