The cultural logic of America’s abdication of global leadership is locked in now. There’s no way to turn it around. The more America declines, the more it does things that accelerate that decline. There’s palpable enthusiasm for self-sabotage and no support for anything else.
Many Americans will be just fine with America turning its back on the world – and it’s probably a necessary first step for any kind of rejuvenation – but the world will still need leadership and it will inevitably turn to China because it’s now the center of global trade.
If you think of the level of RESTRAINT and COMPETENCE that would be needed to maintain America’s position in a world where China is almost everyone else’s main trading partner, it’s obvious it doesn’t exist in American political culture anymore (if it ever did).
The geopolitical logic is simple: since China is so important to the economies of other countries, anytime the US tries to ‘do something about China’, it pushes them away from US institutions and leadership and towards China. The more America tries to do, the stronger the push.
Use export controls against China and other countries will strip out American content. Try to weaponize finance against China, and other countries will route around the American financial system. This happens not because China is especially wily, but simply because it’s BIG.
