For a more focused point, sticking to just one here:

> we’re tired of funding the world’s defense

Reads like "The outrageously high R&D costs of modern weapons systems are being subsidized across many customers. This must end immediately!"

What other business wants fewer customers to spread R&D across, or less revenue from fewer units sold?

Are we instead discussing how much the US spends internally on defence, then exports the largest military in the world to protect the country and her interests? Because not only is that an example of America choosing to spend her own money instead of being coerced by other nations, but the guy that just ran a snatch'n'grab on a foreign leader was enabled by that same policy. Forgive my disbelief that he'll dismantle that system any time soon.

I think this is a scarily prevalent view, and I strongly disagree.

Regarding defense: The US is not the world policeman and never really has been. Police enforces higher laws-- but the only law the US enforces is its own, which sometimes becomes very obvious (e.g. Hague invasion act, or inaction when there's only humanitarian gain, like civil wars in Africa).

Regarding research/drugs: Why would you think the US is owed anything here? Drugs are (typically) not gifted to rest of the world for free. The view that high healthcare prices in the US "pay" for medical advancement is pure propaganda BS: You pay such high prices because you allow the industry to extract so much from you, not because of any kind of altruism.

Don't get me wrong: I don't blame the US for doing things wrong-- I believe the last half century was largely mutually beneficial for US and its allies, but the notion that the US is owed by its allies or even the world is almmost absurd to me; you don't accrue credit by acting in your own interests.

"funding the world’s defense" - where do you think that money goes?

Not downvoting, but boy is this off the mark. America was the only country to invoke Article 5 of NATO. America has benefited greatly from brain drain, what you call "funding the world's research". Pharma is something like the 7th or 8th largest export for the US.

Military misadventures in the Middle East, trickle up economics, prioritizing corporate profits over things like low cost healthcare, good jobs, or a solid industrial base... These are all products of American culture and politics, not imposed by any other country.

Appreciate your response. I’m just frustrated, because while I vote one way (in California ) for liberal policies, the rest of the country seems to vote another. Americans are a varied group and we all get lumped together with these idiots. I thought it was stupid when we dismantled USAID but I’m powerless to stop it.

I get the frustration. I hope though that the opinion of the people who matter the most - i.e., your friends and family, and not random Internet strangers - will be based on who you are as a person, not on your identity as an American. Don't worry so much about the noise on social media, it's part of what got us into this mess in the first place.

At the same time, there are things you can do besides voting. Maybe you already know or do these things, but just putting it out there... You can call your representatives (and they might actually listen, if you're a Democrat in California), you can donate to candidates in other races if you have the means (there are probably going to be some pretty consequential senate races this year), you can join a protest (peacefully, and especially if you don't have any dependents).... And who knows, maybe none of these things will make a difference in the end, but I think the bottom line is that if you truly care about some of these things that are happening right now in the US, it's better to find ways to act on your convictions than to stay frustrated and fume online.

Just my 2 cents.

You can say you're 'x' while acting as 'y'.

Thanks for your feedback. I didn’t vote for this administration, I think they’re idiots, and yet I still get blamed for them. It’s exhausting.

I suppose we'll see in the coming years whether funding the world's institutions gave us more back than we spent or not

I sympathize with your frustration but your understanding of how things hang together is way off the mark.

You do not seem to understand how America's position in the world has been used to benefit the country in a massive way post world war II. You can throw that position away, that's your privilege, but the result will be a much smaller economy in which your costs for various items will go up rather than down because a lot of money will no longer flow to the USA.

The amounts you are paying for healthcare, medication etc are not coupled to that but are coupled to your broken political system. You could fix that easily enough but neither the democrats nor the republicans have ever followed that path because you (plural) have been deluded into thinking that that is socialism.

Reducing the USA's standing in the world is not going to fix your political problems but is going to harm your economy in a massive way. The position you are taking here is not consistent and whether you voted for Trump or not is not relevant because it effectively carries water for him: this is precisely the kind of thing that an uninformed Trump supporter would say.

I believe you're deluded into believing that 'we' are deluded. French and British TV news have little snippets of anecdotal dummy Americans being paraded around to make the entire country look stupid. It's not the entire country that's stupid - we DO have a socialized healthcare system called Medicare - it kicks in when you're retiree age. A Yougov poll from July 2025 showed:

59% of U.S. adult citizens support “Medicare for all” (27% oppose, 14% not sure)

So are "we" voting against our own interests? Have you considered that neither party, including the Democrats we're supposedly too foolish to vote for, support this. The political system is infiltrated with a large amount of money which we call "lobbying". This lobbying is illegal in the major democracies in Europe, leaving the impression that "Americans are voting against their own interests."

Hope I've made a better case than BBC or French TV5!

Exactly. The Democrats are the lesser of two evils, but they still carry water for the billionaires. Neither party represents what people really want (Medicare for all, at least as an option, lower defense spending, etc)

I have lived for many years on the border of the United States and Canada, have many friends on both sides of that border (probably more in the USA) and I don't watch French or British TV news.

Your 'socialized healthcare' is a very weak version of it, there is no other country where medical issues can spiral out of control financially in the way they do in the United States.

I know the political parties are as corrupt as they get but that is your problem to fix, even so Trump's talking points, that the USA has been financing the rest of the world are plain bullshit.

