Please consider watching this excellent Glenn Greenwald & James Risen debate over the usage of the word 'treason' and how dangerous it is to use it incorrectly. Greenwald cites prime US legal examples throughout history.
I was asking the question in the context of my comparison with the cold war era. Doing business with Russia then wouldn't have been called just “doing business” either, especially if it happened in support of practices diametrically opposed to our own professed values like Democracy and Freedom.
How much of a sellout or a cynic do you have to be to call betraying those values for money merely “doing business”?
Even during the cold war, Americans did business with Russia. No large computers or munitions, but Americans still ate Russian caviar. There was this call to boycott it at the same time as the Moscow olympics, but I don't think anyone called it "treason". https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/01/31/...
> Even during the cold war, Americans did business with Russia
ie A false equivalence.
Me selling flags to Russians is doing business. That has nothing to do with the issue of what constitutes or can be construed as Treason which is certain kinds of business that ally against national interests.
When the United States have to choose between their professed values like Democracy and Freedom, and economical benefits in the US, what do you think took preference?
Spoiler: US-backed military leaders and dictators weren't pushed to power because they promised to support those values. US companies profited of that, and by that, the US economy.
