For almost a century, the global face of America has not been Uncle Sam, but a shiny red logo with swirling white letters that spell out “Coca-Cola.” The Coca-Cola Company distributes its products in every country but Cuba and North Korea, transforming the fizzy brown drink into many people’s first interaction with America’s vast cultural influence in the international sphere. And when a country’s culture — its consumeristic desires, its aesthetic ideals, its economic model — is so inextricably bound with that of the U.S., the latter holds immense soft power: coined by Joseph Nye to mean America’s ability to “get other countries to want what it wants.”
However, if Trump’s presidential administration continues prioritizing “America First” policies, the country’s global leadership will slip, enabling China to expand its influence on the international order.
At the conclusion of World War II, the U.S. emerged as the sole global economic superpower — America had been the world’s largest economy since the late 19th century, but with Europe and Japan suffering destruction of infrastructure and significant workforce losses, the U.S. cultivated a production power comparable to all other countries combined. With only about 6% of the world’s population, the U.S. produced 46% of global electric power, controlled 59% of oil reserves, drove 60% of the world’s cars, and used 70% of its telephones.
The spread of U.S. consumer goods in Europe was in large part accelerated by American troops that had been stationed there after the war. When the hungry, miserable population of postwar Europe was met with the well-fed, energetic, young, and fun American GIs, the latter seemed to represent the abundance and happiness of America. GIs brought with them American chewing gum, cigarettes, nylons, chocolate, and Coca-Cola, among other goods, sharing them with eager Europeans through parties, relationships with local women, and gifts to children. When stationed troops listened to swing, blues, jazz, and rock, Europeans tuned in to catch a snippet of the music of the New World. The absorption of American consumer goods at a time when they were considered rare luxury items promoted the vision of a wealthy, fun, generous American culture.
The U.S. then sought to capitalize on its international cultural appeal as it established a sphere of influence in the international order of the Cold War. It did so via initiatives and the establishment of agencies that intended to promote the American way of life — democracy, consumerism, and a liberal, free-market economy — and combatting communist propaganda from the USSR.
The Marshall Plan, signed by President Harry Truman in 1948, provided 13.2 billion USD in aid to recovering Western European countries, conditioned on recipients spending those dollars on American-made goods and lowering trade barriers, a mechanism called tied aid. As the primary producer at the time, the U.S. itself supplied most of what was bought. The program was also a huge success for America’s international image, establishing the U.S. as the country of progress, modernity, luxury, wealth, and generosity.
Another important program was the United States Information Agency (USIA), established under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1953, which operated in 150 countries to cast American democracy, culture, and markets in their best light. The broadcaster Voice of America (VOA), which was adopted by the USIA at its founding, included round-the-clock programs in over 50 languages that conveyed American news, travel, and music. In many of the countries in which it transmitted, the VOA was one of the few pieces of free media, making it even more appealing. At its height, the USIA managed libraries in 65 countries that were open to all visitors and offered books, cultural programs, and speakers. The books — readily consumed as a free and accessible educational resource — were specially selected to spread a positive view of American culture and values. The USIA also published magazines in 20 languages, including “Problems of Communism” which criticizes Soviet and Chinese developments, and “America Illustrated” in the USSR, which sold so well it became a black-market item.
Additionally, the Motion Picture Export Association (MPEA) was created in 1945 with the mission of ensuring American movies found a lasting grip on the global market. By 1995, half of Hollywood’s earnings came from foreign profits, demonstrating the breadth of cultural dissemination via film. “Grease” (1978), “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) were each the highest-grossing films internationally of their release year. Showcasing an exhilarating, nostalgic vision of American adolescence set to rock and roll, a charismatic American adventurer who outwits Nazis on their own turf, and a suburban nuclear family whose decency is rewarded with wonder and wholesomeness, the three films export a glamorizing American self-image of youthfulness, bravery, marvel, and benevolence.
Due to the appeal of Hollywood, the MPEA was able to successfully negotiate importation with foreign governments, fight protectionism abroad, and lobby for international trade agreements that would benefit the distribution of Hollywood. With a constant flow of American movies into developing nations such as Brazil, their cultural values have shifted to reflect those of the U.S., with individualism, consumerism, and free market capitalism rising in popularity.
Major international organizations, including the UN, the IMF, and the World Bank — established under U.S. leadership at the close of World War II and of which the U.S. is the largest financial contributor — also operate on these values. In particular, during the Third World Debt Crisis of the 1980s, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, the IMF extended loans conditioned on market liberalization, requiring borrowing governments to reduce subsidies, privatize state enterprises, and open capital accounts. Consequently, between the 1980s and 2010s, the number of liberal democracies grew from roughly 100 to 150, and free market economies from 40 to nearly 100.
