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245 points CrankyBear | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.642s | source
1. jmyeet ◴[] No.45775985[source]
This administration in particular has done more to erode and destroy American soft power than any other and it's not even close.

A lot of people fundamnetally misunderstand the source of the US's power. Some think it's because oil and other commodities are traded in US dollars. It's not. Oil is traded in US dollars because of American soft and hard power, not the other way around. Sell oil in euros and people will just trade their euros for USD for the exact same reasons.

The ultimate source of American global power is the US military, period. Where the British Empire once was so powerful because it was the world's drug dealer (first tobacco, later opium), the US is the world's arms dealer. The US got incredibly wealthy from WW1 and WW2 and there are many conflicts to this day where each side is firing US sourced weapons at each other.

It requires finesse to maintain this position. It's a bit like being a bank. A bank needs a certain facade of predictability, even neutrality, to continue to profit off whatever happens. People can revolt against the bank and the banking system. It's happened before (eg penny auctions in the Great Depression).

What this administration is teaching the world is that the US is becoming unreliable. It's now a threat to sovereignty and national security to be reliant on the US, for anything. This goes well beyond cloud services and US tech giants. The US was always capable of turning on its protectorates and puppet states but it generally behaved in a far more restrained way to maintain the illusion of independance or at least to prioritize stability and predictability.

I fully expect in the coming years that the EU is going to create their own competitors to things like AWS and they're going to do it by mandating its use by all government systems. It's going to be the new Airbus counter to Boeing.

China is way ahead in this game. A lot of people (myself included) like to point to how much infrastructure, particularly rail, China has built in the last few decades. But fewer look at how they've done it. China originally bought European high speed intercity trains but that was temporary. They bootstrapped their own industries and produce their own trains now. And they use the same rolling stock on all metros and intercity lines to avoid the inefficiencies of localized procurement processes.

I believe that a command economy like China will be the clear winner of the 21st century.

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2. kelnos ◴[] No.45776246[source]
> I believe that a command economy like China will be the clear winner of the 21st century.

I agree that the "command" aspect has been an asset for China, but the real drivers of their economic success has been cheap labor (fueled by weak labor protections), and indifference toward burning fossil fuels (until recently) and in general ignoring the externalities of their rapid industrialization.

If US companies could pay people dirt, work them to death, and care even less than they do now about environmental externalities, a lot more manufacturing would have stayed on US soil.

> This administration in particular has done more to erode and destroy American soft power than any other and it's not even close.

Yup. It is still entirely bizarre to me that they don't see this. Or that they do see this, but think it's fine. Or that there is some other "plan" that actively seeks to destroy the US's dominance from within, and for some reason they think that's a good thing.

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3. jmyeet ◴[] No.45776800[source]
The idea of poverty wages in China is very outdated. Labor isn't even necessarily "cheap" anymore in China. But why people continue to manufacture there is because of the infrastructure there.

China has a long-term vision for sustainable devlopment [1]. China is excellent at long-term planning that looks 50 years or more into the future.

As for renewable power, China is adding capacity at an astounding rate. China will likely ween itself. They'll likely end the use of fossil fuels in our lifetime.

As much as housing and food affordability are now very real problems in the US, utility prices are going to get so much worse in the next few years with the administration killing renewables, increasing LNG exports (we're now heavily reliant on natural gas) and we're allowing privatized utilities to price gouge.

[1]: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-06-05/President-Xi-s-key-quo...