In the past few decades, the US has become the world's punching bag. The presidents that preceded Donald Trump preferred to play nice with Europe, China, Iran, and Russia rather than take the risk of facing off with them. That's how the US wound up with a trade deficit and funding ungrateful international organizations like the WHO, the UN, and NATO.
The US took heavy losses by China in the form of intellectual property theft – China then opted to buy goods from other countries. The European Union continued to reduce its expenditures on security, trusting in the American umbrella, and the US continued to dole out a hefty portion of its budget to security – not only its own, but that of the entire democratic world.
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In effect, more than one-third of the entire world's security budget comes from the US, over half a trillion dollars per year, which allows European countries to divert their own budgets for development, but also form closer ties with terrorist states and do business with them. The European countries know that worst comes to worst, the US is here to protect their interests.
From the moment Trump was elected, he got his hands dirty with the work his predecessors had avoided. He is also paying the price, but he has the support of those who understand his aims. All this puts Israel in an especially delicate position. We have important interests with China, but the US is, of course, our most important ally.
