Why does US trade with other countries when it can just loot their resources?

[iamsheikhadil]

US has the highest number of nukes. It is the most powerful country in the world.

Yet it continues to trade and compete with other countries. Even with smaller negligible countries.

It raises a question in my mind that what's keeping it from using excessive forces to just be the bad guy and loot everything xD

Am I missing something? Or is my assumption too generalising ?

No reply with statements like "US is very good in heart" pls. I need some opinions on it

[Sharon121212]

The simple answer the world is more civilized and things are done more logically and reasonably. The US is a very powerful country that's an unarguable fact but a country can not be bigger than the world. Don't forget the is a United Nations that compares of other countries so if the US had decided to use force during trade it would cause a World War. And the US where one of the countries that fought against Adolf Hitler for trying to do almost the same thing.

[omonuyak]

US has the highest number of nukes. It is the most powerful country in the world.

Yet it continues to trade and compete with other countries. Even with smaller negligible countries.

It raises a question in my mind that what's keeping it from using excessive forces to just be the bad guy and loot everything xD

Am I missing something? Or is my assumption too generalising ?

No reply with statements like "US is very good in heart" pls. I need some opinions on it

Trading with other countries is a cover up and the really thing is that usa is using the trade balance to manipulate other countries money. It became strong my weaking other countries currencies and USA can only do that through trade and trading laws. Looting is not possible because if those countries don't have power to rescue themselves, nature will not allow that.

[coolcoinz]

You have some friends, or people you know and live around. You are the tallest and strongest of all of them and there's no police, you live in a remote village. Do you start attacking them one by one and taking their stuff because you have those superior qualities? Normal people don't like to make enemies and US as any other country consists of people. If you make too many enemies they will come to your house when you sleep and kick your ass. You'll never know when to expect an attack and who will hold a grudge. It's a really simple example but this is how the world works. The US might be the strongest but there are many pretenders to the title and all of them together would easily starve the US.

[TECSHARE]

The USA got to be this powerful because it is more of an idea and an ideology than it is a nation. Part of that ideology includes the preservation of basic rights and sovereignty. While the USA might be able to just steam roll everyone and take their shit now, eventually a bigger fish would manifest, and no one would shed a tear because they would be losing fair and square at a game of might makes right, a game that they had started. The overall ideology is more resilient than might makes right could ever be.

[BADecker]

^^^ Right! At the end of WWII, who had the atomic bomb? Who had the greatest manufacturing capability in the world? Who had enough natural resources to do just about anything that they wanted? Who had the brains to put everything together?

The USA, of course.

Why did the USA simply not take over the world? I mean, they could have. They had the bomb. I mean, they were the driving force that whupped Germany, Japan, and Italy combined. And the USA was just getting started. If the Axis had not fallen as "easily" as it did, the USA could have literally mounted forces far greater than they mounted.

So, why didn't the USA take over the world through conquest? One major reason. The mindset of the USA people. After all, the one-worlders were there, and they wanted to take over the world. That's what they were trying to use Germany for.

But you know they were in the USA by how I.G. Farben moved to the USA and formed Big Pharma, and by how they penetrated the USA Government along with the Jews. But the USA people would never have allowed it if the one-worlders tried. In fact, it's the USA solid Christian Fundamentalists who are keeping the one-worlders from taking over, today.

[theymos]

It's not as though countries have vaults full of millions of barrels of oil just waiting to be taken -- or at least not to such an extent that stealing it would be remotely worth the cost. And the US doesn't need resource-rich land, especially when it would have to fight off insurgents constantly in order to use it: the US itself is already hugely resource-rich. So direct "looting" isn't something that anyone wants. This isn't the time of Alexander the Great, where you can go looting through an area and still have it be profitable in the end. Modern wars are too expensive.

What other countries do have is people willing (and often happy) to buy American products for dollars and then do cheap work in return for dollars. American companies want to sell their intellectual property or whatever on a stable market, and Americans want cheap clothes, toys, iPhones, etc. From this perspective, the US wants things like:
 - Low barriers to trade.
 - Productive but low-cost workers in other countries who won't complain too much.
 - Stable (but not necessarily free) governments that will keep commerce safely moving.
 - The USD as the world reserve currency.

