America and NATO were never charities

Last week, the USA bombed Caracas. Dragged the sitting president out of bed. Took him to New York in handcuffs.

This week? Threats to invade Greenland. A NATO ally.

And the American reaction to all of it? “We will no longer let ourselves be taken advantage of.”

I see it everywhere. Twitter, Reddit, comments. Americans sincerely convinced that the whole world has been bleeding them dry for decades. That NATO is charity. That Europe freeloads on their protection.

For fourteen years, I ran an education company and worked with hundreds of schools. I am not a political analyst, just someone who reads a lot and notices patterns. And from what I know — that American narrative makes no sense at all.

That “we pay for your defence” line

Americans love bringing this up. “We spend 3.5% on the military, Germany spends 2%; you are welcome for the security.”

But where does that money actually go?

Lockheed Martin. Raytheon. Boeing. American companies. American jobs. Bases in Germany and Japan are not charity — they are ways of projecting American power into the Middle East and Asia. Without Ramstein, bombing Iran would be much more expensive. Not cheaper.

And here is a funny detail most Americans do not know. Germany pays something called “host-nation support”. Which means it contributes to the costs of American troops stationed on German soil.

America does not pay for us. We help finance the logistics of their empire.

The foreign trade con

This drives me mad.

“We import more than we export. Everyone is robbing us!”

Fine, but — why does the USA have a trade deficit? Because it wants one. I know that sounds backwards. Bear with me.

The dollar is the world’s reserve currency. Everyone needs dollars for international trade. Oil, commodities, anything. For the world to have dollars, America has to send them out. And how do you send dollars out? You buy more things than you sell.

So what actually happens is this: America gets cars, electronics, machinery. Real physical things. And pays with… printed paper. Numbers on a screen.

The French already had a term for it in the 1960s — “exorbitant privilege”. They were not wrong.

The American trade deficit is not a weakness. It is literally a tax the whole planet pays to use their currency. They get goods. Everyone else gets IOUs.

“We liberated Europe”

Recently, I saw a tweet. “The USA and Russia (the Soviet Union) liberated all of Europe not long ago. Try us.”

I have one question. Liberated it from whom?

Germany.

Which is… part of Europe.

So the logic is: you saved us from ourselves 80 years ago, so we owe you forever?

And while we are here, let us discuss the real numbers. Soviet losses in the Second World War: 27 million. American losses: 400,000. Eighty per cent of German military losses occurred on the Eastern Front.

The war against Hitler was won mainly with Soviet blood. D-Day was in June 1944 — when Germany was already losing in the east.

“Liberated” Eastern Europe was exchanged for 45 years of Soviet occupation. Not exactly freedom.

Western Europe was liberated. Sure. And American troops stayed. Eighty years. They are still there. With bases operating under American law on foreign soil. We were liberated even more — we even have a statue of General Patton in Plzeň, built in 2009. You can probably guess why it took 60 years.

A peculiar kind of liberation.

What is actually happening now

Here is what I think Americans are missing. They see it as the USA versus China, two superpowers, pick a side.

That is no longer the game.

America is isolating itself. Everyone else is staying connected.

Brain drain? It is reversing. More than 85 scientists have left American institutions for China since 2024. More than half of them in 2025. Chinese universities call Trump’s policies a “gift” for recruitment.

The people who built Silicon Valley — immigrants. Half of unicorn founders came from elsewhere. These people came for opportunity, not out of patriotism. When America becomes hostile, they leave. It is already happening.

And Europe? We are not weak. We are simply built differently. More soldiers than the USA. More tanks. What we lack is power projection — aircraft carriers, global logistics.

The USA spent 80 years making sure Europe was weak, dependent on America and, above all, unarmed. That was deliberate, not a mistake — because it was the first time in 500 years that Europe posed no threat to the world.

Defending territory in our own backyard? I think we can manage. Because the shift in Europe over the past year has been extraordinary.

The part that worries me

Europe is rearming. Not voluntarily. Because we suddenly discovered we might have to.

VW is closing car factories. Some of that capacity is going into arms production. Germany is finally meeting spending targets after years of hesitation.

But here is my concern. Once you build war economies, they tend to look for reasons to exist.

And there is a whole generation of young men who have spent 20 years being told they are the problem. Toxic masculinity. Privilege. Whatever. No purpose, no direction, no belonging.

War offers all of that. Identity. Purpose. Brotherhood. A chance to matter.

They already watch drone footage set to music. Kill counts. Combat as content.

This is not some hypothetical future. It is now.

The question nobody asked

For eighty years, Europe assumed America would always be there. NATO was permanent. The alliance was sacred.

Nobody asked: what if it turns against us?

Now we have to ask.

Not because we want a fight. Because the American president has just abducted a foreign leader, keeps threatening to invade allied territory “whether they like it or not”, and his supporters share memes about doing the same to European prime ministers.

When someone shows you who they are — you should probably believe them.

What happens next

America is not the whole world. 25% of global GDP. Significant, sure. But not half. Not even a third.

If America starts saying “us or them”, plenty of companies and countries will choose “them”. Because “them” is actually the bigger market.

Trump apparently wants the benefits of empire without the costs of empire. That does not work.

Either you are the hegemon — with all the bases, guarantees and spending it requires — or you are not. And if you are not, you do not get the reserve currency. You cannot print money. You do not get the exorbitant privilege.

You cannot have both.

One more thing

Americans really believe they have been taken advantage of. That is the strange part. It is not cynical manipulation — they genuinely think it.

They see money going out. They do not see the whole world paying them for access to the dollar.

They see soldiers dying abroad. They do not see those wars maintaining a system that lets them print wealth.

They see trade deficits. They do not see real goods arriving in exchange for paper.

America has never done anything for free. The Marshall Plan was not charity — it was the best investment in American history. NATO is not generosity — it is infrastructure for American power.

Dismantling this system will not bring factories back to Ohio. It will only end American hegemony.

And then they will find out what “being taken advantage of” actually means.

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Ask the British. In the Second World War, America “helped” them — and took their military bases, forced them to sell foreign assets, demanded their markets, replaced sterling with the dollar and collected Lend-Lease debt until 2006.

Britain won the war. Lost its empire. America helped. Became the hegemon.

That is what being taken advantage of looks like. Americans simply did not notice because they held the better cards.