Regarding your #2, yes you're right; the cost of playing world police was at the top of my mind when I wrote that.
The other equally important thing in my mind which seems to get a bit less popular attention is trade balances. There are certain countries the US is engaged with where A) the US puts very low tariffs on them and they do not reciprocate; meanwhile B) the US provides some form of economic assistance to them whether it may be through military support, contribution to NGOs etc.
Those specific relationships I think the US can and will eviscerate or at least play serious hardball when it renegotiates, because what is it gaining today? Do you want a CIA listening post in northern Thailand or do you want to home-shore production of some of the things you've been buying from them, creating some working class jobs along the way? The US is not a one party state so its direction on these questions may be unclear for a while, but I think I know how Trump, Gabbard, Rubio etc. will answer that question as the working class very much put them in office (and there are plenty of Democrats who would be sympathetic to this approach too -- they just seem to get sidelined by their party leadership a lot).
The other equally important thing in my mind which seems to get a bit less popular attention is trade balances. There are certain countries the US is engaged with where A) the US puts very low tariffs on them and they do not reciprocate; meanwhile B) the US provides some form of economic assistance to them whether it may be through military support, contribution to NGOs etc.
Those specific relationships I think the US can and will eviscerate or at least play serious hardball when it renegotiates, because what is it gaining today? Do you want a CIA listening post in northern Thailand or do you want to home-shore production of some of the things you've been buying from them, creating some working class jobs along the way? The US is not a one party state so its direction on these questions may be unclear for a while, but I think I know how Trump, Gabbard, Rubio etc. will answer that question as the working class very much put them in office (and there are plenty of Democrats who would be sympathetic to this approach too -- they just seem to get sidelined by their party leadership a lot).