In the 18th century, Americans overthrew British colonial rule through revolution and established a republic, trumpeting individual freedom and installing a limited democracy. Ever since, Americans have boasted that the core of the United States’ founding spirit is opposition to imperialism and colonial rule. At the Paris Peace Conference held after the end of World War I, then-US president Woodrow Wilson vigorously pushed for “national self-determination”. However, the application of this principle was limited only to Europe.
Since Americans feel that they were once victims of colonial rule, they have always expressed deep antipathy toward imperialism. Of course, this is also intended to advance the US’ political and economic interests. After World War II, the US tried to dismantle the European colonial empires, especially the British Empire, to expand its own overseas markets. However, after the Cold War broke out, to contain the Soviet Union, the US turned its efforts instead to maintaining the European empires and combating anti-imperialist and anti-colonial forces.
The US has always averred that it has no intention of establishing an “American Empire”, stressing that imperialism and colonialism are anathema to its founding spirit. However, the reality is that the US has used a massive amount of violent and nonviolent, overt and covert means to establish an American Empire spanning five continents. In establishing the American Empire, the US relied more on seizing colonies or exercising direct governance in other societies, such as the Philippines and Puerto Rico. After World War II, it mainly depended on military, diplomatic, financial, and economic means. Various US-led international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been used to control and bully other countries and formulate international rules of the game that are beneficial to itself. Antony Gerald Hopkins, professor emeritus of history at the University of Cambridge, asserted in his magnum opus American Empire: A Global History (2018) that in building its empire, the US and European countries were no different in goals, methods, and trajectories. All of them primarily used force to seize the land of other nations, exploit their resources, and oppress their people. However, as anti-imperialist and anti-colonial feeling swept the world after World War I and especially following World War II, it became increasingly politically challenging to build an empire through “conventional” modes of imperial expansion, land seizure, and colonial rule. Therefore, the US had to use “indirect rule” more to realize its imperial ambitions. “Indirect rule” means governing through local agents groomed, supported, and controlled by the US in different countries and regions. This point is discussed in detail in Indirect Rule: The Making of US International Hierarchy (2024) by David A Lake, professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego.
Until the last decade or so, Americans were still resistant to the designation American Empire, regarding the term as slanderous. To the contrary, they think the US is building an international order that benefits world peace, human development, democratic politics, and economic growth, and can more appropriately be called “Pax Americana”. However, in recent times, more and more American scholars have not simply avoided the term American Empire but have affirmed and applauded it profusely, believing that it is in the world’s best interests, and that the American Empire is in line with the interests and aspirations of humanity. Niall Ferguson, a British-American historian, praised effusively the contribution of the American Empire to the world in his book Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (2005). The only regret he expressed was that many Americans were not sufficiently committed and firm in their mindset to support the American Empire.
During the Cold War, the American Empire did not span the globe. Instead, it had to compete with the Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, China for political support and influence in the Global South. The end of the Cold War saw the US become the only superpower in the world. As a result, the American Empire gained unprecedented momentum for expansion to become a global empire. The US has garnered enormous political, economic, and financial benefits from its empire. Still, it also needs to pay a considerable price, although, it is still a “business” with small expenses and high profits.
However, the American Empire has shown many signs of becoming unsustainable in recent years. First, following the end of the Cold War, the need for US security guarantees decreased to a certain extent. Even though some countries and regions still hope to obtain security support from the US, their dependence on it for security has decreased. Accordingly, more and more countries are striving to seek a certain degree of “strategic autonomy”. The rise of some regional powers — such as India, Iran, Turkiye, Russia and Brazil — has further lowered the US’ political influence.
Second, the functions and roles of international organizations created and led by the US in global governance have deteriorated. Among them, the decline in influence of institutions such as the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the World Health Organization has been pronounced. Of course, the US’ diminishing attention to these international organizations has undermined their status and functions.
The end of the American Empire does not mean the world is moving toward peace, stability, fairness, and development. The competition and struggle among great powers will become increasingly fierce, and global order will become increasingly difficult to maintain. The tussle between China and the US will continue unabated. However, the balance of power will become increasingly favorable to China
Third, the US is increasingly unwilling to assume international responsibilities and obligations. The US has become stingy with foreign aid and debt relief, especially for countries in the Global South. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged, the US enforced vaccine protectionism. When addressing the global climate crisis, the US has deliberately evaded its leadership responsibilities as a great power.
Fourth, the US’ irresponsible financial, fiscal, and trade policies continue to wreak havoc on other countries. The US’ unilateral decoupling of the dollar from gold and its reckless monetary policies have continued to trigger global financial crises.
Fifth, to safeguard its own economic and strategic interests, the US has repeatedly launched wars without the endorsement of the international community, such as the invasion of Afghanistan, the Iraq War, and the intervention in the Libyan civil war.
