Waning US power

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The US is accelerating its own decline through a toxic cocktail of fiscal recklessness, diplomatic retreat and humanitarian abandonment. By voluntarily withdrawing from the world order, the US has created space for several other countries to raise their international profiles, particularly in terms of economic stability, alliance leadership and moral authority.

At home, American debt has reached $36 trillion, and for the first time ever, net interest payments are exceeding defence spending — 3.1% of GDP and 2.9%, respectively. Some historians see this as a sign of a country's global power waning.

In May, credit rating agency Moody's downgraded the US for the first time since 1919, citing the country's rising debt and erratic trade policies. The addition of over $3 trillion in debt via tax cuts for the ultra-rich and destabilising funding cuts for foreign aid and domestic social services, passed last week, may lead to another downgrade.

China, Russia, Brazil and other regional and emerging powers, such as the BRICs bloc — which includes all three countries — are among the biggest beneficiaries of Washington's erratic polices regarding things such as NATO, the WHO and the entire concept of foreign aid.

As many academics and experts have noted, USAID is probably the best thing to ever come out of Washington. The decision to gut it is expected to cause at least 14 million additional deaths around the world by 2030.

Depending on their regional geopolitics, most countries around the world have shifted their focus away from the US and are now looking to China and the EU for assistance and leadership over the past decade. China, in particular, has capitalised on this, by expanding the scope of its Belt and Road Initiative and using aid, particularly vaccine diplomacy, to fill critical gaps around the world.

The end result of this US withdrawal is that now, as BRICs and other international alliances work to further their own interests, the US sits alone, reduced to barking threats that, if implemented, will spell disaster for its own citizens.