The US, an empire in decline

PASCUAL SERRANO

The international community is bewildered by the seemingly confusing decisions of Donald Trump and his team, but in my opinion, there is a certain consistency in all of them: the recognition of the United States' failure as a dominant global power and the retreat from its leadership.

The issue of tariffs is probably the most telling. Three decades ago, the United States considered itself the victorious economic power in a globalized world. It believed its global production, sales, and distribution capacity was superior to that of other countries, and that its market dominance was absolute. At the time, free trade agreements were the perfect tools to seize control of other countries' markets. We all remember the debate surrounding the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada (NAFTA) in 1994. The left led the opposition to that treaty; in fact, on the day it came into force, January 1, Subcomandante Marcos and his Zapatista Army of National Liberation took up arms in Mexico to confront it. Along with the Zapatistas, the global left, which at the time adopted the term anti-globalization, also took up arms. At that time, a period of historic mobilization began through the so-called World Social Forums, which raised the banner against globalization and defended the sovereignty of peoples against the interventionist commercial power of the United States.

Now, we are witnessing the paradox that it is the United States that is reneging on free trade agreements, to the extent that it is imposing or negotiating tariffs. The reason is simple: time has shown that the US has lost the battle for economic globalization against other countries. It has failed to exploit its natural resources, it is not self-sufficient in energy, and its production chains rely on industries in other states to produce products. Until now, the protectionism of imposing tariffs was the economic policy of weak economies that needed to retreat to the power of foreign production; today, it is Trump's policy.

Another element confirming the US withdrawal is its decision to withdraw military resources from Europe, telling the Europeans that they must fend for themselves in their own defense, because the United States cannot afford it. History serves as a reminder that in 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev, at the Comecon summit held in Sofia, announced that the Soviet Union was no longer available to finance the expenses of the "brother" countries of Eastern Europe, thus sanctioning the "every man for himself" approach and the end of the equilibrium established at Yalta, which saw Europe divided in two: capitalist on one side and communist on the other.

It's clear that we in the United States are experiencing something similar to what we saw in 1990 with the Soviet Union. This is not only due to Trump's contemptuous statements, which have made it clear that he doesn't consider Europe a credible partner in his negotiations over the war in Ukraine, but also due to the statements of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who reiterated at the NATO summit that European countries will be called upon to pay their dues in terms of security.

The final straw for military spending was the war in Ukraine. Here too, a parallel with the Cold War applies. At that time, the arms race served to exhaust and ruin the USSR, leading it to collapse. The US government believed that the war in Ukraine would repeat history, now with deaths, and that Russia would bleed to deathBiden's exact words at the start of the war. But, as in all competitions, it's not always clear who will collapse first, and Trump understood it was going to be them.

Very clear Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it:“Whether we like it or not, Russia is a power, a world power (…) it is a nation that has, in some cases, the largest arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons in the world and the second largest, if not the largest, arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons in the world.”

The confrontation with Russia was condemning the United States to failure, both militarily and economically. «The US will go bankrupt if it maintains its current pace of government spending."warned American billionaire and head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk.

"We simply cannot sustain a $2 trillion deficit. The interest on the national debt alone now exceeds the Department of Defense spending, and we spend a lot on the Department of Defense. We're spending about a trillion dollars in interest. If this continues, the country will effectively go bankrupt," Musk said.

In fact, Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad already discussed this withdrawal some time ago in a book of the same name, "The Withdrawal." A withdrawal that found its most eloquent form in the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after twenty years of occupation, leaving the Taliban in power. Added to this is the fact that they practically had to abandon Iraq as well, and they failed to control the chaos in Libya. As Chomsky and Prashad say, "in recent years, the United States has achieved none of the objectives of its wars."

