Life is unfair

I have had a couple of posts about a question that asked people whether "other countries generally treat the United States about as fairly as we treat them" or "other countries often take unfair advantage of the United States."   When I wrote those, the last time that the question had been asked was in 1999.  Since then, it has been asked again (in September 2018).  There was a substantial change.  In 1995, 78% chose "unfair advantage"; in 1999 it was 70%, and in 2018 it was down to 51%.  Most of that change involved Democrats--about 80% of Republicans chose "unfair advantage" in all three years, but for Democrats it fell from 68% in 1999 to 28% in 2018.  Although a lot of things happened between 1999 and 2018, I would guess that the major cause of the change is Donald Trump--it's a view that Trump has expressed, so Democrats have turned away from it.  However, Republicans are more united than Democrats (82%-15% vs. 25%-67%), and independents favor the "unfair advantage" by 52%-32%.  As a result, public opinion still leans towards "unfair advantage" (51%-42%), even though Trump's overall approval rating is unfavorable (in this survey, 38% approved of the job he was doing and 55% disapproved).  That is, it seems like this issue is helping Trump, and presumably helped him in the past as well.

I think this sentiment--indignation that other countries don't appreciate our generosity--has been underestimated.  It's something that we haven't seen before in a president, or in anyone with significant influence on foreign policy, but it is a core principle of Trump's world-view.  For example, a couple of tweets from the past few days:

"Give A$AP Rocky his FREEDOM. We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around."  [According to the figures in https://explorer.usaid.gov/ , the United States gave $0 in aid to Sweden in 2017, the last year for which statistics are available]

 "Guatemala, which has been forming Caravans and sending large numbers of people, some with criminal records, to the United States, has decided to break the deal they had with us on signing a necessary Safe Third Agreement. . . . Now we are looking at the 'BAN', Tariffs, Remittance Fees, or all of the above. Guatemala has not been good. Big U.S. taxpayer dollars going to them was cut off by me 9 months ago."

This is not a new theme--here's a tweet he sent in January 2014 and then repeated in slightly different words in June 2014:  "I hope we never find life on another planet because if we do there's no doubt that the United States will start sending them money!"