Correct.
And fwiw, the USA is far from the the most powerful nation in the world. Power doesn't come from having the biggest military. Power comes from influence. And we have lost so very much under Trump. He's gutted our state department, insulted and alienated our allies, gotten the UN to laugh at his ignorant bluster, screwed up trade, bent over for Putin and made kissy faces with the dictator of one of the least economically significant counties in the world.
Putin's global influence probably far exceeds that of the US right now, which is probably exactly why they helped him win the election. China certainly isn't going let our weakness go unexploited either.
While America's influence on some areas might be dwindling, either because of loosing reputation due to Trump acting like a chimpanzee with a blonde wig, or just because America pulls out of some organizations in a switch of foreign diplomacy, there is still much going on in favor for America.
First and utmost it is the fact, that the US Dollar is still the undisputed global lead currency. This is why the USA have been able to pile up this big amount of national debt, but still exist on a comfortable level, and not go down the road that Greece has been in the last eight years.
And influence comes from many sources: reputation, the key currency, but also the military armed forces. The US army has 768 military installations world wide on five continents, it has by far means the biggest marine in the world and the biggest military budget in the world of 711 billion US$.
To put this in perspective, just take a look at this diagram by the Washington Post, comparing it to the piled up budgets of many other countries in the world:
The most ambitious nation at the moment, which is building global networks and has been for a long time, is by far means now China. China has been minding its own business foremost in Africa since a long time now. Some say that China is the new challenge, while others say China has too much debt piled up by now in its financial system and is in for a heavy collapse soon.
So influence might also come out of respect/fear for this military muscle at the disposal of America. And if America might not be using its military, which it has done many times,
its track record of meddling with foreign countries's governments under the euphemistic term of "regime change" is also quite unmatched.
The Russians are no direct match in a confrontation, but they've still got the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world and some other weapons to kick heavily somebody into the knee like their nuclear submarines, there's a new missile gap in the hypersonic propulsion area, where Russia and China has made progress while America has not, and it's an arms race at the moment.
Anyway to put this all into perspective from an outside view of America: America is a respected, often feared country due to its capable military and history of military interventions and meddling around in other countries internal affairs by different means, by short its determination and will to fight. This includes most allies, which America has kept in a somewhat friendly but firm hug, which makes sometimes quite clear what might happen, if they would change their mind.
This is where the power of influence comes from, also some admire this; but America is seldom loved due to this kind of behaviour. Also the concept of American exceptionalism is something which many people have problems to grasp, even more due the fact that "All men are created equal" is in the second paragraph of the declaration of independence, but it is a thing in America, and quite an important one.
Many fear the potential havoc America could unleash upon the world, when its influence might really fall down due to external incidents, and not by own choice.
So to make it short: in my opinion America still is the most powerful nation in the world at the moment, even China does not come close at the moment, though this might change somewhere in the future. We're most probably in for a world with some emerging powers, which are most likely going to be China and India. We often tend to forget India, which has a population almost bigger than China, and many things happening there right, too. India is also the biggest democracy world wide, and probably English as second language due to is history of being a former British colony. It also has by the way the biggest muslim population world wide, more precisely India with its former parts combined: Pakistan and Bangladesh.
on your sidewalk or door path.
