That's basically it. The Chinese government views the rest of the world through Hobbesian self interest, but in the late 20th century financial way. They want your money, but lawfully.

The US has turned into something much more vindictive and unpredictable, including threatening to invade Canada.

Compared to the current US... china is currently a grade A student who sometimes bullies their the neighbors younger child

China hasn't dropped bombs on foreign soil in over 40 years. The US killed a million Iraqis not that long ago.

I think this "China evil" framing is a smear, like how Republican conspiracy theories used to say Democrats are pedophiles. Guess where the real pedophiles were hanging out the whole time.

That first link is a back button capturer.

As an American I'm rooting for everyone else these days. Good for Canada. I hope the EU builds stronger trade with China too and America gets left in the cold to whither and die. Trump, Vance, Miller, Noem, Musk, Bezos all of them just forgotten about and completely irrelevant to the rest of the world.

I'm really into geopolitics, and it's clear to see what's happening from the US side.

America still wants to play hegemon, but since Bretton Woods 2.0 didn't happen, they're going to lock up the entire North and South American continents from Chinese and Russian influence. And it'll be fierce.

The next salvo is going to be US statehood for Alberta and Saskatchewan. There is already partisan support within those provinces, and Trump is going to offer money to push it. If that happens, Yukon and the Northwest Territories are next.

(Side note: these are Republican voters, which gives Republicans the Senate for years to come.)

Venezuela wasn't about drugs or oil, it was about China. And it wasn't Trump's thing, it was the career DoD folks. (Venezuela is within medium-range missile range of 50% of US oil refineries. The US doesn't want foreign basing there or in Cuba.)

The DoD is pushing Greenland too as it'll be a centerpiece of Arctic shipping in the coming century. And Cuba, as it's both extremely close to CONUS and a choke point for the gulf.

You can see the plays happening if you watch. The Chinese-owned Panama Ports Company being forcibly sold to BlackRock, the increasing trade and diplomatic ties between China and South American countries, etc.

My bet is that a Democratic president would continue this policy, just with less rudeness and more "cooperation". The Department of Defense -- apolitically -- doesn't want China to have the US within arms reach.

Trump is going to try to speed run it, though.

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edit: downvotes rate limit my account, so I can't respond.

> I would love to hear how you think Trump will manage to get Alberta and Saskatchewan to become US states within this century.

It's going to nucleate from within Alberta and Saskatchewan.

https://globalnews.ca/news/11615147/alberta-separatists-prai...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_separatism

This has been spoken about for years, but look at how much the conversation is starting to come back up recently:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/alberta-primetime/article/al...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-separation-po...

I see a dozen other articles about this published in the last week.

If Trump adds fuel to this fire, it's going to take over the headlines. The DoD is definitely whispering it into his ear.

Also, the downvotes are silly. I'm not advocating for this. I'm just pointing out what the US is doing and why it thinks this way.