The argument of this paper, completed at the end of December 2020, has become more relevant today as the US withdrawal from Afghanistan underlines much of what we say about the decline of US power. They include the following: The US so-called exorbitant privilege and they have dictated the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Triffin Dilemma of US current account and budget deficits putting downward pressure on the dollar never went away. Today, when a decade of Quantitative Easing has been topped by even greater money creation, the dollar is sinking, generating pressures to raise taxes and cut spending. The financializations that the US has employed in recent decades to keep money flowing into the dollar creditocracy and hold up the dollar to be sustained by Federal Reserve support for major asset markets. The cost that creating and maintaining the dollar creditocracy has exacted from the US economy is no longer bearable. The rivals and victims of the US creditocracy are today numerous, growing and increasingly allied in a challenge to the dollar creditocracy. They are creating a multi-and pluripolar world where US unilateralism is no longer just resented, but simply rejected.
