[johnisgood]

> I don't think the US has ever really been that subtle about maintaining capitalist free market dominance.

Excuse me for my ignorance, but what makes US' economy a free market capitalism?

Definition of free market: "in economics, a free market is a system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and by consumers. In a free market, the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government or other authority and from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and artificial scarcities."

Correct me if I am wrong, but this most definitely does not seem to be the case. There are regulations, price controls, subsidies, tariffs and other government interferences with freedom of ex­change that distort the market.

[DollarGuru]

The issue isn't about how the US regulates free market activities. It is about how the US uses it's power and influence to undermine the sovereign decisions of other nations that might be detrimental to US trade.

Things like protectionism, how a country may choose to do trade (e.g the currency they trade in E.g petrodollar), the rights to a countries natural resources (E.g nationalisation). These tools are effective for underdeveloped countries that don't have the market and production efficiencies to compete on a global stage or the money to subsidise nationally important yet expensive businesses like farming.

Adam Smith effectively said that trade is good because it frees up the utility of your worker to do work of a greater economic benefit and that it made greater sense to buy from a supplier nation that can produce the same product more efficiently.

Those countries with inefficient and unproductive economies don't have the high skill economically more valuable jobs so for them trade isn't an opportunity for growth because it just undermines their local economy by taking away local jobs.