Critics say the potential cuts in the US diplomatic footprint coupled with the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAid) that provided billions of dollars worth of aid globally risk undermining American leadership and leaves a dangerous vacuum for adversaries like China and Russia to fill.(…)
Trump and Musk say the US government is too big and American taxpayer-funded aid has been spent in a wasteful and fraudulent way. (…)
Leipzig, Hamburg and Dusseldorf in Germany, Bordeaux and Strasbourg in France, and Florence in Italy were among a list of smaller consulates that the state department is considering shutting down, three officials said, adding that could still change as some staff were making a case for them to stay open.
Well, the EU could stop being complicit in what these regimes do. Incidently the best way to reduce dependency on those regimes is to push for a faster renewable energy and transportation transformation. Instead von der Leyen pushed for car makers to be allowed to use more fossil fuels, keeping the EU dependent on even buying Russian oil products that help finance the war against Ukraine and possibly direct war against EU countries in a few years.
The morale being - things are moved by power, not by ideas.