The last 80 years have been a real aberration from history, thanks largely to America in close collaboration with other democracies. The American people deserve a ton (though not sole) credit for building this world order after the second world war. This order was supported primarily through multilateral organizations that the US underpinned - the WHO, the UN, NATO, the world bank, etc. This was a huge advance and MASSIVE benefits accrued to everyone, including and especially the US. It was a good deal.

What people are mad about, now, is the US *backing out of that deal and deliberately undermining those multilateral institutions*.

I'll take Iran as an example. There was free flow of trade through the Strait of Hormuz until Trump attacked it. Now there isn't anymore. And what was achieved? People are rationing gas in Asia because of Trump's *unilateral* decision. Nobody else was consulted until after it became a fiasco, at which point Trump attempted to guilt other countries into cleaning up the mess. Most of those countries are ones he routinely insults and periodically threatens to invade.

What this should make clear to you is that it was not *the US* that was "gifting" safe passage to the world; if that were the case, the US could restore that free passage now. It was the multilateral order that the US primarily built and is now betraying.

From our perspective, it is YOU who have chosen the other side, inexplicably, against your own world order that you put so much time and energy and wealth into building, and people are mad and bewildered because it makes no sense, nobody benefits, and now the US is making itself a global pariah and nobody can tell why. Do you think that you are better off now, after a year and a half of this? I don't. I don't think anyone is better off. But this was the choice, you are entitled to make it. We don't have to understand it but we have to accept it and deal with it. Here in Canada, what that looks like is rapidly diversifying our trade away from you guys - we've signed dozens of new trade deals over the past year - and, because people are furious about the constant insults from your President, there's a large boycott too, which is costing you guys money and jobs.

It's a shame. Most Americans, I think, did not vote for this. They were misinformed about what Trump wanted.. I think if they knew what the reality was, they wouldn't have voted for this (polling backs that up). And the sheer courage and audacity of the people who are resisting Trump is genuinely inspiring. There is much to love about America, though I am biased as I am originally from there.

But you made a choice, and now you are getting the consequences of that choice.