For years, the United States has occupied a powerful position in global politics. Besides its military prowess, it also serves as the backbone of many of the systems that enable the world to function today.
From international finance to communications infrastructure, US control is often so entrenched that it largely remains unnoticed. When an ally of the Americans purchases an F-35 fighter jet they receive not only a plane but the accompanying, parts, technologies, technical support and the suite of communications. When big businesses go global, they will regularly route their transactions through the ‘dollar clearing system’, a platform that is operated by several US-linked institutions.
Allies of the states may have initially accepted US domination of these systems, due to the firm belief that America would continue to accept a ‘rules-based international order’. A world that was idealised after the Second World War, with multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and the World Health Organisation, international law, human rights, democracy and open trade. This no longer remains to be the case, with Trumps repeated pledge to occupy Greenland and his threats of annexing Canada.
As Mark Carney the prime minister of Canada described it “The United States is beginning to monetize its hegemony”. The dangers tend to be invisible, until the infrastructure is turned against you. As Wired magazine outlined in September of 2025, “Trump has wasted no time weaponizing the dollar clearing system against a host of targets.” While these individuals have historically been Russian oligarchs, industrialists and Iranian officials, Trump has also imposed sanctions on the ICC’s chief prosecutor after the court charged Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with committing war crimes, reportedly blocking his email and freezing his bank account.
Whilst rumours swirl in various reddit chat threads about the possibility of F-35's having a ‘Kill Switch’ several sources indicate that this is not the case. However, this does not eliminate the dangers of the Americans severing their allies' access to cutting edge military technology. In essence the F-35 fighter jets rely on software support from American defense corporations, if the Trump administration decided that it was no longer in their best interests for any country to operate these jets they could withhold that support, gradually rendering the F-35s unusable.
Case in point: In late February of 2025 when Trump cut off the state's intelligence stream to Ukraine after a disastrous meeting with Zelensky, dealing a serious blow to Kyiv in the war with Russia. As American hegemony only grows, there have been serious discussions amongst world leaders as to the possibility of allies distancing themselves from the United States. The dilemma remains that due to the majority of the West’s infrastructure being built atop US platforms, if leaders did break those ties, then everyone stands to be poorer.
The idea for an independent European supply chain and European digital independence had been discussed at a meeting at the European Parliament attended by politicians, technologists, and business leaders. The conclusions of the meeting were bleak, as Cristina Carrafara an economist who helped organise the meeting wrote later “Everything that lies below and supports the apps and services we use every day (from chips to compute to cloud to software to connectivity) is built on non-European (American) infrastructure.” This does not stop the EU leaders from seriously considering the possibilities of an independent Europe, a mark of how grave things have become.