One outcome of the Donald Trump clown show is that we can safely say the period of U.S. hegemony in the world has come to an end. His erratic policies and bizarre statements have undoubtedly convinced almost everyone that the United States cannot be viewed as a reliable ally, if not actually an enemy.

In the case of Europe, Trump is threatening military force against a longstanding ally and threatening to tax imports (tariffs) from the continent for reasons that don’t make sense to anyone but him. The same is true for our immediate neighbors, Canada and Mexico.

Trump has shown Latin America that he wants to act like a 19th century imperialist towards them. The U.S. allies in East Asia surely recognize that they cannot look to the U.S. for support and will reach accommodations with China.

And Africa now recognizes the intense racism with which Trump regards the continent after he suspended PEPFAR, a program that cost less than 0.1 percent of the federal budget and has saved tens of millions of lives.

Now that China has an economy that is already one-third larger than the U.S. economy, and well ahead of us in many key areas, like electric vehicles, solar panels, energy storage, and now AI, there is no reason for countries to rely on a country whose economy is run like a TV game show.

In the years ahead we can expect that China will be the world’s leading country in most areas and the U.S. will be racing towards autarky.