Part of the success of America’s global cultural dominion can be attributed to the idea that soft power is most effective when it is acquired via consent as opposed to coercion, and people worldwide wanted to consume what America marketed itself as: affluent, fun, and free. Thus, American values of personal liberty, consumerism, and free-market capitalism are seamlessly integrated into the global stage, with the U.S. as their leader.
However, America’s soft power has recently been slipping as a result of the Trump administration’s “America First” policies. In the past, the humanitarian and philanthropic approach of the U.S. has firmly portrayed the country as a benevolent leader of global development. However, recent actions by the Trump administration, such as the withdrawal of the U.S. from the World Health Organization, have caused skepticism about the motivations of American institutions abroad. Dr. Judd Walson, chair of international health at Johns Hopkins, cited a growing sense that the U.S. is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” whose motives for multilateral collaborations were “self-serving.” With the administration canceling more than 5,300 foreign aid awards — including medical assistance in Afghanistan and Gaza, programs combating malnutrition and preventable disease globally, and a $500 million cut to the UN’s HIV prevention program — America’s leverage over the UN to influence reforms, contracts, and peace deals has suffered.
Part of the USAID cuts targeted grants for programs aimed at reducing and alleviating gender-based violence, especially in Venezuela and Haiti. Given that escaping violence against women is a known cause of migration to the U.S., these cuts are especially impactful with President Trump’s executive order that includes blocking the entry of asylum seekers, and the Supreme Court’s decision allowing the administration to revoke temporary protected status for refugees. Meanwhile, ICE has also rescinded longstanding guardrails that kept raids out of schools and hospitals and has been scrutinized for its habitual abuse of migrants.
Trump’s crackdown on immigration extends to education as well. While America’s historic ability to attract and educate the world’s best students has contributed to its soft power, increased denial rates of student visas under Trump — particularly for applicants from India and Africa — has caused a drop in interest in America’s postgraduate studies. Instead, many students are looking to Europe, Australia, and China. Through anti-immigration policies, Trump’s administration is undercutting the very asset Nye identified as a distinctly American strength: that millions of people worldwide wished to — and could — build their lives in America.
Additionally, President Trump again withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, ratified in 2015 to ensure each member assumes a corresponding level of accountability for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, after having done so in his first term. Through these actions, Trump’s U.S. is displaying a lack of willingness for international collaboration and weakening America’s diplomatic power. Meanwhile, China, Brazil, India, and other countries in the Global South, rushing to fill the leadership gap, have already committed to strengthening their cooperation, increasing their renewable energy capacity, and tackling climate change together at the helm.
Largely as a result of these actions, Pew Research finds that in 19 of 22 countries surveyed in 2023 and 2025, views of the U.S. have soured, whereas views of China became more positive in all surveyed countries except Mexico, India, and South Korea. While in 2023 the median difference in favorability between the U.S. and China was 27.5 percentage points for the U.S., in 2025 this median difference reduced to merely 1.5 points, demonstrating that a global drop in positive views of the U.S. has left China in a strong position to close the leadership gap.
China’s poor global image in 2023, with a median of only 26% favorability, was not for lack of effort. China has been actively engaged in a soft power campaign — which has cost over a trillion dollars — since at least 2007, when the term was explicitly mentioned in a national policy of the Chinese Communist Party. Since then, China has pursued avenues of growing soft power such as the expansion of state media propaganda, the Belt and Road Initiative to increase regional connectivity, and Confucius Institutes to promote Chinese language learning.
Until Trump’s second term, the campaign was mostly unsuccessful on a global scale. In fact, scholars have argued that the perception of Chinese culture actively works against China’s soft power goals — China’s image is overwhelmingly tainted by its authoritarianism, which lacks values essential to global appeal such as peace, development, cooperation, democracy, justice, and human rights. In essence, countries do not want to be like China, so its government’s attempts at improving public opinion are received as propagandistic and manipulative — contrary to what successful soft power requires.
But now, although China’s culture has not fundamentally changed or become more appealing in the last two years, China is still seeing improvements in its global image thanks to U.S. missteps. China has not made significant steps to fill the financial void the U.S. has left in international organizations either. Instead of spending extra money on foreign funds, it suffices for China to portray itself as the more reliable partner — for example, by simultaneously noting Trump’s position that climate change is a “hoax” and reasserting China’s own climate goals. The U.S. spent the entire post-WWII era building and reinforcing the institutional infrastructure of its global leadership; its current administration is dismantling it while China is calling attention to it and accumulating soft power without investing anything new itself.
In this light, China’s recent favorability gains are better read as a reaction to the Trump administration’s foreign policy. At its 250th birthday, the U.S. faces a threat to its hegemony not from external competition but self-inflicted decline. While consumer goods built American soft power, they alone cannot sustain it while the administration undermines America’s foreign influence. If the U.S. wishes to maintain its global soft power, it must recenter what first made it appealing: the credible promise that America is a torch of prosperity and modernity not just for itself, but for nations globally that require its aid.
Associate Science and Technology Editor
