

Immediate global pariah. All agreements with a rogue nuclear state would immediately be voided. All trade ceases, all loans rescinded. Every US base would be evacuated and be blown up from afar by their host countries. The word American would become a synonym for murderer.
It’s one thing to be a unreliable, distasteful ally who at least has common enemies.
It’s another thing to be a bigger genocider than Stalin and Hitler combined and knowingly rolling the dice on the end of the world.
Europe knows the US sucks, but it’s better than the alternatives at the moment. Letting a nuke slide is not an acceptable alternative for any country in the world. The US would immediately be a common enemy of every country in the world, and even the most cynical, bootlicking neoliberal cannot go against that.
Or maybe the political class is just all lizard people and waiting for the moment to Kill The Poor.