Hacker News Reader

Comment by fatbird | Hacker News Reader

What America got, by being the heavyweight in NATO, was the greatest economy the world has ever seen. America got rich by selling Europe a nuclear umbrella, which kept the peace, and let Europe go cheap on defense and long on developing their own economies in tandem. The USD as global reserve currency means the world loans money to the US at the lowest possible interest rate; the US extended that credit to its businesses and education system and infrastructure.

What America loses by gaining Greenland is that worldwide market and those close defense relationships forming a common bloc. The US dollar stops being the reserve currency; America's cheap credit line dries up. American soft power in Europe is gone, and Europe aligns itself with China or Russia for stability, and becomes an American adversary. All so you can have, what, a bunch of melting glaciers?

View on HN

USA was already the richest nation before both world wars and way before NATO was established. Europe can't align with Russia, because Russian Empire wants pieces of Europe. It can't align with China, because trading with China is more or less one way and that can be taken away anytime China feels like it.

> USA was already the richest nation before both world wars and way before NATO was established. Europe can't align with Russia, because Russian Empire wants pieces of Europe. It can't align with China, because trading with China is more or less one way and that can be taken away anytime China feels like it.

In a world where the US is not a trusted partner, I'd expect the EU to do partial deals with the US and China while maintaining pressure on Russia.

Lets not forget that the US imports vast amounts of EU capital, and in the new world that makes less and less sense. And the US market having 60% of global equity value is not sustainable in this world either.

It's not just any pile of melting glaciers, its a pile of melting glaciers that looks really big in mercator projection!!

> What America got, by being the heavyweight in NATO, was the greatest economy the world has ever seen. America got rich by selling Europe a nuclear umbrella

But this just isn’t true! The U.S. overtook the UK in per capita GDP in 1880, near the peak of the British Empire: https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/us-gdp-per-cap.... At that point the UK was already significantly richer than the rest of europe.

If you look at GDP growth rate, the US has consistently averaged 1.7% GDP per capita growth over the past 200 years. The mass industrialization during the war itself spike growth and helped recovery from the Great Depression, but America didn’t grow dramatically faster during the NATO era than it did before that.

The U.S. is rich because its been one of the richest countries in the world since the 18th century and has been extraordinarily stable. It was considerably richer than western Europe even going into the 20th century: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Population-GDP-and-GDP-p.... In 1900, U.S. gdp per capita was almost 50% higher than western europe. In 1990, it was also about 50%. There was a temporary period right after the war when the U.S. was much richer than western europe, but europe actually grew faster during this 1950-1990 period.

Okay. What will the stability be like after NATO is shattered and the EU is no longer a market open to the US?

Stability will be fine. U.S. exports to the EU are only 1.1% of GDP.

Please go read https://theauthoritarians.org/

Please go read “The Culture Transplant.” https://www.rorotoko.com/11/20230913-jones-garett-on-book-cu...

"culture" is meaningless and a non argument anywhere. It is only ever brought up as an emotional argument against something someone is uncomfortable with. It has nothing to do with systems that involve people.

I don't understand how you can continue referencing narratives like this one, wear your minority identity on your sleeve like you're still competing in the DEI Olympics, but yet keep failing to see that you're personally responsible for doing exactly as this book bemoans.

If you're really concerned about preserving American culture against dilution by immigrants bringing other cultures, have you ever thought that maybe it's time for you personally to hold back with the developing-country-style populist strongman boosting? Not some vague "other" that might come here and do even more of the same, but you personally, right here, right now.

If this lauded western European culture is based around consensus, process, and compromise (rough points you've made elsewhere about the importance of culture), surely you can recognize that this culture has something to say about the wisdom of attacking longstanding allies (regardless of any perceived immediate benefit). Essentially, if you see value in the incumbent culture then maybe you should be content deferring to it a bit more while you're still assimilating.

I'm sure you're going to have rationalizations aplenty in response to this comment, so all I can really say is perhaps try some self-reflection.

You're completely correct, except that I do see it. In fact, I was talking with another Bengali just the other day about how our parents aren't viscerally offended by Trump the way many Americans are, because he's like an Indian or Bangladeshi politician.

Trump himself reflects how immigration is changing America. Blue Rose Research projects that Trump tied or narrowly won naturalized citizens like me: https://data.blueroseresearch.org/hubfs/2024%20Blue%20Rose%2... (page 9). Democrats historically got 80% of the Bangladeshi immigrant vote. But last year, Trump actually campaigned in Queens and Little Bangladesh in Jackson Heights swung a net 50 points to the right. Mitt Romney isn't a viable Republican today. Trump is.

So your diagnosis is correct. But I think your prescription is like telling liberals "why don't you just pay more taxes if that's what you want?" I would like to return to an America where my options are between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. But I don't see how unilaterally disarming gets me there. We're locked in a prisoner's dilemma. As more and more of the electorate is comprised of people who don't have traditional Anglo cultural sensibilities, both sides have strong incentives to capitalize on that however they can. Mamdani is what that looks like on the left, Trump is what that looks like on the right.

And how much does the U.S. import from the EU?

WTF kind of useless measurement is this? Is the impact going to be spread evenly across the entire US GDP sources? No, it's going to have large impacts on specific industries/services and not much on others. How the f are you arguing these numbers won't have an impact on us?

Total US goods exports in 2024 were $2,083.8 billion

Total US goods exports to the European Union were $369.8 billion, to the UK $79.5 billion

Total US services exports in 2024 was $1,107 billion

Total U.S. services exports to European Union in 2024 were $294.7 billion, to the UK another$99.4 billion

The EU is 26% of our services exports

The UK is 9%

Canada another 8%

Sure, our economy, industry, and service sector can totally just eat losing this trade, it's not significant at all. /s

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/europe...

https://www.bea.gov/news/2025/us-international-trade-goods-a...

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c4120.html

https://www.usitc.gov/publications/industry_econ_analysis_33...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com