[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/futurama_earth_flag_9841.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350: "My fellow Earthicans..."]]

->''"We're an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality, we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to study what we do."''
-->-- '''Karl Rove''' (chief advisor to UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush)

The United States of America is capable not only of utilizing its long-range nuclear arsenal to devastate almost anyone anywhere at any time, but possibly also using ground forces to invade and occupy any country they can land on including China and India (although the experience of Vietnam should show that superior military hardware is no guarantee against a lower-tech foe with sheer numbers, determination, and significant foreign material aid). Given that the USA chews through about half the entire world's military spending ''on its own'', it might still have this kind of power in forty years or so. Thus, a common conceit of sci-fi and some {{satire}} is for the USA to take over the world. Jokes about entire countries becoming the n+50th state are common. The recent economic shift in the new millennium will put this theory to the test. Since at least the 1980s, American culture has influenced other countries worldwide due to the rise of computers and the Internet, fast food joints (e.g. [=McDonald=]'s) and Hollywood movies that use computer generated imagery (CGI) and special effects that are far more renowned than those found in another film industry. Americans, including their high school and college students, have a more advanced working knowledge of computer science than any other country. While its secondary school test scores are sometimes dismissed as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#PISA_2015_ranking_summary average]], by upper income nation standards, it has a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment very high rate of tertiary education attainment]] (even by upper income standards) and the best universities in the world[[note]]On the Shanghai Rankings, Times Higher Education Rankings, U.S. News and World Report Rankings, and Center For World University Rankings, the U.S. possesses around a quarter of the world's top 1,000 universities and the majority of the world's top 100, despite having less than 5% of the planet's population.[[/note]] and is considered to possess greater technology and better-access markets to commodities than any other nation. A strong plurality of the world's billionaires are Americans, with Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos being the richest (although fluctuations in his company's value can make him swap ranks with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates).

SubTrope of both TakeOverTheWorld and ExpandedStatesOfAmerica. Compare UnitedSpaceOfAmerica. See also JapanTakesOverTheWorld, RussiaTakesOverTheWorld and ChinaTakesOverTheWorld. The latter two makes it tragic if this trope were ''not'' in full effect.

Although not required, OppressiveStatesOfAmerica can easily overlap with this trope for obvious reasons. The EvilStatesOfAmerica also often combines elements of both. [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Unrelated]] to EaglelandOsmosis, in which American culture ''figuratively'' takes over the world.

Opposing tropes are DividedStatesOfAmerica, FallenStatesOfAmerica, and InvadedStatesOfAmerica, all of which portray the United States in a much weaker position than in real life.

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!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* In ''Anime/BubblegumCrisis'' almost everybody has at least half-Western name, and there's a black chief of police, among other decidedly un-Japanese details in this futuristic city of Megatokyo. It's probably a direct ShoutOut to ''Film/BladeRunner'', which featured a huge Japanese population in America.
* The second season of ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'' reveals the motive of the U.S. involvement in the GambitPileup being that America wants to be a superpower again. The ending has [[spoiler:American forces invading Japan, and it's implied that they succeed to some degree.]] Of course, this is one of the ''less bizarre'' events that happens in [[GainaxEnding that ending]].
* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'' America clearly dominates the Union powerbloc that includes the entire western hemisphere, plus Japan.
* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'' most of the world is dominated by the Holy Britannian Empire, but Britain itself has been lost. However, the American Revolution was crushed and thus the colonies became the new base of the empire, which proceeded to take over the entirety of both American continents.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* In ''ComicBook/SupermanRedSon'', Superman, who in this AlternateUniverse landed in the Soviet Union as a baby and was indoctrinated by Josef Stalin and eventually becomes the Soviet Premier, integrates almost all the world (minus the USA and Chile) into the Soviet Union and enforces his rule through harsh methods like forcible lobotomies on dissidents. However, when Superman tries to annex the United States, President Lex Luthor outsmarts and seemingly kills him. In the aftermath, the liberated nations in the former Global Soviet Union now sign up to join Lex's new Global United States. The Global United States later colonizes the entire Solar System, thus [[UnitedSpaceOfAmerica taking this trope to interplanetary levels]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* ''Film/TeamAmericaWorldPolice'' revolves around a team of American patriot puppets enforcing America's own interests across the globe and that the only nation gone rogue is North Korea.
