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Comment by theultdev | Hacker News Reader

> Nothing had changed about the plane’s performance. It’s just that, in the eyes of some international customers, the F-35 can’t fully be trusted anymore because of who is the commander-in-chief. Donald Trump has an affinity for authoritarianism, has exhibited poor treatment of NATO (whose Article 5 obligates collective defense), and, in particular, has threatened to annex Greenland and Canada.

Ignoring the biased language (affinity for authoritarianism.. lol), those reasons are not supported by their sources.

The qualms have been from the trade wars in particular, so leaders are using purchases of the F35 as a negotiating tactic.

Then the article attempts to intertwine software updates as reasoning, which is true, but has nothing to with Trump, as nothing has changed regarding that since previous admins.

I am glad to see people concerned about US military sales overseas though. Very important we keep that up /s

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What about the famous “We like to tone them down about 10 percent, which probably makes sense because someday maybe they’re not our allies, right?” and the fact that USA recently withheld software updates for Ukrainian F16s? Is that not enough of a reason to think twice before buying advanced american weapons? Everything trump has been doing since he took the office aligns with russia’s long term goals. He is a traitor to freedom, democracy and his country.

Nor has the US aligned with Russia. Choosing to stop wasting billions of dollars propping up a Ukrainian dictator is hardly aligning with Russia. The US should be auditing the money dumped in Ukraine.

In the eyes of Europe you are most certainly aligned more with russia than with us now. Just a traitor country.

Europe doesn't dictate US policy. As for being aligned with Russia? It's Europe that is abandoning the foundations of Western Civilization, not the US. Further, the US has always been Europe's big brother that insured that no bad guys picked on them. It's time for Europe to grow up and defend itself or at least pay for what the US provides.

Can you tell me what the foundations of western culture civilization are in your opinion? And what is that US provides that Europe needs to start paying for? Europe paid for all military hardware purchased from US and the promise of protection has always been paid for with numerous military bases on European soil that are used by US to project force over the rest of the world. Especially the middle east.

I don't know, it seems pretty clear to me that it's the US that has departed Western civilisation and become just another repressive country with a big military like Russia or China.

To some extent it's fine if you want become a shithole country like those mentioned, but to insist at the same time that you maintain membership of the West and retain its mantle as its leader (or even more laughable, as "leader of the free world", that's far too much. You're not a Western country. Culturally far, far closer to an eastern despotic one, these days.

> US has always been Europe's big brother

History began in 1945 to you?

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