Vice President JD Vance made it even clearer in a tweet explaining his abandonment of interest in Ukraine:

"President Trump is facing reality, which means facing facts. (…) The Russians have a massive numerical advantage in personnel and weapons in Ukraine, and that advantage will persist regardless of whether the West sends more aid packages. (…) The conflict has tested—and continues to test—the instruments of the American state, from military arsenals to sanctions (and so much more). We believe that continued conflict is bad for Russia, bad for Ukraine, and bad for Europe. But, most importantly, it is bad for the United States. (…) In light of the facts presented, we must pursue peace, and we must do so now. (…) It is lazy and ahistorical nonsense to attack as “appeasement” any recognition that U.S. interests must reckon with the realities of the conflict. That interest—not moralizing or historical illiteracy—will guide President Trump’s policy in the weeks ahead.

The numbers don't add up, and the American government knows it can't afford to be the world's gorillas because it doesn't have the money.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is ordering Pentagon agencies and the military to cut their budgets by 8 percent as early as 2025, as part of a sweeping reallocation of defense spending to address President Donald Trump's priorities, such as securing the border and modernizing the nuclear force.

El Pentagon to reduce military commands in Europe and the Middle East, while maintaining or increasing spending in 17 priority areas, including border security.

The size and speed of the cuts amount to an estimated $50.000 billion (a significant sum) and mark a radical shift in U.S. defense policy.

According to Washington PostHegseth has directed senior Defense Department leaders to plan for cuts that could reduce the department's budget by 8 percent a year, or about $290 billion, over the next five years. That's 40 percent of the Pentagon's current budget.

And no, it's not that Republicans have become pacifists; they've simply realized that they're heading into the country's financial abyss.

According to the popular German newspaper BILD, An Eastern European official told the German newspaper that “discussions are underway about withdrawing US troops from all European countries that joined the NATO alliance after 1990, which is said to have been one of the goals of recent negotiations between Russia and the United States.”

These include Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Sweden. Furthermore, preparations are said to be underway in Italy for the possible withdrawal of US forces from Kosovo.

Helena Villar in his book United Slaves: The Other Side of the American Dream, explained the waste and the absolute lack of control of the Pentagon's expenses. In The Pentagon building employs more than 20.000 people daily on its twelve floors—a city in itself. Senior executives often come from major arms companies, and vice versa—a prime example of the revolving door between public officials and executives of companies contracted by the government.

The United States spends more on defense than the next seven countries combined, accounting for more than half of total national spending.

He explains Villar: “The US defense black hole is so insane that for the first time in history, the department was subjected to an independent audit in December 2017 at a cost of more than $400 million. More than a thousand auditors decided to throw in the towel just a year later, claiming they couldn't justify the expenses derived from the largest budget item in the US government. Not only did nothing happen, but the Deputy Secretary of Defense claimed they never thought the audit would be approved, despite the fact that since 1990 all departments and agencies of the federal government must be subject to it. All comply, except the Pentagon, which year after year carries out what is perhaps the largest public fraud in the world.”

"An economics professor who analyzed all public financial information between 1998 and 2015 came to the following conclusion: the Pentagon couldn't explain $21 trillion, with a b, in dollars. This amount is equivalent to the entire Gross Domestic Product of the United States in 2017 and, in turn, to the national debt of the most indebted country on the planet. As has been explained, the scandalous thing about the matter is that it can't even be established how much is real money and how much is fiction, created by an army of accountants whose sole objective is to demand more from Congress year after year," explains Villar.

Now they are trying to fight against this chaos. The Secretary of Defense himself has made it clear that they must focus their military efforts on China. And, we add, also on the most vulnerable part of what is already known to be weak: its borders.

All the clippings of the The Trump administration is merely a reflection of a government that has understood that the United States was assuming a power and authority that it was not in a financial position to maintain and that it was risking internal collapse. This is why Elon Musk is proposing the closure of USAID and the 90% cut in an agency's budget which, under the humanitarian alibi, was basically the center of global political interference. Or he asks them to officials to tell them in writing what work they did the previous week.

Is there a more graphic example of a chaotic and decadent company than one where the boss has to ask employees what job they are paid to do?

Pascual Serrano He is a journalist and writer. His last book is "Forbidden to doubt. The ten weeks in which Ukraine changed the world”

This article was published in Venezuela News The Magazine