* In the future of ''WesternAnimation/MeetTheRobinsons'' Canada is referred to briefly as North Montana.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* Bill Williamson in ''Film/Rampage2009'' and its two sequels states this trope is in full effect and he is anti-American. Bill, who was a low-class mechanic making $8 or less an hour, took to becoming a mass shooter and did armed robbery on a bank to escape his financial problems. Bill asserts that America is without universal health care, strict gun control, regulation on big banks, livable wages and overspends on its military and defense enforcing its best interests upon foreign lands instead of spending on its own people for health care, education, housing or food.
-->'''Bill Williamson''': America is the mightiest military superpower in the world fueled by high-tech and geniuses in Silicon Valley and massive advances in computer technology. All just to conquer for the purpose of more poor nations and enslave, raping their companies and exploit their domestic resources.
* In ''Film/GIJoeRetaliation'', this was [[BigBad Cobra Commander]]'s intent for the whole film. Following Cobra's successful subjugation of the White House and kidnapping the US President as while Zartan impersonates the real one, Zartan calls for a mandatory global summit of every country that holds nuclear weapons for universal disarmament. When the Russian president refuses to give up his own nuclear arsenal (plus standing up for his ally China's self-defense), Zartan decides there's only one option left: fire the US nukes at them. To prevent a global cataclysm that could kill billions, the rest of the atomic powers all unilaterally destroy their own nuclear arsenals only when Zartan starts eliminating his own. Then Zartan unleashes [[AlwaysABiggerFish Project Zeus]], a satellite Cobra built and installed in space that fires tungsten-rods capable of destroying any city of their choosing.
-->'''Cobra Commander''': (''regarding the US nuclear football'') He who controls this briefcase controls the US nuclear arsenal, and the fate of humanity!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Literature/JenniferGovernment'', the USA has absorbed all of North and South America (except Cuba), the British Islands, India, most of South East Asia, and most recently Australia into a single market. Russia is in the process of being assimilated.
* Mention is made of a very militarized American Empire in ''Literature/MortalEngines'', though the story takes place {{After the End}} and it had already fallen.
** It's more America Destroys The World. It's mentioned by a character that "the old American Empire was quite insane at the end."
** Both of the series' [[WaveMotionGun important]] [[KillSat superweapons]] are explicitly stated to be American, as well.
* A very popular trope in modern Russian sci-fi. The cliche goes something like this: The U.S. either create some sort of world government or otherwise subjugate most of the world and then invade Russia, the last country keeping them from complete world domination. They either get the shaft during the invasion or succeed in conquering Russia, only to be toppled several years later by a highly badass Russian LaResistance.
* The ''Clone Republic'' series by Steven L. Kent is set in 2508, after the United States took over the world and then became a sort of Constitutional Oligarchy called the Unified Authority.
* The titular ''Literature/CoDominium'' is [[WeCanRuleTogether an alliance of the United States and the Soviet Union working together to dominate Earth]].
** Something similar is suggested in side material to Franchise/{{Dune}}.
* ''Ironclads'' by Creator/AdrianTchaikovsky has the US in the process of this. They had annexed Canada and the rest of the American continent and purchased a United Kingdom that had been beggared by Brexit. The UK is then used as a giant brothel and beachhead into invading Europe. The US here is very much the EvilStatesOfAmerica as it became a plutocracy run by various MegaCorp and the [[WarriorPrince warring scions of these corporate aristocrats]] while the Federal gov't is just there to facilitate the enlistment of impoverished CannonFodder and deck them in 2nd-hand kit.
* In ''Literature/LastAndFirstMen'' by Olaf Stapledon, the First Men (that is, us) end up being split between US and Chinese spheres of influence. The US eventually tips it, and remains dominant until the entire society collapses due to an energy crisis.
* The ''Literature/{{Lionboy}}'' trilogy by Zizou Corder includes several off-hand references to 'the Empire'. It takes a bit of reading between the lines for a while to realise that this means America.
* In America's Galactic Foreign Legion, "the old United States decided to stoop pussyfooting around and opened a can of whupass on Islamic fascist terrorists, communists, greeners OPEC, China and Democrats. The United States conquered the world, creating a new world order, stable food and energy prices and eliminating the threat of weapons of mass destruction ever being used between nation states." America takes over more than just the world.
