The United States should righteously refuse and thereby frustrate those intentions , they argue . In contrast , far less attention is paid to how internal US social problems both shape and are shaped by a changing global economy .
The changing world economy and the relative decline of the G7 within it have turned US capitalism away from neoliberal globalization toward economic nationalism . Tariffs , trade wars , and “ America first ” ideological pronouncements are concurrent forms of such turning inward .
Another form is the call to bring parts of the outside of the United States inside : Trump ’ s unsubtle imperialistic threats directed at Canada , Mexico , Denmark and Panama . Yet another form is the advisory many major US colleges and universities are sending to enrolled students from other countries ( over a million last year ).
It suggests they consider the likelihood of great visa difficulties in completing their degrees amid increasing US government hostility toward foreigners . A reduced foreign student presence will undercut US influence abroad for years to come ( much as it fostered that influence in the past ).
US higher education institutions , already facing serious financial difficulties , will find them deepening as paying foreign students choose other nations for their degrees . “ America first ” rhetoric risks the self-destruction of the United States ’ global position .
Politically , the U . S . strategy since World War II was to contain perceived foreign threats by a combination of “ hard ” and “ soft ” power . They would enable the United States to eliminate communism , socialism , and , after the Soviet implosion of 1989 , terrorism , wherever possible , overtly or covertly .
Hard power would be deployed by the US military via hundreds of foreign military bases surrounding nations perceived to be threatening and via invasions if , when , and where deemed necessary .
Hard power also took the form of implicit threats of nuclear warfare ( made credible by the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ) and by total US arms race expenditures on nuclear and non-nuclear weapons that no other countries , alone or in groups , could match .
“ Soft power ” would serve globally to project particular definitions of democracy , civil liberties , higher education , scientific achievement , and popular culture . These definitions were presented as best and most exemplified by what actually existed in the United States .
In this way , the United States could be exalted as the global peak of civilized human achievement : a kind of partner discourse to other discourses that denied internal social problems . Enemies could then readily be demonized as inferior .
US soft power was and remains a kind of political advertising . The usual commercial advertiser promotes only everything positive ( real or plausible ) about his client ’ s product . Typically , everything negative ( real or plausible ) is associated by that same advertiser only with his client ’ s competitor ’ s product . One might call this “ advertising communication .”
In the 20th century ’ s Cold War , US soft power entailed an application of advertising communication where the United States and its supporters , public and private , functioned as both client and advertiser .
The United States advertised itself as “ democracy ” and the USSR as its negative opposite or “ dictatorship .” Cold War advertising communication continues today in the slightly changed form of “ democracy ” versus “ authoritarianism .” But , like advertising , after too many repetitions , its influence lessens .
Unfortunately for the United States , economic problems now besetting its capitalist system — both those caused by accumulated internal contradictions and those caused by its declining position within the world economy — directly undercut its soft power projections . Brandishing tariffs and repeatedly threatening to increase them reflect the need for governmental protection for decreasingly competitive USbased firms .
US rhetorics that instead blame foreigners for “ cheating ” sound increasingly hollow . Deporting millions of immigrants signals an economy no longer strong and growing enough to absorb them productively ( what once “ made America great ” and showed that greatness to the world ). US rhetorics denouncing “ foreign invasions ” of immigrants encounter growing skepticism and even ridicule inside as well as outside the United States .
The gross inequality of wealth and income in the United States and the global exposure of billionaires ’ power over government ( Musk over Trump , CEOs donating millions of dollars to Trump ’ s inauguration celebration ) replace perceptions of the United States as exceptional in its vast middle class .
The record levels of government , corporate , and household debt alongside abundant signs that such indebtedness is worsening do not help project the United States as an economic model . The year 2024 ’ s experience with a dominant US strategy denying social problems while rhetorically stressing the dangers of evil foreign forces suggests it may be approaching exhaustion .
The year 2025 may then provide conditions for a profound challenge to that strategy matching the challenges confronting the global position of US capitalism .
82 The Trial Lawyer