You'll notice that the above is in fact what the US government often aims for and achieves. However, the US is not entirely rationally self-interested like this. US foreign policy is also motivated by things like:
 - The military industrial complex, which wants to waste taxpayer money on military hardware and wars in order to enrich certain groups.
 - Politicians who find wars or trade barriers useful.
 - Politicians and Americans who honestly believe that certain interventions are the right thing to do.

[coins4commies]

I saw the thread title, thought it was satire, the opened it and saw a naive resistance to history

If you make too many enemies they will come to your house when you sleep and kick your ass. You'll never know when to expect an attack and who will hold a grudge.

9/11

The USA got to be this powerful because it is more of an idea and an ideology than it is a nation. Part of that ideology includes the preservation of (genocide and slavery) basic rights and sovereignty (genocide and slavery)). While the USA might be able to just steam roll everyone and take their shit now(all 50 states are on native american lands), eventually a bigger fish would manifest (still hasn't happened), and no one would shed a tear because they would be losing fair and square at a game of might makes right, a game that they had started. The overall ideology is more resilient than might makes right could ever be.

Why did the USA simply not take over the world? I mean, they could have. They had the bomb. I mean, they were the driving force that whupped Germany, Japan, and Italy combined. And the USA was just getting started. If the Axis had not fallen as "easily" as it did, the USA could have literally mounted forces far greater than they mounted.

Awful revisionist history here.  The Soviets did the bulk of the fighting against Germany.  You forgot how the USA used the bomb...twice...to take over Asia and to send a message to the Soviets to stay out of the way.  The one bomb could have ended the war but the US wasn't interested in just ending the war.  We wanted nothing less than unconditional surrender.  The USA came into Europe just in time to divide up what was left of it.  The Soviets and mutually assured destruction were the only counter-forces to the USA taking over the entire world.  

The part going over people's heads is that the British mode of colonization is obsolete and the American method is much more effective and lucrative.  You don't have to put boots on the ground to extract resources from a nation anymore. Once you have control over the markets, you can get anyone to do anything for the dollars you can print at will.  The US aren't running a British style empire because it isn't a sustainable model.  Has nothing to do with the US being less evil than any previous empire.

After WW2, the US took control of the global economy and financial institutions.  Instead of looting nations, you can just make them give you what they want or ban them from the economy (sanctions).  Instead of attacking anyone who doesn't agree, we can narrow our focus to attacking countries who usurp our authority over global markets.  The US still fought costly wars in Korea and Vietnam to set an example of what would happen to countries that try to split resources amongst their own people instead of having them looted.

Not taking over China is to this day America's greatest regret.

[DireWolfM14]

@theymos you make a lot of good points, but you seem to paint a picture of all business and empirical capitalism.  I'm sure that's the motivation behind many, but that's not the whole story.  Before I get into that, if I may retort to your points:

- Low barriers to trade.

This is beneficial to all parties, and I don't think that's a point of contention. 

- Productive but low-cost workers in other countries who won't complain too much.

Sure, but we trade with plenty of countries with high wage employees, too.  There's plenty of trade with EU countries, Britain, and Japan.  Not too long ago Japan may have fit your description, but they no longer do.  In large part that can be attributed to trading with the US.

- Stable (but not necessarily free) governments that will keep commerce safely moving.

Nation building is a losing proposition statistically speaking.  When it works it's nice but Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq kind of proved that when you lose you lose big, and people die.

- The USD as the world reserve currency.

This.  World domination through economics.  That's the new form of warfare, and really the only acceptable type for a super power that wants to maintain a moral high-ground.

US foreign policy is also motivated by things like:
 - The military industrial complex, which wants to waste taxpayer money on military hardware and wars in order to enrich certain groups.
 - Politicians who find wars or trade barriers useful.
 - Politicians and Americans who honestly believe that certain interventions are the right thing to do.

The only thing I would add to this list as a caveat to your first point is the influence of the tech industry.  I think they are more powerful and influential than the MIC in this day and age.

Back to my original claim that it's not all business and becoming the worlds economic overlords:  As I was countering your points, I too was trying to paint a picture.  The American people don't want to take over other nations.  They don't want their young adults fighting in some foreign land for someone else's benefit.  We are flush with our own natural resources, and we recognize the blessing¹.  We're mostly, as a nation, proud of what we've achieved, and we still have plenty of issues to solve here at home.