* Indirectly in the ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' series; the Galactic Patrol have their headquarters in New York City due to its role as the leading financial and political powerhouse of Earth and therefore the Solar System. It has rivals in London, Chicago and [[FailedFutureForecast Stalingrad]], but is way ahead of them.
* Pretty much the entire premise of ''Literature/TheSecondRenaissance". It takes a while to get there, but it does get there eventually.
* ''Literature/TheSunEater'' has the background event the US take over the world through A.I. overlords in our far future (and the current humanity's distant past). It's very much a case of the EvilStatesOfAmerica as A.I. proceeds to take over the human domains and reduce almost the entire population of humanity into cancer blobs. Until the British GodEmperor fought back...
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Background material for the ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' 'verse establishes that [[AmericaTakesOverTheWorld America]] and [[ChinaTakesOverTheWorld China]] [[WeCanRuleTogether took over Earth That Was together]].
* The seal for the President of Earth on ''Series/BabylonFive'' is clearly derived from the Seal of the President of the United States.
* The symbol for Earth Starfleet on ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' suggests that it evolved from NASA. Or perhaps not; there are other space agencies with symbols just as similar (though this might be partly a result of influence from previous Star Trek shows).
* ''Series/TheGoodies''. In the "Clown Virus" episode, the Pentagon has gotten so used to regarding Great Britain as a [=51st=] state of the USA that they decide to take it over completely, so they can write it off as a tax loss.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* The album ''The Uprising'' by Music/{{Muse}} takes place in a world where a coalition government rules all of the Norther Hemisphere, the United States of Eurasia.
* The Russian rock band Lyube in 1992 released the anti-American propaganda music video "Don't Play the Fool America!" which was about glamorizing the return of Alaska back to Russian control citing its close proximity to Siberia and if a message could be made out of that animated segment with Uncle Sam kissing a woman who's smoking before being thrown socks and screaming in fear of it, it could be implying that Americans are sedentary for staying indoors all the time while Russians are physically active and often dance.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Implied in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyInfiniteWarfare''. While the United Nations Space Alliance is technically a coalition of different nations, the behavior that non-Americans exhibit seem suspiciously American, and all lack any traces of cultural diversity at all; they use American military jargon, UNSA Admiral Raines keeps an American flag in his office, the Lebanese Lt. Salter speaks English with an American accent,, and even Kashima (a Canadian) speaks of receiving a Purple Heart (an ''American'' military decoration) after being wounded.
* Background lore for ''VideoGame/EliteDangerous'' has TheFederation as a descendant government of the modern United States.
* ''VideoGame/FrontMission'' depicts both North and South America merged into one nation called the United States of the New Continent (USN).
* ''VideoGame/{{Section 8}}'' had the United States become a repressive interstellar empire, somehow forgetting the ideals it was founded on along the way.
* ''VideoGame/DestroyAllHumans'' has Crypto, a grey alien with genocidal intents for the human race, as its main protagonist who starts fighting for American hegemony (since he decided to eventually become President of the United States and boss the military into rounding up humans for extermination). The sequel has him waging war upon the Soviet Union ([[spoiler: or rather, the [[GreaterScopeVillain rival alien race]] who created it]]).
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': it is explained in the backstory that the United States [[ExpandedStatesOfAmerica annexed the rest of North America]], and that they're still a superpower, though [[ChinaTakesOverTheWorld the Chinese People's Federation]] and the European Union are also mentioned to be extant. This is hinted at in-game by the fact that Americans are disproportionately represented among the ranks of [[TheFederation the Systems Alliance]], humanity's space force. The head of humanity's SpaceNavy, Steven Hackett, has a [[Creator/LanceHenriksen thick American accent]] and a typical Anglo name. Ditto both of humanity's known Councilors, David Anderson[[note]]The third game mentions he was born in London, but given his accent and the references in the novels to him being of mixed Western European, African-American, and Native American descent (a mix not really found outside of the Americas), as well as the fact that his dad was in the military, it was likely he was just an American born on a base.[[/note]] and Anna Goyle.
* ''VideoGame/{{Crysis}}'' has the entire world being controlled by an American MegaCorp by the time of the third game, due to the Americans being the ones to capture the Alpha Ceph after its defeat in New York, and said MegaCorp being closely tied to several prominent politicians.
* ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'''s [[JustBeforeTheEnd pre-War]] backstory has Europe and the USSR being rendered weak clients of the U.S. in the lead up to a global energy crisis that sees everyone but the U.S. and China effectively collapsing. This is followed by the U.S. annexing Canada and occupying Mexico, China occupying several Asian countries and the Russian Far East, and eventually a Sino-American War. Due to a combination of superior technology (e.g. PoweredArmor) and greater economic strength,[[note]]It was noted in the military terminals in the military base in ''2'' that the Chinese were critically low on fuel while the U.S. was still comfortable.[[/note]] the war culminates in the U.S. successfully invading mainland China in retribution for their invasion of Alaska and laying siege to Beijing, effectively leaving America as the sole hyperpower. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt For about a day.]]
* This is the highest objective that can be accomplished by the Americans in ''VideoGame/RiseOfNations: Thrones and Patriots'' in three different campaign modes. Lesser victories such as simply becoming the dominant power on the planet are also possible.
** World mode is an anachronistic free-for-all between almost all historic great powers, set from the beginning of history up to the future - you can also play as the Americans.
** America takes a bigger role in New World mode, your goal being to break free from British rule, conquer all of North America at least, drive out every last European power from both American continents, and attain a specific amount of tribute.
** In Cold War mode the Americans are one of two playable factions, the other being the Soviets. As the Americans you ultimately need to conquer the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union and subjugate the rest of the world as your client states (the latter is implied by the former). You can do this by money (one victory condition is having an industrial output lead over the other bloc by more than 50 - this can be done either by building up the US and its allies or initiating "police actions" on nonaligned countries), conventional force (ground invasion of the Soviets or its allies), or [[NukeEm nuclear exchange]] (only possible if you have enough nukes to irradiate all Soviet territories but the reverse is not true).
* In the ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series it is established that there was an international conspiracy during the time of the First World War where America, China, and Russia made a secret pact where all 3 of them would work together to make a better world. After World War II the Cold War splintered the group, but eventually the American faction took over all of the group's power and renamed themselves the Patriots. The Patriots as we see them by the time of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4 have consolidated economic, cultural, and technological dominance over most of the world and are taking the final step in world domination by creating a computer system that will monitor every single citizen on Earth that has nano-machines in their bodies and can control all information that flows through the Internet. Fortunately this conspiracy is finally put to an end by the end of the series.
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' series, it is possible for the United States to conquer the world. ''Civilization V'' promotes this by making the American special ability (UsefulNotes/ManifestDestiny) having tiles cost 50% less, effectively letting it swallow up twice as much territories as other empires. The ''other'' American civilization, the [[UsefulNotes/NativeAmericans Shoshone]], get a similar play on expansion - their cities are created with twice as much territory as any other civilization.
* In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3'', this is [[ImpliedTrope implied]] by the U.S. Vice President in the Allied ending.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* It's not stated how many other countries they might have taken over, but America apparently annexed Canada at some point in the past of ''Webcomic/AMiracleOfScience''.
* One of the villains from ''Webcomic/PrincessPi'', an American dictator named, "Princess Ip", works to make this a reality.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* The premise of the ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'' alternate setting ''The Program''.
* The AlternateHistory story ''Literature/DecadesOfDarkness'' has a very dark version of this trope. Despite starting out with a DividedStatesOfAmerica (namely, the New England states and New York seceding during the UsefulNotes/WarOf1812), the rump USA still becomes a great power whose territorial conquests (stretching all the way to South America) far outstrip those of our own US. As this USA is dominated by the [[DeepSouth Southern planter aristocrats]] who bring slavery and apartheid to conquered territories, this world's America quickly turns into a textbook example of TheEmpire.
* The ''WebAnimation/SkibidiToiletSeries'' spinoff "America" [[PlayedForHorror plays this trope for horror]] with [[OhCrap the focal humans getting]] [[SkullForAHead skull treatment]] as [[EvilStatesOfAmerica the Skibidi Toilets with American Presidents' heads]] invade their lands.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' varies between the presence and absence of this trope depending on the [[RuleOfFunny needs of the joke]], but it most commonly presents Earth as a single political entity, ruled from Washington according to the American political model, whose citizens are known as "Earthicans." Earth's flag is just the modern American flag with the stars replaced by a globe [[HemisphereBias centred on America]]. Also, in one episode, Richard Nixon was initially unable to run for president of Earth due to already serving two terms, indicating continuity between the modern US government of the 1970s and the Earth government of 3000.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** While at a beach in Rio, a lifeguard was able to tell that Homer was an American because he wore [[http://afeatheradrift.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/try_and_stop_us.jpg a shirt]] where Uncle Sam was consuming the world with the lines "try and stop us" on it.
