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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   602 thread views

Transnational Thursday for September 17, 2026

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Following up on last's weeks topic of the US/Trump administration's trade war on Canada:

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday embraced the prospect of his country becoming the European Union’s first associate member, saying closer ties with the continent would ensure no country could control Canada’s markets or undermine its sovereignty.

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola has told Euronews that countries including Australia and New Zealand could follow Canada in becoming “associate members” of the European Union as like-minded nations seek closer ties.

One of the more baffling aspects of Trump's foreign policy (in both terms, but especially in his second) is how he's made a point of being hostile towards long-time US allies. The US has historically led a coalition of developed nations that was fairly biased towards US interests, with the implicit tradeoff that the US was also footing the lion's share of the costs. The integration of democratic middle powers into an American-led world order both gave the US leverage over its members (see, for example, the arrest of Meng Wangzhou or leaning on ASML to freeze out China) and discouraged the emergence of a rival power center.

Of late, however, it seems that the American Right has shifted to a model that assumes that US allies have no leverage and thus have no choice but to accept wildly unfavorable terms. There's a element of truth to the idea that US could push its allies harder and that the US was not getting the most favorable possible arrangement out of its alliances. However, the maximalism of the current administration seems to be underestimating the possibility that alienated allies may simply look for ways to work around the US, and undermining US hegemony in a bid for marginal revisions in an already highly favorable status quo is a questionable strategy. What's more, it comes across as a highly emotional approach, driven more by dominance seeking and sense of grievance than material benefit.

The US has historically led a coalition of developed nations that was fairly biased towards US interests

Historically, yes. But is it still the case? Europe is increasingly being taken over by the green-red alliance, and it's not entirely clear why the US should keep financing Europe's security while Europe is rebuilding itself as a woke socialist caliphate. It'd be nice to get the old, Western-civilization-aligned Europe back, but the US can not enact this change. Only Europeans can. And they do not seem to be able or willing to.

I am not a huge fan of Trump's "bull in a china shop" diplomatic style, and it does not seem to be practically effective that much - at least, I am not seeing a huge improvement in the terms of improving US standing and achieving US goals by diplomatic means. His only major success so far that I can identify is freeing the Israeli hostages from Hamas (which is extremely close to my heart personally but I suspect is not super high on the US priority scale) and some advancement on the Abraham accords (even though it is compensated for by increasing radicalization of Turkey). Beyond that, I can hardly name any diplomatic win attributable to him. Stuff like getting rid of Maduro sound a big win to me (at least so far) but there was not a lot of diplomacy involved there.

But while I am skeptical about his methods, I recognize that his approach of trying to get more favorable arrangements makes sense. If EU or Canada put tariffs on US goods, why the US should be fine with it? I think it makes sense to act towards achieving more friendly arrangements. The problem is it seems like Trump is very good in getting into the fight, but less good in figuring out how to end the fight in a way that achieves the goals that the entire fight was about.

undermining US hegemony in a bid for marginal revisions in an already highly favorable status quo is a questionable strategy

Unfortunately, the hegemony is coming into question whether we want it or not, for the reasons I named above. When the fundamental values of the countries are misaligned, the alliance can be maintained either by the US spending huge piles of money - pecunia non olet - or by US aligning more with the woke green-red alliance. The Left has no problem with either part of this, but the Right does. So the realignment is inevitable as long as the US does not succumb to the same alliance. The question is what form that realignment would take.

I don't really see how Europe is being "taken over by a green-red alliance." The electoral picture is pretty much the opposite.

As of September 2026, CIDOB's breakdown of the 27 EU governments classifies 15 as centre-right or right, compared with five centre-left/left, six centrist and Germany's grand coalition.

The European elections point in the same direction. In 2019 the Greens had 74 seats and S&D 154. After the 2024 election they were down to 53 and 136 respectively, while the centre-right EPP remained the largest group with 188 seats, and the ECR and Patriots for Europe held 78 and 84. (European Parliament)

And that trend hasn't exactly disappeared since. In Germany, current national polling has the AfD at 27–29%, compared with 18–20% for the CDU. In France, Le Pen is leading first-round presidential polling at 33–36%, and would be replacing a center right government, not a leftist one.

Even the UK's Labour landslide was a landslide in seats, not popular support: Labour won 33.7% of the vote but 63.2% of the seats under first-past-the-post, in what the House of Commons Library describes as the most disproportionate result on record.

So whatever you think of the direction politically, describing Europe as undergoing some growing "green-red takeover" isn't accurate. The fact that there is a lot of leftist screeching online that is then signal boosted by rightwing cw influencers is largely unconnected to electoral reality.

