Hieu Nguyen
Global Politics 120
International Issues
In the past couple years international relationships between the U.S and other
countries have been quite rocky. Some of the issues that I think about often when it
comes to international relations with other countries are the rapid growth of international
immigration, shifting of global powers, economic tariffs, regression and dominance of
certain industries. When war and displacement become a raging force that can no
longer coexist with people that want to thrive in peace, migration comes into play. In
recent years we have seen a lot more people fleeing from their home countries for
several different factors. War, poverty, famine, and politics has pushed immigration
rapidly such as the growing bloodshed in Haiti, Ukraine war with Russia, employment
opportunities such as work visas or international students coming to boost population
work force/demographics. Many countries like the Republic of Congo, Afghanistan,
Yemen, Syria, Sudan and many more are going through famine with the population in
the millions not receiving adequate amounts of food needed daily. As an immigrant
myself I have seen and experienced many of these issues growing up and have family
members who are still going through hard economic times or striving to survive in the
aftermath of displacement such as natural disaster, PTSD from war and lack of
resources.
For a long time it has been said that the United States is the dominant power
house in terms of other global powers. However I think in recent years this has been
slowly shifting based on economic, relationship and military stance. Recently China had
its 25th annual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin which brought 10
different world leaders together including India, Iran, Pakistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia and North Korea. In interviews and
broadcasting it has shown how closely these countries value their relationship and
being able to cooperate on different scales compared to what has been seen between
the United States and other factions. China was able to showcase their military power to
the world which was indeed impressive. Between being able to cooperate with so many
other countries and having a stronghold on military and economics standards I think its
potential as a power house competition to the United States is advancing quickly.
With the growing feeling of nationalism rising in the United States it also comes
with a lot of animosity among its people based on certain views such as immigration,
economics and policies that amplify this. Since Donald Trump has come into office tariff
laws have also come into effect and the race in tech or artificial intelligence has been
growing at an expeditious pace. AI has become more than just a technology revolution
but rather it can shape the power and dominance of a country. The ability to accelerate
military operations, defense systems, optimize economic strategies and influence policy
making are just scratching the surface of its capabilities. In recent years China and the
U.S have been in silent competition with AI technology to see who can gain the most
control and dominance over industries and the world economy. With increasing tariffs
from the United States on many Eastern countries, it has aimed to slow down their
progress and limited access to resources. This has made many countries not want to
cooperate with the U.S or rather focus more on themselves and progressing their own
country. Furthermore the increasing immigration spiral in the U.S has limited many great
minds coming from other countries to help advance the U.S industry and reduce the
work force. A great example is the ICE raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia where over
300 South Korea nationals were detained and removed from work. They were here on a
visitor visa to help demonstrate technology and machinery abilities to the American
work force to be able to do the same job as them but this was cut short due to animosity
and unrestricted immigration policies. This is just one example of many that are ongoing
despite every country's right to have their own policies. I believe there are many factors
that can come into play before removing people from their jobs,home or even expulsion
from the country itself rather than just being an immigrant.
Sources:
https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/migration
https://visionias.in/blog/current-affairs/sco-summit-2025-reshaping-global-order-throughmultipolarcooperation#:~:text=The%2025th%20Shanghai%20Cooperation%20Organisation%20(
SCO)Summit%202025%2C%20held,Uzbekistan%2C%20Kyrgyzstan%2C%20and%20T
ajikistan.
https://trendsresearch.org/insight/ai-rivalries-redefining-global-powerdynamics/#:~:text=The%20growing%20competition%20between%20the,new%20stand
ards%20for%20technological%20dominance.
https://www.wfp.org/global-hunger-crisis
https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/global-research/current-events/us-tariffs