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Why any nation would bother to negotiate with the US right now is beyond me

It's because they don't really have a choice. If it were say, Australia, that had gone off the rails, they could just be ignored. But, the US is still such a central part of the world's economy, and there are so many important companies based out of the US, that it's not possible just to pull the plug. In addition, if countries didn't negotiate with Trump he might see it as a slight and send in the navy to interdict "drug boats" or something.

This also makes things look like they're better than they are. People see trade deals being negotiated and think "well, if that's happening, then things aren't that far gone. The reality is that countries used to negotiate trade deals with the US because, even when they felt they were being pressured to cave to US demands, they could at least count on the US to more-or-less honour the terms of the deal when it was done. I think countries are now dealing with the US because they have to, but they're really just going through the motions, not expecting that the result will actually be a binding agreement.

I take it seriously and I encourage anyone to know they have the power to make a difference. If you can find who's encouraging people to stay out of the way please let everyone here know so we can fight against those people.

Also you're right if Trump stays in power longer it will be very grim not just for the people in the US but also for the entire world because look at how Trump is terrorizing other countries. Look at how he's basically a slave to Putin and abandoning Ukraine. Look at how he's grabbing people on the streets. If we don't fight this will get worse.

Maybe the US won't become fascist. Maybe the democrats will win in a landslide and reform things so that no rogue president can do what Trump did ever again.

But, even in that unlikely scenario, the trust the world had with the US has already been burned, and isn't coming back easily. It's obvious that other countries might try to avoid doing deals with a corrupt, fascist USA. But, what's less obvious is that thanks to Trump, countries also won't want to do deals with an apologetic, democratic, tolerant, liberal, honest USA. That USA can get voted out of office and replaced with a fascist in just one election cycle, and all the deals mean nothing when that happens.

i mean, some of us legitimately have next to no power. or have good operational security.

me, i have 3,000 miles distance between me and krasnov at any given time and putting in a lisa novak style cannonball run would be sure to tip someone or something off. I'm going to leave it to someone closer.

Will it really be a multilateral future though? Or will it be a Chinese future?

A multilateral future would be great, but multilateral alliances aren't very stable. Just look at how Orban is disrupting what the EU wants to do, even though Hungary is a relatively small and weak country in Europe. Or, look how toothless European regulations are when Ireland just refuses to enforce things like the GDPR, so the tech companies just declare themselves as Irish.

Meanwhile China seems very unified and their mixture of a command economy and a market economy has been very effective so far. I don't think the Chinese model is all bad. They've been massively effective at doing things like building high speed rail, developing and deploying solar panels, etc. OTOH, the Great Firewall and CCTV state is not how I would like to live.

Without the US, I don't know how well the rest of the world will be able to resist China. I think Australia might be the canary in the coal mine. I think China considers Australia to be in its sphere of influence and will try to put more and more pressure on it. Australia's outlook on the world is much more similar to Europe, but it's geographically really far away.

I find it interesting how this is just assumed by many people as an eventuality when we've already seen a failed coup attempt last time an election ousted the Republican regime.

Oh yeah, I think there's a solid chance that the democrats will never get back in power again. That, even if they win the popular vote by a massive margin, Trump will pull the developing country dictator trick and declare the results invalid and refuse to leave office. And that's assuming that people are even allowed to vote. What I was suggesting was the best possible outcome for people who still believe that this whole thing can be rescued. Even under those circumstances, I think you're going to see countries trying to pivot away from the US because the idea that the US can commit to anything that lasts more than maybe 2 years is obviously untrue.

I'm specifically talking about Americans thinking that the rest of the world will get over this. I think that trust has been broken.

Like you talk about broken guard rails. The US has been lecturing the world on how the US system of democracy is the best for decades now. There's always talk about how there's a system of checks and balances, and how US democracy can be messy, but in the end it's a system that works. I don't think anybody believes that anymore. The guard rails were always an illusion, and even if all of Trump's changes were rolled back, the rest of the world would know that the guard rails, and the checks and balances are all just an elaborate delusion.

he has been predictable with putin, and the ME though, only with them.

I also get that perception, at least what they're showing outwards, but it's starting to feel like the EU is actually starting to plan for a future that has at least a much smaller dependence on the US.

I think for the pragmatic diplomats, it makes sense to show you're willing to go back to the old way of doing things because it might make the transition less painful, you get to keep at least some of the benefits and goodwill while you prepare to move away from them.

However, I also think there are unfortunately a lot of spineless (and greedy) people in power who would go back to, for example, a president Newsom in a heartbeat despite the risks it poses.