It still is perceived as such. Actions like these erode relationships and shift perspectives. But before you take countermeasures it is good to think about cui bono.

As an example: the EU member country Hungary is currently plagued by an autocratic leader named Orban. This man is openly hostile to the EU and provocations are his daily business. The EU could a) play hardball and retaliate, which would have grave consequences for the people of that country and give Orban an opportunity to spin this in his favour. Or b) Play nice (within limits) thus having a greater chance for the people of this country to realize in the upcoming elections in Hungary there is a better choice than Orban.

Also the stakes are quite high to become the greatest war criminal of all time.

Of course not. Visas can be revoked at any time for any reason. Why do people always expect some kind of benefit for their donations? /s

Maybe vassals is too strong-worded to describe the phenomenon. But living in western Europe I have firsthand experience in the relationship between the US and my country in the past decades. The US offered protection to the “free world”, but of course this comes at a price. The US had to be regarded as a role model in many ways, and everything that came out of the US, was copied and implemented verbatim. Which made the US the de facto puppet master and they really liked that role. This relationship was carefully orchestrated and nurtured by the US from the end of WW2 onwards, and the effect was that European countries embraced this strategy and viewed the US in a positive light, no obvious power play or bullying necessary. But the fact is, there always was a strong dependency on the US, and this was by US design.

Trump doesn’t realize that there was good reason for choosing such a “soft” strategy, he can’t because bullying is his only available tactic. He will soon find out that his perceived european vassal states don’t respond as well to hostility and blackmail as he might have expected.

They already want to declare people criticizing Trump as mentally ill in order to silence them. That speed run is in full effect.

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=SF2589&version=0&session=ls94&session_year=2025&session_number=0

I think VS Code is doing its own thing and it might be better if you create your own. It doesn’t have to be called .venv, that is just a VS Code convention.

python -m venv myenv

and then

source myvenv/bin/activate

should do it.

Otherwise there is something wrong in your path or a weird python installation.

python --version should give you a version number 3.4 or above, because these have venv included and need no additional pip installs