We also understand as a culture that we are not always compatible with other cultures.  We also have a cultural bias towards self-reliance and independence.  This is something that dates back to the founding of the nation and why many supported Isolationism.  Maybe a lot less so today, but in the past this was a demonstrably significant factor in American culture. 


¹For lack of a better term.

[KingScorpio]

US has the highest number of nukes. It is the most powerful country in the world.

Yet it continues to trade and compete with other countries. Even with smaller negligible countries.

It raises a question in my mind that what's keeping it from using excessive forces to just be the bad guy and loot everything xD

Am I missing something? Or is my assumption too generalising ?

No reply with statements like "US is very good in heart" pls. I need some opinions on it

minerals and natural ressources are worthless junk compared with produced stuff that organised societies can create.

for example germanies agricultural and mining sector are less then 1% of the value the society generates, the entire social clustes creates on tiniest amount of space vastly more value then the land ever could.

its therefore smart to be cooperative, and somehow controll that countries financial system

regards

[TeQuiero]

And the US doesn't need resource-rich land, especially when it would have to fight off insurgents constantly in order to use it: the US itself is already hugely resource-rich. So direct "looting" isn't something that anyone wants.

Are you an Obama's supporter, aren't you? You're right direct looting isn't the right way to do in the modern day but the US has never stopped using its power and influence to interfere in other countries' societies and politics. Look at what it has done with Middle East (Syria, Iran, Iraq...) and recent poor Venezuela. Yes the US itself is a resourceful but who would've reject such rich, easy cheesy oil lands?

The US still fought costly wars in Korea and Vietnam to set an example of what would happen to countries that try to split resources amongst their own people instead of having them looted.

I beg to differ on this. South Vietnam and South Korea wars were politics motivated. Both Vietnam and Korea (at that time) tend to follow Soviet's communism footstep. The US - the world's capitalism leader didn't want communism to spread out and hence created South Vietnam and South Korea governments. But it failed in Vietnam because of intervention from Soviet and China.

Anyway, at least you make a point. The US have shown two clear pictures of South and North Korea: capitalism's modern wealthy and communism's obsolete poverty. There's no loot here. The US ensures South Korean's safety and South Korean trades with the US in return.

[acroman08]

US has the highest number of nukes. It is the most powerful country in the world.

Yet it continues to trade and compete with other countries. Even with smaller negligible countries.

It raises a question in my mind that what's keeping it from using excessive forces to just be the bad guy and loot everything xD

Am I missing something? Or is my assumption too generalising ?

No reply with statements like "US is very good in heart" pls. I need some opinions on it

you're missing the point of not destroying the world with firing nukes to those who will not surender. countries will not bow down even if you threatened to nuke them or just declare war to them also they still hold on their belief which is to protect the weak (which I don't they are doing but still insist they do). also even though they have the biggest military power they cannot fight every country that they'll try to invade.

[KingScorpio]

additionally you have to understand that outright lies and looting, will destroy parts of the american self understanding of being "good"

and christian

it will effectively become an evil empire and whole world will look for a different reserve currency.

the core of the USA are freemasons, and big banksters

[coins4commies]

And the US doesn't need resource-rich land, especially when it would have to fight off insurgents constantly in order to use it: the US itself is already hugely resource-rich. So direct "looting" isn't something that anyone wants.

Are you an Obama's supporter, aren't you? You're right direct looting isn't the right way to do in the modern day but the US has never stopped using its power and influence to interfere in other countries' societies and politics. Look at what it has done with Middle East (Syria, Iran, Iraq...) and recent poor Venezuela. Yes the US itself is a resourceful but who would've reject such rich, easy cheesy oil lands?

The US still fought costly wars in Korea and Vietnam to set an example of what would happen to countries that try to split resources amongst their own people instead of having them looted.

I beg to differ on this. South Vietnam and South Korea wars were politics motivated. Both Vietnam and Korea (at that time) tend to follow Soviet's communism footstep. The US - the world's capitalism leader didn't want communism to spread out and hence created South Vietnam and South Korea governments. But it failed in Vietnam because of intervention from Soviet and China.

