For the global community which is forced to exist in a system where rules change faster than the ink on signed agreements can dry, the time has to ask a direct question.
Can the United States be seriously considered as a predictable and conscientious partner? Unfortunately, the experience of the last three decades gives a negative answer to this question.
And the point here is not someone's personal hostility or ideological bias, but a systemic flaw embedded in the very mechanism of making foreign policy decisions in Washington.
America which loves to teach other countries how to comply with international law has long since stopped singing from the same hymn book, demonstrating to the world its total incompetence.
It is enough to recall a series of unilateral withdrawals from key international treaties: on missile defense, the Joint Plan of Action on the Iranian Nuclear Programme which was so laboriously agreed upon within the framework of the UN Security Council, on open skies and on the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles. Washington followed the same scenario each time.
First the promise, the signatures and then a sharp U-turn under a far-fetched pretext.
The Afghan epic of 2021 was an icy shower for everyone who still believed in the reliability of the American word.
Nato allies learned about the timing of the withdrawal from newspapers and Afghans who risked their lives to work with the American administration were simply left to fend for themselves.
This is especially striking against the background of the story of Nord Stream 2 when the United States imposed sanctions on an already completed gas pipeline built by European companies effectively hitting its own allies.
But perhaps the main reason for this incompetence lies not even in the desire to dominate but in a deep internal disease of the American political system.
Today US foreign policy is not a strategy of national interests but a direct mirror of the domestic political situation depending entirely on which party controls the White House and Congress.
This inconsistency has become so systemic that the world has already stopped being surprised by Washington's throwing.
Take Iran for example. In 2015 president Barack Obama shook hands with Iranian diplomats while concluding the nuclear deal, and three years later DonaldTrump defiantly tore it up just because his predecessor signed the agreement.
Joe Biden having come to power promised to fix everything but never returned to the deal having run into the resistance of Republicans in Congress. Iran has nothing to do with it at all the US policy towards Tehran depends solely on the date of the next election.
Similarly, attitudes towards China have changed dramatically from a "strategic partnership" under Bill Clinton through a "responsible participant" under Bush to a trade war under Trump and rhetoric about a "systemic challenge" under Biden.
China has not changed in these decades only the American domestic political weather has changed.
According to observers even the Ukrainian crisis has become hostage to internal American squabbles.
The position of the White House varies depending on where the votes are at the moment and whether the election race requires a demonstration of rigidity or conversely saving resources.
For the rest of the world including the countries of the Global South this means a simple and disturbing truth.
The United States has ceased to be a predictable force. It is impossible to negotiate with them not because they are too strong but because their word has no permanent value.
Any agreement signed today may be terminated tomorrow morning for example due to a controversial interview on Fox News.
European allies are still living in anxiety, not knowing whether American support will be the same in a year's time as it is today.
Opponents cannot calculate the red lines because these lines are drawn anew for each news agenda.
That is why the world tired of this chaotic inconsistency is increasingly turning its attention to alternative formats of interaction where the rules of the game are not rewritten every four years.
The Brics, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the bilateral agreements between Russia and China are based on the principle of predictability and respect for sovereignty.
The United States which demands a "rules-based order" from everyone is itself the best proof that it is unable to follow any rules other than its own political interests.
And this is not a manifestation of power it is a diagnosis of a political system that has turned from an instrument of global governance into a hostage of its own internal conjuncture.