** In one of those "future" episodes, there'll be a 51th state named "Saudita Israeli".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Perhaps the most dramatic time the USA explicitly took possession of land besides the contiguous United States by force was in the Spanish American War, and seized territory generally either given back to its occupants or agreements were signed to do so--however some territories, such as UsefulNotes/{{Guam}}, remained in US possession. The USA's preferred method was to make [[DefeatMeansFriendship economic partners of defeated nations]] and leave a few military bases behind, but restore political and military independence. It invaded the Philippines, recently liberated from the Spanish by the war, and occupied it by force against a resistance army. It also took American Samoa following a conflict with the islands' previous imperial overlord, Germany--this involved partitioning American Samoa from the rest of UsefulNotes/{{Samoa}}.
** Four years before the Spanish-American War, the United States surpassed the United Kingdom in GDP to become the world's largest economy, terrifying the British industrial complex.
* [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]] in the case of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Due to immigration from the United States and elsewhere, there were more non-Hawaiians than Hawaiians on Hawaii, and they didn't like the native monarchy's rule, instead preferring democratic rule. Many of them wanted the US to annex Hawaii, but the US was reluctant to do so, seeing it as an obvious imperialist land grab. The immigrants forced the issue by rebelling against the Hawaiian government and convincing the local US government minister, John Stevens, to help them by sending in some marines to "protect American interests". This resulted in the abolition of the Kingdom of Hawaii, replacing it with the temporary "Republic of Hawaii", which immediately petitioned the US government for permission to join the United States. However, the federal US government was not impressed by the rebellion, and in particular, Stevens effectively invading a foreign country without permission. Stevens was recalled from his position and [[ReluctantRetiree forced to retire]] and the Republic of Hawaii was forced to wait for five years before it was finally annexed.
* During the run-up to UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, both sides were looking to expand their territory, since each new state boosted the faction's power in Congress.
** For the North, this meant grabbing as much of British North America (now UsefulNotes/{{Canada}}) as possible, with the most widespread call being for the complete annexation of [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest the Oregon Country]] up to the border with (then-Russian) UsefulNotes/{{Alaska}}; the slogan was "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!", referring to the 54°40′ North line of latitude where the Oregon Country ended. From there, it was hoped, the North-West Territory and Rupert's Land, now cut off from the Pacific, would also become American. (Ultimately, the US only got the areas south of the 49th parallel minus Vancouver Island; the rest became the province of British Columbia.) Even a few years after the Civil War, the US' purchase of Alaska was at least partly motivated by the dream of adding the vast expanse of western Canada to the Union by establishing a US outpost on that country's western frontier.
** Meanwhile, Southern politicians and businessmen felt that, since the Missouri Compromise of 1820 only explicitly prohibited slavery in US territories north of 36°30' North, it was [[LoopholeAbuse implicitly permitted anywhere south of that line]] -- including in any new American territories. As such, many efforts were launched to annex or conquer UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}}, UsefulNotes/{{Mexico}}, and other nations in Central America and the Caribbean. The UsefulNotes/MexicanAmericanWar was fought for this purpose, President UsefulNotes/JamesKPolk authorized spending up to $100 million to buy Cuba in 1848, Confederate President Jefferson Davis spoke of "new acquisitions to be made south of the Rio Grande", and Confederate Naval officers were dispatched as far as the Amazon delta in UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}} to survey the area, supposedly to map shipping routes but also taking notes on local militias and separatist movements. A relatively small group of mostly Southern American mercenaries actually [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_War conquered Nicaragua]] in 1857, and intended to turn the Central American states into slave states; they quickly proved unable to achieve this goal due to lacking any state support and were driven out by the neighboring states.
