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US debt is now $37trn – should we be worried?
(www.bbc.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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Yup. It absolutely does have to do with the taxation of the wealthy. We were also leading manufacturing in the late 19th century, when the Robber Barons owned everything while the working class suffered.
That’s one part of the equation. The other is that for a currency to be viable for global trade you have to kill your domestic production, British Empire did something similar around 1840 (although it was agriculture then). There may yet be some unexpected benefits to US downscaling from a global power to a regional one. Whomever steps up to take this role will face similar dilemmas and compromises that those empires had to.
To an extent. The US pulls additional leverage with USAID and unwanted military intervention, and China is doing quite well in BRICS with an export heavy model.
Not everything empire does is evil of course but the main takeaway to what Trump is doing is liberals crying about losing that empire and I have the smallest violin to play because US was not behaving responsibly in that role. In my country that US influence can be seen via US media selecting their chosen neoliberal party and going hard with supporting them, with ruinous results as expected. Too bad it’s done mostly via WB Discovery (USAID too but to a lesser extent) so that’s going to continue for the foreseeable future.