Some politicians in the U.S. have repeatedly claimed that it is "the greatest country in the world," but other countries do not seem willing to be part of this "one-man show."

According to a poll of 13 countries conducted by the Pew Research Centre in September, only 41 percent of Britons had a positive attitude towards the U.S. image, the lowest level recorded by the agency in the UK, compared with 31 percent in France, the lowest since 2003, and 26 percent in Germany.

In recent years, the U.S. reputation has been declining, which is partly to do with its wielding the "sanctions stick" to hinder the development of the world economy.

In the three years from 2017 to 2019 alone, the U.S. government imposed more than 3,200 sanctions on foreign entities and individuals, according to law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Meanwhile, countries such as Iran, Cuba and Venezuela have long been subject to American sanctions. It’s fair to say that the U.S. is currently the greatest threat to global economic security.

In June this year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani admitted that Iran was going through its most difficult year because of sanctions and the COVID-19 epidemic. With Iran's GDP falling by 27 percent, the U.S. still refuses to end its sanctions, and U.S. President Trump is still reluctant to pull off his mask of hypocrisy, continuing to claim that "Iran can be a great country."

In addition to Iran, the U.S. has been imposing sanctions on Cuba for 60 years, resulting in the slow development of the country’s domestic economy. Meanwhile, Venezuela has also suffered from U.S. sanctions. The U.S. consistently stabs people in the back while telling sanctimonious lies.

While imposing heavier sanctions on Iran, Venezuela and other "hostile" countries, the "long-arm jurisdiction" of U.S. global hegemony has not spared its own "allies."

As we all know, Alstom, the "industrial pearl" of France, was "dismembered" by the United States, and in the last century, Japan was also suppressed by the U.S. in the notorious "Toshiba incident". Over the years, various countries have been hit hard by the "long arm jurisdiction" of the U.S., resulting in heavy losses that have been shocking.

In recent years, the U.S. has continued to expand the scope of its "long-arm jurisdiction” to cover civil infringement, financial investment, antitrust, export control, cybersecurity, and many other areas. 

Furthermore, in international affairs, entities or individuals of other countries are often required to obey U.S. domestic law, or could be subject to sanctions at any time. The U.S. wantonly abuses its "long-arm jurisdiction" and puts its own interests over those of other countries, seriously undermines the international norms of sovereign equality of countries, and seriously endangers the stability and security of the global supply chain and value chain.

On top of that, the U.S. is in the habit of recklessly waving its "tariff stick", for instance, maintaining a 15 percent tariff on French Airbus's large civil aircraft and re-imposing a 10 percent tariff on some Canadian aluminum products exported to the United States.

The U.S. frequently imposes tariffs to interfere in imports and exports, or employs financial hegemony to blackmail other countries by controlling capital flows, freezing U.S. dollar assets and foreign exchange reserves, thus seriously hindering the development of global economy and trade. According to the quarterly report "Global Trade Update" released by UNCTAD, the global trade volume shrank by 5 percent year‑on‑year in the third quarter of this year. In the post-epidemic era, the U.S. imposition of tariffs on goods from other countries has without doubt hindered the recovery of world trade and the economic recovery of a number of countries.

At the same time, America's own problems are creating trouble for the world economy. The U.S. economy accounts for about 25 percent of global GDP. However, today, its huge debt has exceeded the size of its economy, not only casting a shadow over the economic prospects of the country itself, but also becoming one of the factors that are threatening the stability of the world economy, inevitably prompting anxiety among countries around the world.

Even more disturbingly, at present, with more than 9 million confirmed cases and more than 230,000 deaths, the COVID-19 epidemic in the U.S. has not been properly brought under control. The loss of jobs caused by the epidemic alone will lead to a reduction in consumer spending, prompting a decline in imports and a negative impact on the world economy.

The world economy should be one that works on the principle of mutual benefits and win-win cooperation. Instead, the U.S. frequently uses its trade dominance to provoke international economic and trade frictions, and its unilateralism and hegemonism have repeatedly infringed upon the interests of other countries, resulting in large economic losses and laying hidden dangers for the global economy.