Europe is moving right, from a rightwing position, not left. And many of the policies people here have found objectionable were introduced by rightwing governments, often for largely rightwing reasons. Perhaps you'd want the reversal of these policies to go faster or further than they currently are but that's not the same as Europe moving in left/green direction.

I don't really see how Europe is being "taken over by a green-red alliance." The electoral picture is pretty much the opposite.

Public sentiment vs. institutional sentiment. I can easily see it if we focus on the latter. Despite the popular support, many of the parties / politicians are locked out of power. Even if they do get into power, the EU is openly acting against them, and very little can be done about that regardless of how the European elections go (and it was designed to be this way on purpose). There's also the question of how meaningful that classification even is. The "center-right" of Germany is happily working on removing ano/pseudo-nymity from the internet precisely because they don't like how the public sentiment is swinging.

I think that overstates how uniform this supposed institutional lockout actually was. It certainly existed in places like Sweden, Germany and France, but it wasn't some general European rule. Even during 2010–2020, Wilders' PVV supported the Dutch government, Norway's Progress Party was in government for most of the decade, the Finns Party entered government in 2015, Austria's FPÖ in 2017 and Salvini's League in Italy in 2018.

And since then the direction has mostly been toward weakening those barriers, not strengthening them. Parties that were previously treated as beyond the pale have increasingly entered governments or supported them. Germany is the clearest major exception, where the firewall against the AfD still largely holds.

The same rightward movement is visible at EU level. The new migration pact introduces mandatory border procedures, stronger screening and faster return procedures for rejected asylum applicants. (EU Council) Whatever label you put on it, that's a shift in a more restrictionist direction.

Likewise, Merz opposing online anonymity doesn't demonstrate a left-wing institutional bias. That's an authoritarian/non-libertarian position, not inherently a left-wing one and the SPD opposed it. Being opposed to libertarianism doesn't make the CDU left-wing.

There absolutely was a broad establishment consensus on immigration in much of Western Europe, including much of the centre-right. But that's different from saying the institutions had been captured by the green-left. If anything, the fact that those old exclusions are weakening and EU migration policy itself is becoming more restrictive is evidence of the broader movement to the right.

The new migration pact

The one with relocation quotas and 20K EUR per migrant fines for not meeting them? The one that opens the door to 7 zillion Indians - no wait, that's a different deal.

Likewise, Merz opposing online anonymity doesn't demonstrate a left-wing institutional bias. That's an authoritarian/non-libertarian position, not inherently a left-wing one and the SPD opposed it. Being opposed to libertarianism doesn't make the CDU left-wing.

Does "a liberal society must still be able to adequately protect it's citizens, including from false information, from personal putdowns, from discrimination, and from many other things that ultimately define our personal lives in freedom" sound like he's about to crack down on Antifa to you?

There absolutely was a broad establishment consensus on immigration in much of Western Europe, including much of the centre-right. But that's different from saying the institutions had been captured by the green-left.

I don't follow. If even "right-wingers" are left wing, that sounds like institutions being captured by the left. And if you add on top of that all the environmental stuff they're pushing through, with essentially no one opposing it, that sounds pretty green as well.

If anything, the fact that those old exclusions are weakening and EU migration policy itself is becoming more restrictive is evidence of the broader movement to the right.

Again, if we separate public from institutional sentiment, I think it's perfectly accurate to say the institutions are taken over. Now that the public sentiment is getting bad enough, they are also seeing a need to appease the public, that doesn't mean they are willingly implementing a right-wing program, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, like they have been doing with left-green policies.

If even "right-wingers" are left wing, that sounds like institutions being captured by the left

Do you propose that people like the Koch brothers were leftwing and that Bernie Sanders was rightwing in 2015?

Kinda. Look at how all the anti immigration lefties were treated by their supposed fellow left-wingers. They were treated as enemies, and that means that whatever you want to call them, they definitely weren't left-wing.

The main reason the “right wing” has so many diverse policy viewpoints is that the left has a rolling omnicause, and anyone kicked out of the left will thenceforth be described as right-wing.

Reddit is firmly convinced JK Rowling is a “right-wing nut job” because she disagrees with trans ideology, despite holding fast to every other piece of the left’s policy platform. They believe famous Monty Python comedian John Cleese is now a right-winger because he's outspoken against Muslim migration to Britain.

Really, there are three axes, and you can only be a left-winger if they say you’re on the left side of all three: anti-patriarchy, anti-colonialism, and socialism. The Kochs are for unbounded immigration, which is anti-colonial, but not socialism.

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