Why is the U.S. rolling back its global liberal project?
This is resistance to transformation into an "invisible state."
Imagine that your economy after World War II constituted 50% of the global economy.
But to win the Cold War, it was necessary to share part of the economic pie with both allies and not-so-allies.
They shared with Japan and Germany.
Then they shared with South Korea.
Next, they decided to detach China from the USSR – they gave China a piece too.
In the 80s, they managed to slow down Japan with the Plaza Accord, but China surged ahead even more strongly than the Japanese.
After the collapse of the socialist camp, they needed to win over new allies, and then the Global South.
That’s how high growth dynamics appeared in Vietnam and Mexico.
To strengthen NATO's southern flank, they gave part of Turkey.
But after a while, you look at the plate, and all that’s left from the pie are crumbs.
In the 1980s, based on GDP by purchasing power parity, the U.S. economy was already 22% of global GDP.
But China was only 2%.
The internal mechanisms of globalization had not yet exposed their essence to America.
A turning point occurred in 2015: the share of the U.S. and Chinese economies in the global economic structure became equal.
And now China is ahead. It has 19% of global GDP by PPP, while the U.S. has 16%.
You can also consider nominal GDP – in that case, the picture would be slightly different: the U.S. has 26%, China has 17%.
But even by nominal terms, the share of the U.S. in the global economy has halved since World War II!
Another 10 years of such dynamics, and even by nominal GDP, China will overtake the U.S., especially if U.S. dollar inflation slows down: the yuan’s inflation is half as much, so the nominal GDP growth in China due to deflator is weaker.
Plus, the policy of weakening the yuan against the dollar, which lowers the GDP equivalent of China in dollars.
Essentially, the U.S. is trying to catch the last train leaving the station.
Another 10-15 years of this model, and in terms of GDP levels, they will lose to China. Their share in the global economy will shrink to 15% in nominal terms, and by PPP, it will drop below 10%.
You can control technology, but the status of a hegemon is determined by GDP size.
Size matters.
Since GDP size determines defense spending, is related to debt size and servicing costs, GDP also impacts per capita income, wages, social policy, and the internal market's capacity.
America has simply stopped dividing the pie.
The rollback of globalization was inevitable for America's survival.
Democrats could blindly move toward "dissolution into nothingness," but Republicans are strongly against such a policy.
So everything is as expected.
