Surprised it's taken this long for people to grasp it.

We control the world's reserve currency, and hold the ability to fry any country's economy via economic sanctions whenever we want. We have the largest military in the world and that military is set up for the purpose of invasion. Yeah, China has a massive navy, but their ships are tiny, most likely for the purpose of defending their oceans and eventually taking Taiwan. We on the other hand have more carrier ships than anyone else, all for the purpose of being able to flex our might on anyone in the world.

People used to say that we attempted to police the world. I don't hear it nearly as much anymore, but it's accurate. We throw our weight around. We're the world's bully.