What can an ordinary person do about this? I moved my savings to ETFs that specifically exclude the US the moment Trump was elected. But my debit card is connected to Mastercard and there's no europan alternative in my country. Or is it more about the big picture and not what I personally do or avoid?

US power stems directly from its dollar position.

Soft power stems from its ability to cut individual nation-states off from global trade. But if you take a hard look at, say, North Korea or Cuba or Venezuela or Iran, you'll notice that it's not simply access to legal international markets that causes their poverty. These countries are physically encircled by US military. Cuba, in particular, is ringed in by US warships with an entrenched beach head at Guantanamo Bay.

And it goes without saying that these countries are constantly under threat of espionage, plagued by disinformation, and periodically sabotaged by US special forces.

The dollar position is a consequence of these interventions, dating back to the Cold War Era.

The longer this goes on, the more systems decouple from the USA and correspondingly the less power and influence they have.

It's been going on since Truman. Arguably back to McKinley. The US has been a fountain of militant white nationalism for centuries.

Meanwhile, European corporate media seems vastly more paranoid and fearful of infiltration by Eastern adversaries. Muslims coming up through Turkiye or crossing north of the Mediterranean. Russians driving tanks all the way from Moscow to Berlin. Chinese businessmen stealing European jobs, Orientalizing markets, and corrupting the fragile innocent young minds of the liberal intelligentsia.

I just don't see decoupling happening (in my lifetime). Trump will lose his grip on power, US neoliberals will retake the federal government, and we'll have another wave of "normalization" that settles anxious Europeans just long enough for Palantir and News Corp and JP Morgan and Microsoft to secure their hooks a bit deeper.