There are moments in history when power does not merely shift—it exposes itself. The first year of Donald Trump’s second term has become such a moment, not because it introduced entirely new instruments of American statecraft, but because it redirected the same tools of pressure, coercion, and economic weaponization that the United States once reserved for weaker or dependent nations toward its own traditional allies. In doing so, Washington did not just shock the global system; it fractured it, driving country after country—by calculation, necessity, or defiance—into the strategic and economic orbit of China.
For decades, the United States shaped the political and financial architecture of much of the developing world through a familiar mechanism: military reach, dollar dominance, and institutional leverage over global bodies such as the IMF and World Bank. Countries in South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and parts of Africa learned to live within a system where access to capital, trade, and even political legitimacy could be expanded or constricted at Washington’s discretion. Many endured in silence, not because they agreed, but because they lacked the economic or military weight to resist.
What changed in this era is not the method, but the target. The same logic of tariffs, sanctions, threats, and strategic intimidation was applied to nations that had long believed themselves protected by alliance and shared identity. Canada, Europe, and the wider Western hemisphere were confronted not as partners, but as economic adversaries and strategic liabilities. This reversal carried a powerful message: loyalty offered no immunity.
Canada’s experience became a defining case study. Accusations of economic exploitation, sweeping tariff threats, and rhetoric that questioned Canada’s sovereignty struck at the heart of a relationship built on the world’s deepest bilateral trade integration. For Ottawa, the conclusion was stark. Dependency on a single market had become a strategic risk. The response was not submission, but diversification. Trade corridors were widened toward the European Union through CETA, expanded across the Asia-Pacific via the CPTPP, and recalibrated toward energy and investment ties with the Gulf and Asia. China, as the world’s largest trading nation, inevitably became central to this recalibration—not by ideological alignment, but by economic gravity.
Europe’s pivot followed a parallel but more consequential path. The dispute over Greenland, framed by Washington as a strategic necessity for missile defense and Arctic dominance, was read in European capitals as a unilateral assertion of power that disregarded sovereignty and alliance consultation. The European Union, often divided on policy, responded with rare cohesion. The rejection of American demands was not merely territorial—it was systemic. It reflected a growing determination to insulate Europe’s political and economic future from what it increasingly viewed as unpredictable American pressure.
This shift soon extended into the financial realm. European policymakers began openly discussing the risks of overexposure to U.S. Treasury holdings and the vulnerability created by dollar-dominated trade and settlement systems. This trend has taken on new political meaning in an environment where financial access is increasingly treated as a strategic weapon.
At the same time, the BRICS bloc—now expanded to include major energy producers and regional powers—has accelerated efforts to build alternative mechanisms for trade settlement, development finance, and cross-border investment that bypass traditional Western-controlled institutions. Local-currency trade arrangements, new development banks, and parallel payment systems are no longer theoretical exercises; they are active projects driven by a shared desire to reduce vulnerability to American financial leverage.
In this environment, China has not needed to aggressively recruit allies. Its role as the central node of global manufacturing, trade, and infrastructure has done much of the work. With annual trade volumes exceeding $4 trillion and deep supply-chain integration across Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America, China has become economically indispensable to much of the world. The Belt and Road Initiative, spanning more than 140 countries, has embedded Chinese capital, logistics, and construction into the physical and economic foundations of entire regions. For many states, disengaging from China is no longer a policy option—it is an economic impossibility.
Europe’s own posture toward Beijing illustrates this reality. Only a few years ago, European policy focused on “de-risking” and restricting Chinese investment in strategic sectors. Today, that posture is being recalibrated at unprecedented speed. High-level dialogues on industrial cooperation, green technology, electric vehicles, and infrastructure investment reflect a recognition that Europe’s economic competitiveness is tied to engagement with China, not isolation from it.
Canada’s recalibration mirrors this logic. Energy partnerships with the Gulf, expanded Asian trade, and financial diversification are not ideological statements; they are strategic hedges against a United States that has signaled its willingness to weaponize economic interdependence.
Across the Global South, the pattern is even more pronounced. Countries in Africa, Central Asia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia—many already deeply embedded in Belt and Road projects—see in this Western fracture a confirmation of their long-held belief that reliance on a single power center is dangerous. For them, China’s appeal lies not in moral claims or ideological alignment, but in scale, speed, and predictability of economic engagement.
This is where the geopolitical landscape takes on its starkest contrast. As China’s economic centrality expands, the United States finds itself increasingly isolated in political terms. In this emerging narrative, only one relationship remains absolute: the United States and Israel, bound together in mutual political and strategic defense as much by global criticism as by shared policy.
Israel, facing growing diplomatic, legal, and public pressure across Europe, the Global South, and even within Western societies, leans heavily on American veto power and political backing in international forums. The United States, in turn, finds itself defending Israel in a world where sympathy and alignment are steadily shifting elsewhere. The result is a form of strategic isolation that contrasts sharply with China’s expanding web of economic partnerships.
The Western hemisphere, once considered America’s natural sphere of influence, now reflects this tension. Caribbean and Latin American states increasingly engage China as a primary trade partner, infrastructure financier, and development lender. In Africa, China has surpassed traditional Western powers in trade volume and project scale. In the Middle East, even long-standing U.S. partners diversify toward Beijing for energy, technology, and investment ties.
What emerges is not a world won by China through conquest or coercion, but one reshaped by America’s own confrontational posture. The paradox of this moment is that America’s political capital is eroding. China, by contrast, often avoids overt military or ideological confrontation, relying instead on the slow, cumulative force of economic integration. The gravitational pull of markets, supply chains, and infrastructure has proven more durable than the shock of tariffs or the threat of sanctions.
In the unfolding order, China’s rise has not been driven solely by its own strategy, but by the vacuum created as the United States confronts rather than consolidates. The world’s capitals, boardrooms, and ministries increasingly calculate their futures not in terms of allegiance, but in terms of access—to markets, to capital, to infrastructure, and to stability. In that calculation, Beijing now sits at the center of the equation.
What history may ultimately record is not merely a contest between two powers, but a transformation in how power itself is measured. Military strength and financial dominance remain formidable, but in a world bound by trade, technology, and shared vulnerability, the ability to attract, integrate, and sustain economic relationships may prove to be the decisive force of the century.
The writer is Press Secretary to the President (Rtd),Former Press Minister, Embassy of Pakistan to France,Former Press Attaché to Malaysia and Former MD, SRBC .He is living in Macomb, Michigan
