SHANGHAI - There have been numerous myths circulating about America’s power for many years.

The prowess of American power was in some way existential, but the myths were something that had been largely constructed. The myths of America’s economic, technological, and political power and security protection were among these. But the recent years have seen all four myths have been shattered across the world. And there is no reason that the U.S. is not declining.

First American economic power was shattered 
    
The U.S. used to be the single most important economy in the world, both in terms of quantity and quality. In 2001, the GDPs of the U.S., Japan, and China were respectively, 10.58 trillion, 4.37 trillion, and 1.34 trillion dollars, and the U.S. GDP was 2.4 times that of Japan, the second, and 7.9 times that of China. The U.S. was then regarded as the single most important power engine of the global economy.

But things have changed quickly in the last two decades. According to statistics, in 2024, the U.S. GDP, which was about 29.2 trillion dollars, took up 30% of the world total while that of China was 18.5 trillion dollars, 63 percent that of the U.S. Though the U.S. would remain the largest economy for the years to come, yet it had been China’s economy that had contributed to 30% of global economic growth despite difficulties in recent years in comparison to America’s 12-15%. China has remained the largest trader for 8 consecutive years, and the largest trade partner for the largest number of partners.

For many years, the U.S., together with European countries, had monopolized exports of products of high added value, high technology contents, or high brand values. But things have changed in recent years as the world found countries, including China, had taken up a significant proportion of the global market in areas requiring advanced technologies, such as telecommunication facilities, solar panels and electric vehicles, and many other advanced products.
    
The most recent decision of Trump to launch reciprocal tariffs would further isolate the U.S. as an island in the world defined by globalization. And it is widely believed that such a policy will not serve to revive U.S. industries; instead, it will accelerate the decline of U.S. economic influence. America’s contribution to the global economy will further shrink, and its status as an economic power will predictably be weakened.

In one word, the global economic landscape was changing in an unbelievable way, and the truth was out there that the U.S. was losing its advantage in both quantity and quality. The U.S. is no longer the largest power engine of the global economy, and the myth of its economic power is fading.

Second was the myth of technological power

The U.S. was regarded as the most important center of technological innovation for many years. It had been leading the world in innovation in almost all areas, including telecommunication, internet hardware and software, energy, biotechnology and military technology at the beginning of the new century.

But since the early second ten years, the U.S. has gradually lost its advantages, including in communication technology. China’s Huawei began the fifth-generation technology research in 2009 and has been leading the industry since the middle of the second ten years of the new century. And the U.S. found that it could no longer monopolize innovations in communication, solar panels, UAVs, electric vehicles, and stealth aircraft.

A couple of years ago, Americans thought that so long as it controlled the source of advanced chips, it would be able to outcompete China in AI technology and industry, as it was believed that more advanced chips were a precondition for the development of AI technology and industry. But the story of DeepSeek in early 2025 proved that China already surpassed the U.S. in some areas even without advanced chips, though China is progressing greatly in chip technology.

The U.S. might still enjoy some advantages in innovation, but its monopoly has been broken. That means the world can survive without U.S. technologies and maybe live better lives.

Third was political power defined by Western political liberalism

Francis Fukuyama used to argue that the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy was the final form of human government. Despite challenges across the world against the argument, the model of Western political liberalism has been widely enshrined for many years across the world. But history indicated that none of these duplications had succeeded, whether they were passive ones like Afghanistan and Iraq or semi-active ones by color revolutions.

Ironically, the last decade witnessed very serious political turmoil in the U.S. as a result of the so-called liberal democracy. The check-and-balance approach had evolved into a pure political instrument, bargaining for the political interests of factions instead of ensuring reasonable use of national resources. The same approach also made the U.S. government stagnate as a result of confrontations between political factions, and the frequent shutdowns of the government are just one example.

The elections of the U.S. used to be regarded as symbols of Western political liberalism. But ironically, the failure of Trump’s election in 2020 resulted in violence on Capitol Hill riots instead of liberty pursued by ordinary Americans, while the success of Trump’s election in 2024 created fanaticism in U.S. domestic politics, creating concerns not only in the world but also at home. It was also crystal clear that various elections had been dominated by lobbyists unreasonably supporting the interests of a certain foreign country.

Intervention for humanitarian concerns had long been regarded as another symbol of political liberalism. For many years, the U.S. had been waving the banner of intervention in the name of protecting humanism. But the recent case of the U.S. position on the Palestine issue has fully demonstrated the hypocritical nature of the approach. The U.S. had provided political shelter and military assistance for Israel’s atrocities on the territories designated to Palestinians in the UN General Assembly resolution 181. All these happened without regard to the humanitarian disaster in Palestine.

To put it another way, the so-called American political liberalism has made its domestic politics unbelievably chaotic and exposed to the world its political hypocrisy.

Fourth was American security protection

There used to be a strong belief among some countries that the U.S. could provide security umbrellas. In the Persian Gulf region, such a belief had been strengthened by the military operations led by the U.S. to drive Saddam Hussein back to Iraq in the early 1990s. But the countries had woken up to the reality that the U.S. failed to live up to its security commitments in 2019 through 2020.

Some Palestinians believed that they could depend on the U.S. for their liberation and or protection of their security. However, the extremely biased approach of the U.S. only increased their desperation.

The most typical example should be the Ukraine case. The U.S., under Biden’s presidency, sent very strong signals of security protection for Ukraine. It was largely due to such signals that Ukraine refused a political solution to the confrontation at the very beginning of 2022. Unfortunately, the year 2025, during Trump’s presidency, the U.S. reneged on its security protection, which turned over an exactly opposite page for the Ukraine issue, leaving Ukraine in anxiety and loss of direction.

Lessons of the Middle East are serious, while the lesson of Ukraine is even bitter. The U.S. itself is deconstructing the myth of its security protection, though illusions could exist in some other areas, like the Asia-Pacific for the U.S.

In one word, it might be true that the U.S. was a terrifying, gigantic power, with which various myths of its power had formed. However, something constructed can be equally deconstructed. Myths of American power are there largely by construction and are being deconstructed with the passing of time and history. And Americans themselves, including Donald Trump, are actually part of the global efforts of such deconstruction. There is no reason that the U.S. will not decline.

By Dr. Jin Liangxiang is a Senior Fellow of Shanghai Institutes for International Studies