Anyway, at least you make a point. The US have shown two clear pictures of South and North Korea: capitalism's modern wealthy and communism's obsolete poverty. There's no loot here. The US ensures South Korean's safety and South Korean trades with the US in return.

Why loot when you can just create friendly governments who will make freindly deal with you and do everything your way?   Why would I spend money stealing materials and forcing slave labor for a 100 dollar product when I could just pay 7 dollars and have them create the product "willingly".  Capitalism is much more profitable than "looting".

If a government steps and and says "wait, we will sell the product for 50 and keep the other 50 for human development within our own country, then we can invest our money on making an example of that government and ban anyone from doing business with them until they fail. 

[TeQuiero]

Why loot when you can just create friendly governments who will make freindly deal with you and do everything your way?   Why would I spend money stealing materials and forcing slave labor for a 100 dollar product when I could just pay 7 dollars and have them create the product "willingly".  Capitalism is much more profitable than "looting".

Talk to the point please. I didn't talking about looting on South Vietnam and South Korea's cases. They're political based. South Korea is now one of the US' strategic allies in Asia to restrain China. South Vietnam, if it succeeded would have been another pain is China's ass.

Modern world doesn't allow direct looting. Even the US can't just declare war on a country by itself. But like I said, the US never stopped finding a way to loot other countries by putting its nose on their internal business: Iran, Iraq, Syria and now Venezuela. Don't see anything in common in these countries? They're oil-rich. Mining costs there are much cheaper than the US' shale oil. Middle East will be a peaceful if Trump withdraws his troops. And the poor Venezuela, let them deal with their situation by themselves.

[criptix]

Why loot when you can just create friendly governments who will make freindly deal with you and do everything your way?   Why would I spend money stealing materials and forcing slave labor for a 100 dollar product when I could just pay 7 dollars and have them create the product "willingly".  Capitalism is much more profitable than "looting".

Talk to the point please. I didn't talking about looting on South Vietnam and South Korea's cases. They're political based. South Korea is now one of the US' strategic allies in Asia to restrain China. South Vietnam, if it succeeded would have been another pain is China's ass.

Modern world doesn't allow direct looting. Even the US can't just declare war on a country by itself. But like I said, the US never stopped finding a way to loot other countries by putting its nose on their internal business: Iran, Iraq, Syria and now Venezuela. Don't see anything in common in these countries? They're oil-rich. Mining costs there are much cheaper than the US' shale oil. Middle East will be a peaceful if Trump withdraws his troops. And the poor Venezuela, let them deal with their situation by themselves.

What you said is not correct wrt to vietnam.

In ww2 ho chi minh was supported and rescued by the usa.

After ww2 ho chi minh tried to create a vietnamese republic based on the US constitution.

He wrote several letters to the US president/congress and asked for help - indeed you can say he was very likely an admirer of the us and of european democracy.

The help was denied and ignored by the US because they decided to help france getting back one of the most profitable and rich colony (indochina) in the world.
Indochina and especially vietnam at that time were the biggest producer of food and basic materials for the military (i.e. rice and rubber).

An important point to note would be also that the US had big economical stakes in indochina, which was also on of the main reasons why they supported the french and then directly intervened after the french lost in dien bien phu.


So all in all it was less politics but more economical in nature.

If the USA had made the right decision after ww2, the vietnam war would have likely never happened.

The rejected help after ww2, support of the french and rejection of the geneva peace conference in 1954 forced ho chi minh in a zugzwang which in the end lead vietnam into the sphere of the soviets.

Btw. I think every knowledgable historian about indochina would agree that ho chi minh would have won the vote by a big margin if it would have happened.

But well, it never happened and thus 3-6 million people died in that 20-40 year lasting war (depending on when you start to count).

[TeQuiero]

What you said is not correct wrt to vietnam.

In ww2 ho chi minh was supported and rescued by the usa.

After ww2 ho chi minh tried to create a vietnamese republic based on the US constitution.

He wrote several letters to the US president/congress and asked for help - indeed you can say he was very likely an admirer of the us and of european democracy.

The help was denied and ignored by the US because they decided to help france getting back one of the most profitable and rich colony (indochina) in the world.
Indochina and especially vietnam at that time were the biggest producer of food and basic materials for the military (i.e. rice and rubber).

