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Nov. 15, 2023: Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden take a walk after their talks in the Filoli Estate in the U.S. state of California
The Trump factor
In terms of domestic politics, ahead of presidential elections due next year, the unthinkable is happening in the United States. A president subject to investigations and court interrogations is effectively his party's favorite candidate, by far. If former president Donald Trump is not convicted he will be the Republican candidate, and — if they're not careful — president for a second time. Paradoxically of course if this were happening in any other country — a candidate facing prosecution about to run for office again — the Americans would be the first ones to criticize and sanction that country.
This has also become an electoral issue.
With the Ukraine situation unresolved, now the war in Gaza is raging, and it has also become an electoral issue. Israel's response to the horrible terror attack by Hamas has been indiscriminate and so bloody as to provoke criticisms inside U.S. society, and especially among young Democrats, for their government's unrestricted support for Israel.
November 13, 2023, USA: Former President Donald Trump arrives at the border in south Texas
Delcia Lopez/ZUMA
A series of international failures
On the international stage, the unipolar world is no more and we face a multipolar world with emerging powers presenting the United States with a new scenario. It is no longer the unquestioned, lead actor on the world stage.
A series of wars in the Middle East that followed the September 11 attacks, in which the United States did now win, have fed the view that the United States is losing its global leadership. This usually grows with victories and declines with failures, which include the invasion of Iraq 20 years ago, then of Afghanistan, which the U.S. abruptly abandoned in 2022 leaving the country to the Taliban.
In cases like Libya, Syria and Yemen we have unfinished wars, devastated countries and populations in a state of utter desperation.
The fear of China's power
Then there is the issue of the Americans' fears of China's rise as a power. This has fueled a gigantic rivalry that benefits neither those powers nor anyone in the world.
China is now the chief trading partner of more than 60 countries.
With economic aid, China has reached geographies that are now off limits to the United States: Africa and Latin America. China is now the chief trading partner of more than 60 countries.
The United States and China must lower the tensions that began with Trump and his sanctions on traded consumer goods. The world is grappling with some big issues, like climate change and AI. The two powers must work on these together, for the good of humanity.
* Holguín was Colombia's foreign minister from 2010 to 2018.