* The "Pax Americana" that started after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII is the closest realization of this trope that RealLife has yet seen. With the [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire British]] and [[UsefulNotes/{{France}} French]] empires bankrupted by war (and were already being rapidly outpaced by the Americans in the early 20th century), the [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany German]], [[UsefulNotes/FascistItaly Italian]], and [[UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan Japanese]] empires destroyed entirely, and [[GloriousMotherRussia the USSR]] and UsefulNotes/{{China}}, the only other great powers that could still stand on their own, retrenching into their own spheres of influence while adopting very inefficient economic models, the USA, untouched by war and possessing the world's largest industrial capacity by several orders of magnitude, emerged dominant over nearly every corner of the globe save for the core of Eurasia. Like the Soviet Union however, America's empire was largely indirect, given that the nation was officially anti-imperialist and exploited this tendency to appeal to the post-colonial world. With post-war Western Europe reliant on American aid, and therefore subservient to Washington, the USA could pressure its allies into abandoning its traditional empires in the third world, letting the Americans set up loyal puppet states either covertly or overtly. While they were not ruled by Washington directly, these puppet states were useful in warding off Soviet influence and securing American cultural and economic hegemony. This unofficial empire of loyal and puppet states managed to span roughly half the world. American power reached its peak in TheNineties after the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, with the term "hyperpower" used to describe a nation that ''everybody'', from its allies to its enemies, had to heed. Some people, including US President UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush, described American power after the fall of communism as so great that it verged on a OneWorldOrder -- and of course, some {{conspiracy theorist}}s believe it goes well beyond "verged on". [[ChinaTakesOverTheWorld The rise of China after their market and trade reforms]] and [[MakeTheBearAngryAgain the resurgence of Russia]] since then have chipped away at this somewhat, with China having [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_sector_composition overtaken the US]] as the world's largest manufacturer and developing an economy somewhat in the same league (2/3 the size of the U.S. one), combined with Russia at least regaining enough strength to exert influence within its immediate vicinity.\\\
Even in spite of all this, however, America still remains the world's preeminent military, economic, and cultural force, accounting for 25% of world GDP and 40% of world military spending on their own. The US' allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Organization of American States, as well as major non-NATO allies like UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}, UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}, UsefulNotes/SouthKorea, [[UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} the Philippines]], UsefulNotes/SaudiArabia, and UsefulNotes/{{Israel}}, comprise the lion's share of world power; if they were collectively viewed as an American empire (as critics of American foreign policy often proclaim it to be), then the United States would currently be in possession of the greatest empire that history has ever known, with 60%+ of world GDP and the vast majority of the world's intellectual capital and industrial capacity (to wit, South Korea alone has a larger economy than Russia). The US dollar is the world's reserve currency, with only the euro as a serious competitor (and even then, it is a distant second). Its military can deploy hundreds of thousands of soldiers supported by carrier-borne aircraft to any corner of the globe on short notice and doesn't even need a single American soldier on the ground to destroy minor powers, as interventions in Iraq, Syria, Serbia, and Libya have demonstrated. Its economy [[https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/01/02/the-fastest-growers-and-biggest-shrinkers-of-2019 still prospers]] even as most other developed countries stagnate and rapidly growing middle income economies (like China) begin to slow. [[EaglelandOsmosis American food, films, TV series, fashion and pop music can be found on every continent]], and its celebrities are renowned throughout the world, to the point where both supporters and critics of the US have cited its 'soft power' (or, alternatively, 'cultural imperialism') as one of its greatest tools and weapons in maintaining its alliances. The only nations that are openly antagonistic to the US (as opposed to frenemies like Russia and China) are mostly so-called "rogue states" with few friends of any kind in the world, like UsefulNotes/{{Iran}}, UsefulNotes/NorthKorea, UsefulNotes/{{Syria}} and UsefulNotes/{{Libya}} (before UsefulNotes/TheArabSpring).


* In 1893, Lucas M Miller, a member of the US House of Representatives from Wisconsin [[https://gizmodo.com/congress-once-considered-renaming-the-us-the-united-st-1608911779]], in the spirit of this trope, proposed an amendments to the United States Constitution to change the name of the United States of America to the “United States of Earth”. Well not technically a claim of global governance, his argument was that “it is possible for the Republic to grow through the admission of new States into the Union [[OneWorldOrder until every Nation on Earth has become part of it.]]” and that the Senate and House of Representatives could “vote by electricity”. It is needless to say that this and other goofy proposals, including another amendment to abolish both the Army and Navy, never really got anywhere and he failed to be nominated for another term.

[[/folder]]

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