• CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago
    1. France was (and I’m using past tense here because relations are strained due to…gestures generally) one of USA’s first allies. They provided political, navel, and monetary assistance during the revolutionary war. They were one of the first counties to acknowledge us as an independent country once the war was over.

    2. The statue was commissioned as a gift to the US, not to the president. It doesn’t have any listening equipment and it sits as a tourist attraction, along with information about our long standing alliance.

    3. It wasn’t a fucking bribe!!!

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Something that provides a whole lot of modern context is realizing that America was France’s early “Proxy war”. They wanted to give Britain a hard time, and so they gave colonials weapons to do it. Both of us won out from that exchange.

      The key part here is that France didn’t keep an iron stranglehold of us. It was enough to win us our freedom that we would want to be their buddies without being forced. Fun story for anyone who insists the US wants to control the Ukrainian government.

    • LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      I think autocorrect got you, unless there was a secret bellybutton supply we don’t know about?