[abalashov]

I am not sure how a country becomes a Third World country _de jure_. Does it apply for membership in the Third World, sign a treaty to join the coterie of developing economies? Does the Supreme Court rule in a landmark case brought to it to finally settle the country's global status?

Could this be a case of "I don't think that word means what you think it means"? :-)

[partisan]

Can we be a little more charitable and stick to the topic?

De jure "Third World", would mean that the country is either poor, or developing, possibly industrialized[2], and rightfully such[1].

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=de+jure&oq=de+jure

de jure - denoting something or someone that is rightfully such.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

"Because many Third World countries were extremely poor, and non-industrialized, it became a stereotype to refer to poor countries as "third world countries", yet the "Third World" term is also often taken to include newly industrialized countries like Brazil, India and China now more commonly referred to as part of BRIC."

"Over the past few decades since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the term Third World has been used interchangeably with the least developed countries, the Global South, and developing countries, but the concept itself has become outdated in recent years as it no longer represents the current political or economic state of the world."

[burn_cycle]

I would say that America in its current state is more simillar to one of the BRICS nations. It has levels of poverty/wealth disparity that will be familiar to anyone who has spent enough time in South Africa or Brazil but simply do not exist in most parts of western Europe.