I've lived in a few countries including the UK and France, by the way. And I don't think any Canadian would compare their healthcare system to either of those countries, they'd rather use the U.S. insurance system than be given paracetamol while waiting a few weeks to get a CAT scan. In fact, according to Gemini googling 'Canadian healthcare wait times':

Key Figures & Trends (from Fraser Institute & CIHI reports, late 2025): National Median Wait: ~28.6 weeks (down slightly from 30 weeks in 2024). Longest Waits: New Brunswick (~60.9 weeks), PEI (~49.7 weeks). Shortest Waits: Ontario (~19.2 weeks). By Specialty: Neurosurgery (49.9 weeks), Orthopaedic Surgery (48.6 weeks) were longest; Oncology (Radiation 4.2, Medical 4.7 weeks) shortest. Diagnostics: CT (8.8 weeks), MRI (18.1 weeks).

That's pretty bad. In the U.S. you wait one week for an MRI and it's paid for, minus copay, by your insurance if your insurance is good. The U.S. healthcare is pretty great if you a) work b) work in a place that gives you good healthcare or c) are old enough to qualify for Medicare. It also depends on which state you are in, since the state laws differ on healthcare (Texas and New York are not the same).

But I don't think your point is fact-finding, it's hating on the U.S. or provoking.

I know the political parties are as corrupt as they get but that is your problem to fix, even so Trump's talking points, that the USA has been financing the rest of the world are plain bullshit.

Not sure the point of this angry statement.

NATO is/was a major contributor to the success of the dollar and US economic activity. It was never a cost center, it's a core enabler. Whoever thinks otherwise is setting the US up for an epic owngoal.

The military is basically a jobs program. We do it because it pumps money into the economy and gives us our own little socialism. It's our little New Deal kingdom.

I mean, I like living in the country that everyone wants to come to for an education and work. We're giving that up.

Its current state is worse than a year ago and even worse than 10 years ago, etc. As a fellow European, it's a fact that the US for many decades have attracted global top talent for both universities and industry. That definitely hit a hard reversal during the current term with the war on universities/education as well as immigration policies though.

I'm not sure you're disagreeing with GP.

Pedantic

Did you vote for this mess? I sure didn’t, I live in a state with almost 50 million people and feel like we’re powerless to stop this nonsense.

I didn’t support any of those wars. I wasn’t even alive/of voting age for most of them.

Americans intrinsically benefit from imperialism, whether you support its constant imperialism or not (look at Yemen, Syria, Lybia for more recent examples, it truly is constant), if you do not take direct action against it you are complicit.

no offense but the US spent about a billion on the WHO. That's a lot of influence for chump change. US defense sits at only 3% of GDP compared to 8% during the height of the cold war.

The argument always seems to be that the US is getting these rough deals, but objectively what it has spent the last few years be it in terms of soft power for organizations like this or in weapons to Ukraine, a few decades ago people would have opened champagne bottles getting that much bang for your buck.

This is British "the EU is stealing your NHS money" stuff, like it doesn't work at a basic level of arithmetics. What's driving spending in the US is entitlements, literally a straight line up

No offense taken. Clearly I’ve already upset a lot of people though. It’s not just the WHO, which is “only” 1 billion apparently.

I get that it all adds up, but you're railing against 0.1% of a budget that's over a trillion dollars. Not only do household and national budgets work differently, the numbers are also so much larger that they give a sense of vertigo instead of understanding. If we compare for 0.1% of your budget, would you stress over that amount? Because I know I'm not about to panic over spending $100 annually for a safer, healthier, and more stable world

I feel like there’s a logical fallacy in your response. I’m down for cutting significantly more than $1 billion. Halving the defense department budget would be a good start.

In which case we disagree fundamentally on America's place in the world, and how best to lead - and that's okay. We can politely disagree (on this), and neither of us has to be an asshole, because neither view is objectively wrong

I applaud the consistency you put on display regarding the US budget though, and I gotta say you view (on this) probably should count more than mine - I'm a Canadian citizen, not American

Didn't downvote you, not upset, but you definitely overstepped with your use of "we".

And even if you think this is the right move, it's important to acknowledge that it's for all the wrong reasons.

Why do Americans think that? It's very self centered. You will be surprised by how much Canada spends around the world. For example of an important project, Canada paid UNicef $850k to combat open defecation in Ghana.

> US playing team America world police

I always find it so weird to assume such things are done out of good heart. The US has always been dependent on their ability of world wide power projection, because that's a level that always works. Through 'America first', in the next years the US will experience a decline of beneficial trade deals and US-interest friendly foreign politics. It's net negative for everybody except China and Russia to some degree.

> I also want Americans to get the same deal Europeans and Canadians get on prescription drugs.

That's not about foreign politics though. If you didn't want Billionaires to get richer, you shouldn't vote for one of them being the president.

I didn’t.

> I’m happy to spend on supporting the poor worldwide; I’m just tired of the US playing team America world police. I also want Americans to get the same deal Europeans and Canadians get on prescription drugs.

Then you should fix your laws. Like, until a year or two ago Medicare was forbidden from negotiating drug prices. Coupled with the absurdity of direct to consumer advertising of drugs (only allowed in the US and New Zealand), plus your massively complicated health care system, it's a recipe for disaster.

On the world police thing, I'm definitely sympathetic, but this was something your government did for a mix of selfish and altruistic reasons, and the consequences of not doing it will be bad in some ways for Americans. I do think that Europe/EU need to step up here, and it looks like we're finally doing this. I'd also note that of the current potential world police (US, Russia, China) you guys are the least worst.