This.

Complicated and difficult is absolutely the correct analysis.

No country really holds any monopoly on fairness and justice.

These debated often turn into... well this nation has this problem, and that nation has that problem.

But the bigger problem is there simply has never been a way to structure a government that fixes all its citizens problems.

Protests all over the world prove this.

How many of the world's countries haven't had major protests in the last 5 years covering some sort of injustice -- whether perceived or real?

Nevertheless, the below article may provide a glimmer of hope -- especially the paragraphs under the last sub-heading.

https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/g201307/is-protest-t...

Aye, I respect your willingness to fight for China. I fear that it may be a lost cause but that's just from the outside looking in. The iron grip the CCP seems to have just looks like it's getting stronger. I hear that Britain will offer HKers citizenship in the UK. What are your thoughts on that?

Probably, I have only shallow gut feelings about this, but the financial blunders, the changes in education and technological differences around the globe (asia is becoming more and more independant and creative), the very very strange political state.. I'm not sure the thing will hold itself. I have this model where everything is non linear and if you stop claiming your position on the ladder, everything else will evaporate under your feet.

In as much as the other members of NATO (particularly the US, who is the primary funder of NATO) care about those commitments, yes. Which is to say, I’m not sure how much it maters historically when the US did not seem to particularly care. Now that the US has brought up the matter, to not make an effort to spend more is disrespectful to me.

(But the concept of disrespect aside, I would consider allies not fulfilling the agreements of a treaty made to lower my trust in them to fulfill the obligations of current and future agreements. And that trust is also quite important.)

In fact they don't tweet like a crazy man

They use official channels

Which is the respectful way

Functionally, I agree with you on China in many respects. Ultimately no trade with them is really free trade regardless due to the way they manage their own economy. The problem with Trump in this regard is that he didn’t just call out China. He called out everyone, starting trade wars not just with China, but Mexico, Canada, more general sweeping sets of tarrifs, and also weakening our alliances separately. And this is a big deal if one actually wants to take on China economically. A big block of allies all getting into a trade war with China would have a substantially higher chance of success than the US just going it alone. Instead it was just us vs them and nothing really came of it. The cold war was not just US vs USSR. It was the western bloc vs the eastern bloc, and all other allies those groups picked up along the way. And any geopolitical fight between entities the size of China and the US would need to be carried out similarly to be successful.

To the final point on whether free trade is worth it, that’s a decision that can be made. But it is a decision, and would have pretty extreme effects on the US’s standing on the world stage, along with tons of other knock on effects on how the economy works. Whether that’s a trade off that’s worth it is a much more complicated discussion, but certainly far from simple.