America choosing to spend less money on Ukraine, pushing for resolution to a conflict that has resulted in mass deaths for Ukrainian males, and renegotiating tariffs doesn’t deserve the kind of hysterical overreaction I’m seeing from Europeans. In the end, if it escalates to open warfare on each other’s economies rather than a reset of trade agreements, it’ll damage both the EU and US to China’s benefit.

The agencies don’t reveal reasons why someone was denied or detained, so there is no evidence whatsoever that someone was detained for being critical of Trump. The claim that this happened is from Philippe Baptiste, a French minister for higher education who has been attacking America continuously in a bid to attract researchers from the US.

As an example, this article from 2025 about a family of foreigners being shot dead also lists numerous other recent examples of tourists being killed, and links to those stories:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/01/world/americas/americans-...

Those aren’t even the only ones, and physical harm isn’t the only type of crime foreigners can experience in Mexico either. Moving a conference there for safety makes no sense whatsoever.

EDIT - response to defrost’s comment below:

The Australian passport doesn’t require fatally accurate information per your own link:

> Customers who identify as a gender other than male or female (intersex, indeterminate, unspecified, non-binary) may request that the gender in their ATD appear as X.

Sex isn’t a matter of “identifying” as something. It’s a biological reality. Progressive gender ideology cannot alter these facts, and it is unfortunate it has found its way into the identification documents of some countries.

Typically when you break laws in a country, for example violating the terms of a visa, you face consequences. For everyone else, there’s no issue. But none of this is a “threat to safety”. Again, this is activist hyperbole.

> We know more than enough to point out that it shouldn't have happened at all.

You don’t know any real details. You just have vague claims from individuals that likely were breaking the law, and partisan news media amplifying their claims with zero investigation. There is no evidence of why these people were questioned or detained. We know at least a couple of the cases involve explicitly violating immigration law - visa overstays, attempts to cross the border after a denial, working while on a travel visa, etc.

> The Guardian is a centre-left outlet, not a far-left outlet.

https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart

Jet fuel is about 7 pounds a gallon. So we’re talking about something like 4000 gallons. A bus is something 40 feet by 10 feet by 10 feet, which is like 20000 gallons. So it’s about a fifth of a school bus.

Still a lot, though!

This feels like exaggeration to me. How is the US an ‘unreliable partner’? Has any country had parts for their existing defense purchases restricted? This type of reaction to the US choosing to not spend its own taxpayer money or military equipment on a far away conflict doesn’t make sense.

If anything, the truth is the opposite. The other countries in NATO have been unreliable partners that did not meet their spending requirements. For example, Germany, France, and Canada all underspent but benefited from the US taxpayer spending a lot.

> Western nations cannot buy into a platform when its supplier might go from being a democratic part of the West to aligning with dictators and autocrats literally overnight.

The US is not aligning with dictators. Pushing for a resolution to a conflict that is costing the world hundreds of billions, not to mention huge amounts of Ukrainian lives, is the only reasonable path. The EU has literally no solution for this conflict - just complaints that America is now seeking resolution and doesn’t want to keep wasting money or lives.

They are literally almost never used in crime. So “routinely” is false. In fact, I would guess that 99.9% of lawfully acquired guns in America are only ever used in lawful ways.

> Case in point, republicans support president dismantling democracy

Democracy is not being dismantled. If you’re an American citizen, you still have the right to vote however you want. You can still say what you want and publish what you want. You can protest if you are doing so in legal ways.

If anything, the end of massive censorship in social media, like was seen in the last 10-15 years, is helping democracy. Now you can actually share ideas freely and not get your content or account banned. And the elimination of wasteful spending of taxpayer money on political nonprofits is also helping democracy by not having the government bias politics through this loophole.

I can see that being true for certain policies and topics. But what about at a more basic level? What do you think of Canada’s shift towards restricting or punishing speech on controversial topics, and giving agencies that regulatory power? Or the tactic of using the financial system to punish protesters? Or significantly reducing firearm rights? To me these seem like not just everyday policy changes but a rethink of basic Canadian law, and it does seem radical relative to what Canada was like not too long ago. I can see why many Canadians who support a more freedom oriented Canada would want to reject the new Canadian regimes or support being part of America, because it would give them back rights or culture or whatever they thought they had.

PS: it sounds like you live in Canada but are more progressive in your politics. I would be curious to have your opinion from that perspective but also hear what you think the strongest argument for the other side might be.

Who is “us”? Surely we need to acknowledge that Europeans invaded Canada in the first place? The “us” that can make claims about having been invaded likely is just the indigenous people of that land. Of course, this applies to America as well. I do wonder what causes all of us to view a certain set of borders as the “correct” one. I also do the same thing.

> Yes, we're taking it seriously. It wasn't some one-off tweet.

As for whether Trump’s language about 51st state or whatever is a troll: I think it’s partially that. It’s really more about calling attention to the future of Canada and whether it makes more sense for it to be a part of the US than linger on its own. I don’t think it literally means annexing it through force but more like asking whether it’s mutually good for Canada to also be among the “United States” - just as you could ask that question of whether it should be in the EU.

Trump’s aggressive way of stating this has succeeded in one sense, which is drawing attention to the idea. It has backfired in another sense, which is that it is highly disrespectful and maybe has turned Canadians off that possibility entirely. Or worse, it may permanently push Canada into the arms of China or the EU. So I do agree that it is partially a troll but still destructive.