Plenty of European normies don’t understand that their wealth and prosperity was only necessary to act as a bulwark against the USSR and leftist ideals. They were left with prosperity out of convenience since there was no reason to attack them after the illegal dissolution of the USSR.

However in the Second Cold War, if the US needs to have a roaring economy at the cost of Europe, Canada and other prosperous allies, then it shall be done. Just like Mexico and Japan were growing too quickly for the US’s comfort and had to be quelled.

People forget that in the 60s and 70s Mexico’s economy was growing by leaps and bounds, even in Mexico this has been memoryholed. In the 70s as the US abandoned the gold standard, the US forced Mexico to sign up to the disastrous Petrodollar Recycling Scheme which basically allowed their government to spend freely by exchanging future barrels of oil for US dollars (in exchange for ONLY holding US dollars as their reserve currency). Even the corrupt PRI knew this was a disaster waiting to happen and demanded that future barrels of oil traded for dollars would maintain their value at the moment they were swapped out and not change based on the value of the barrel of oil in fluctuations.

But the US refused. That meant that when Mexico borrowed (they called it a swap but it wasn’t) $100 when barrels of petrol were $100 it would be fine, but when the barrel of oil dropped to $50 they would get a new bill added to their debts. Supposedly if the price of oil went back again, they’d get the difference, but not as cash, but as an IOU.

When the commodity prices collapsed, Mexico was in too deep with the US and they “solved” that issue with IMF loans, in exchange for “restructuring their economy to sound economic policy” aka neoliberalism. This then caused the disastrous 1982 crash and then were forced into signing NAFTA which annihilated them.

To paraphrase, the Russians were dangerously close to being in, Germany was threateningly up, and the US needed to reestablish the post-war Atlanticist pecking order to make their position on top clear.