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America at 250: The New Economics of U.S. Power

As trade fragments, supply chains prioritize resilience over efficiency and A.I. reshapes global finance, the United States is becoming less the architect of the international system than its most indispensable participant.

As America marks its 250th anniversary,  commentary predictably divides between decline and renewal. Is the country fading or entering another period of reinvention? From outside the United States, the answer looks different. Having spent my career allocating capital and building businesses across seventeen countries, I have watched American power the way sailors watch weather: as something that shapes every journey, whether welcome or not. From that vantage point, neither story is right. America is neither declining nor renewing. It is changing the kind of power it holds, and many outside the United States are adapting to that shift faster than America itself. 

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For three generations, the U.S. was more than the world’s largest economy. It was the operating systems of global commerce. It built an empire of institutions, underpinned the reserve currency, shaped trade rules and set standards others either adopted or worked around. American leadership meant rule-making. The next chapter looks different. America remains indispensable, but is becoming the largest and most influential node in a network it no longer fully controls.

Consider trade. For eighty years, the American project was a rules-based system, imperfect and self-serving in places, but predictable: a manufacturer in Lyon, France or a logistics company in Jebel Ali, UAE could plan a decade ahead. That predictability is gone,........

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