Winton Dong

dht0620@126.com

JULY 4 is the national day of the United States. Separated from Great Britain with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the United States endured a long-time path to gradually construct itself into a superpower in the world.

The path of constructing international fame and muscle augmentation is surely bumpy and even thorny. Since the initial stage of its independence, the United States had been severely curbed by Britain and other European countries. In 1814, the British army once occupied Washington and burned the White House and the Capitol. When the American Civil War began in 1861, Britain, France and Spain took it for granted that the U.S. would be divided into two nations, so these countries offered military help to the wealthy southern states. Their hope was finally dashed by the victory of the northern forces led by Abraham Lincoln.

The two world wars offered wonderful opportunities for the U.S. to grow bigger and stronger. Especially after World War II, the U.S. established the Bretton Woods system in 1944 and has led the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 1949. The reputation of the U.S. reached its climax in the early 1990s when the country successfully disintegrated its archrival the Soviet Union and the Soviet-led Warsaw Treaty Organization. To pave the way for those socialist countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America to transform into capitalist systems, the U.S. authorities invited all parties concerned to meet in Washington in 1990, which resulted in the famous Washington Consensus.

The process of construction is quite tough and slow. However, deconstruction seems much simpler and faster. Since the 1990s, the U.S. has been deconstructing the existing international framework which was built and guided by itself from various perspectives.

From an economic perspective, the U.S. is more self-protective and conservative than before. Since taking power, U.S. President Donald Trump has been using tariffs as a baton to beat other countries all over the world. As for its trade friction with China, the U.S. threatens to levy high tariffs on Chinese products. Actually, China is not the only sufferer of the U.S. protectionist and unilateral policies. Before the G7 Summit this year, the Trump administration also announced it was imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum products from allied regions and countries such as the European Union, Canada and Mexico.

From a political perspective, the Trump administration has shown a strong centrifugal trend. As a businessman-turned-politician, Trump really needs some well-versed and sophisticated assistants who can quench his fire for him. However, since February 2017, national security adviser Michael Flynn, chief strategist Steve Bannon, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin, just naming a few of them, have resigned. According to concerned statistics, more than 60 percent of high-ranking U.S. officials nominated at the end of 2016 have already left the Trump administration. The U.S. has further isolated itself by paralyzing international organizations. During the past one and a half years, it has left or threatened to leave the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the Paris Climate Accord, UNESCO, the Iran nuclear deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the U.N. Human Rights Council.

From a military perspective, the U.S. has initiated many wars in the world. Many times now, the justifications for the U.S. military actions have proved to be totally wrong or based on fabricated evidence. We still remember what happened to Iraq in 2003 when the U.S. invaded the country, claiming its president Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Even after the U.S. army occupied Iraq and killed Saddam, no such weapons were found. In 2018, the U.S. and its allies pre-emptively attacked three governmental locations in Syria by cruise missiles before an international investigation into suspected chemical weapons there was conducted.

From a diplomatic perspective, the U.S. administration shows disparage and contempt toward many emerging countries. In a meeting with a group of senators in January 2018, President Trump questioned why the U.S. would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “shithole” countries in Africa. Frankly speaking, it is common for U.S. leaders to use derogatory terms to describe other countries, but it is rare to use such disparaging and vulgar remarks publicly. Meanwhile, from the G7 Summit in Quebec last month, we can also know that the U.S. is gradually losing its traditional allies. The meeting ended with huge discrepancies between Trump and leaders of the other six countries. Due to their disputes, the bloc has thus been ridiculed and dubbed “G6+1” by Western media.

(The author is the editor-in-chief of the Shenzhen Daily with a Ph.D. from the Journalism and Communication School of Wuhan University.)