Sixth, the US pushed for NATO’s eastward expansion, triggering the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and wholly sided with Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict, leading to large-scale and heartbreaking humanitarian disasters in Europe and the Middle East, actions that are alienating the US from the international community.
Seventh, the US continues to use human rights, freedom, democracy, or the “responsibility to protect” as an excuse to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, instigate regime change, and create division, arousing dissent and resentment from more and more countries.
Eighth, the US has become increasingly unwilling to participate in and abide by the international systems and rules it has established, especially in trade, investment, military, and law, which has caused much international disorder and injustice.
Ninth, the US’ security guarantees to other countries and regions are becoming increasingly unreliable, causing concern among many US allies. The US is markedly unwilling to sign new international agreements and instead withdraws from some existing agreements.
Tenth, the US domestic market is becoming increasingly closed to the outside world; less capital is invested abroad, while trade and technological protectionism are becoming increasingly wanton and intense.
Eleventh, America’s soft power, whether it is its “democracy”, human rights, capitalism, or lifestyle, which it is so proud of, has lost much of its appeal because of many decrepit phenomena in the US itself.
Twelfth, the voices against economic globalization in the US are rising, and more and more Americans oppose sending troops to fight abroad.
Thirteenth, to contain China, the US is willing to fracture the global industrial chain and supply chain, seriously damaging the interests of other countries.
Finally, with China’s rapid rise, more and more countries can lessen their dependence on the US in politics, economy, trade, technology, and security. They can gain valuable experience and support for their autonomous development from China’s developmental success.
The above points are just some of the main ones, but they are enough to illustrate the signs of the decline of the American Empire.
The main factor leading to its weakening is the continuing deterioration in the absolute and relative comprehensive national strength of the US, especially its military, diplomatic, and economic clout. The US’ huge, ever-increasing, and ultimately unbearable national debt is a substantial burden. The American Empire has also engendered many serious problems in the country, such as deindustrialization, economic virtualization, and the widening gap between rich and poor. These circumstances have not only made the US increasingly short of the resources needed to prop up its empire and maintain the loyalty and support of its allies, but have also made more and more American people no longer willing to identify with the American Empire and pay the price for it. Recently, more and more Western scholars have become pessimistic about the American Empire’s prospects; some even believe that the American Empire will have difficulty surviving. Victor Bulmer-Thomas, professor emeritus of economics at the University of London, forecast in his book Empire in Retreat: The Past, Present, and Future of the United States (2018) that in the future, “the United States will cease to play an imperialist role”.
Over the past decade, evidence of the American Empire’s decline has become crystal clear. Therefore, US President Donald Trump’s ad nauseam promises to “make America great again” seem wishful thinking. In summary, Trump’s main goals for domestic and foreign policies during his first term (2017-21) were twofold: cutting back on America’s international responsibilities, and concentrating on curbing China’s rise. After Trump became president again in 2025, he immediately issued hundreds of executive orders to advance his primary goals. They include launching a large-scale tariff war against countries around the world, imposing stricter technological and economic containment on China, withdrawing from some international organizations and international agreements, promoting the idea of incorporating Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal into the US, bypassing European allies and Ukraine to negotiate directly with Russia to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, requiring Europe to assume the primary responsibility for assisting Ukraine, striving to end the Gaza war as soon as possible at the expense of the Palestinians, requiring allies and partners to significantly increase military spending, adopting an ambiguous attitude toward US security guarantees to allies, drastically cutting federal government spending, deporting large numbers of illegal immigrants, significantly cutting foreign aid, basically giving up on exporting American democracy and values abroad, promoting the return of manufacturing to the US, and so on. Although it is debatable whether these measures will make America great again, they are enough to cause significant damage to the US domestic economy and its international credibility.
Trump is the first US president to declare China a “strategic competitor” that the US must strenuously contain. For Trump, if the US is to be great again, China should never be allowed to be on an equal footing with the US, let alone surpass the US; thus he needs to intensify US efforts to forestall China’s rise, and use coercion and inducement to move its allies to take hostile actions against China, even if they will have to suffer tremendously for doing so. To contain and harm China, Trump hopes to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict to benefit Russia, thereby improving relations with Russia and driving a wedge between Russia and China.
The end of the American Empire does not mean the world is moving toward peace, stability, fairness, and development. The competition and struggle among great powers will become increasingly fierce, and global order will become increasingly difficult to maintain. The tussle between China and the US will continue unabated. However, the balance of power will become increasingly favorable to China. Because the interests of Russia and China are deeply intertwined, and because Russia has experienced repeated deceptions by the West since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Trump’s plot to drive a wedge between China and Russia is bound to fail. Meanwhile, since the US became a destroyer of the international order, more and more countries, including those in the West, will be willing to establish or improve relations with China. China will also be more prepared to discuss rebuilding the international order with countries worldwide.
The author is a professor emeritus of sociology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a consultant for the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