An important point to note would be also that the US had big economical stakes in indochina, which was also on of the main reasons why they supported the french and then directly intervened after the french lost in dien bien phu.

So all in all it was less politics but more economical in nature.

You sound very familiar to Vietnam history. You're right about almost everything. But I have to correct something. The US didn't support anything to Ho Chi Minh or Vietnam. In fact, Ho Chi Minh was supported by some US individuals. It's totally different from "by the USA". Yet he and Vietnam were supported a lot by French or Westerner citizens, but never by the USA or France. Meanwhile, Nixon and Johnson only massively buffed their puppet Ngo Dinh Diem to destroy North Vietnam. But it's the later story.

Not Ho Chi Minh but some other top individuals decided to follow China & Soviet - communism allies (when Ho Chi Minh got aged and lost his power as well as influence). If the Vietnam war back then was purely natural resource based, is it necessary to establish Ngo Dinh Diem's government? It only made the war more costly.

[criptix]

What you said is not correct wrt to vietnam.

In ww2 ho chi minh was supported and rescued by the usa.

After ww2 ho chi minh tried to create a vietnamese republic based on the US constitution.

He wrote several letters to the US president/congress and asked for help - indeed you can say he was very likely an admirer of the us and of european democracy.

The help was denied and ignored by the US because they decided to help france getting back one of the most profitable and rich colony (indochina) in the world.
Indochina and especially vietnam at that time were the biggest producer of food and basic materials for the military (i.e. rice and rubber).

An important point to note would be also that the US had big economical stakes in indochina, which was also on of the main reasons why they supported the french and then directly intervened after the french lost in dien bien phu.

So all in all it was less politics but more economical in nature.

You sound very familiar to Vietnam history. You're right about almost everything. But I have to correct something. The US didn't support anything to Ho Chi Minh or Vietnam. In fact, Ho Chi Minh was supported by some US individuals. It's totally different from "by the USA". Yet he and Vietnam were supported a lot by French or Westerner citizens, but never by the USA or France. Meanwhile, Nixon and Johnson only massively buffed their puppet Ngo Dinh Diem to destroy North Vietnam. But it's the later story.

Not Ho Chi Minh but some other top individuals decided to follow China & Soviet - communism allies (when Ho Chi Minh got aged and lost his power as well as influence). If the Vietnam war back then was purely natural resource based, is it necessary to establish Ngo Dinh Diem's government? It only made the war more costly.

Actually the USA via the OSS (later CIA) supported ho chi minh in the fight against japan in ww2.

When the deer team arrived in vietnam ho chi minh was very ill and got propped up by their medic.

They provided intel for the OSS and provided training, weapons, medcine etc for the vietnamese.


I dont think the whole vietnam story can be atrributed to a single thing.

A lot of interests were interwined with a shot of random happenings, arrogance and shortsightness of important players (and even that wouldnt give the full picture of that era).


Politics (in this case anti-communism) was definitely one of the reasons later on.

[TECSHARE]

The USA got to be this powerful because it is more of an idea and an ideology than it is a nation. Part of that ideology includes the preservation of basic rights and sovereignty. While the USA might be able to just steam roll everyone and take their shit now, eventually a bigger fish would manifest, and no one would shed a tear because they would be losing fair and square at a game of might makes right, a game that they had started. The overall ideology is more resilient than might makes right could ever be.

Would disagree respectfully. It's true that it's more harm than good to directly annex other nations, the reasoning that it's an ideology of full freedom and respect for rights is a bit odd. While the NSA tracks and checks every citizen out there and polarization is at peak, I wouldn't call it an ideology full of freedom anymore. But, one thing that keeps the ideology floated is immigration and diversity. When it is a melting pot, it's hard to stay biased and morally wrong as the world looks upto it

The US government is not monolithic. I was commenting more on the culture and the common law form of government rather than the corporation known as THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

[TheCoinGrabber]

All that's needed to do is keep the oil producers friendly enough that they'd only trade oil for your currency and then keep printing that. People complain the US "spend" too much on military, just imagine how higher it would be if it'll have to keep every country under its thumb at the same time.

Not taking over China is to this day America's greatest regret.

Even richer irony is that if America just left China be, the Chinese would probably still be eating sparrows right now and not a headache for America. Guess it's another "Gee, thanks Kissinger!" moment.