It’s a bit confusing to figure out who technically owns the bases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_military_installations

As near as I can tell, almost all of them are actually owned by the US. The more important aspect is how it affects the “deal”.

The implied “deal” has always been that the US provides military resources to defend “the West” against the USSR/Russia and, in exchange, the US gets to be the primary voice in determining international policy (ie the famous “rules based international order”). That’s why the US president has traditionally been referred to as, “the leader of the free world.”

That deal has degraded a bit over time as other Western countries recovered from the damage of WWII and started flexing their own power.

Altering the deal so that everyone else pays entirely (or mostly) for its own defense also removes or seriously damages the incentive to follow the US vision of international policy.

This seems like an insane threat.
The US is the primary beneficiary of NATO. Does he expect all those countries will keep hosting US military bases if NATO drops?

I remember this. It was definitely a gag gift.

This guy reminds me of Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf.

I’m just here to brag about my old Casio G-Shock.

CSB: Just before the collapse of the USSR I was part of a youth sailing exchange program. They sent some kids here to compete in some races and we went there to compete. The whole thing was set up as a sort of goodwill ambassador thing. Back then rainbows were streaming out of all our asses because we thought that the end of the cold war would meant peace on earth and a new era of prosperity (oops). My dad gave me a G-Shock before I left.

The official exchange rate sucked. 2 USD per Ruble. Fortunately we stood out like sore thumbs as soon as we showed up and some local “entrepreneurs” kindly offered us much better exchange rates (the best I managed was 20 Rubles per USD). Of course, these totally legitimate businessmen didn’t limit themselves to currency exchange. They also dealt in direct barter. They often tried to hawk one of their “military” Komandirskie watches for my G-shock. We’re talking craptacular mechanical POSes where numbers would fall off the face if you looked at them too aggressively. I told them that I’d trade but not for a watch. I wanted a sable hat.

To show them how much better my watch was I took it off my wrist. Grabbed it by one strap and whipped it against the concrete floor as hard as I could. One strap popped off. I popped it back on while they laughed at me, showed them it still worked fine and I told them it was their turn. They didn’t take me up on that or give me a sable hat.

But they gave up on trying to convince me that they had anything that could compete with my G-Shock. I’ve changed the battery on that thing twice since then. The light sucks and it looks basic AF but that thing will definitely outlive me and my whole family.