> The USA ranks 26th for median wealth

Wealth is also a function of age - older people tend to have more - and that ranking is not normalized by such extraneous factors.

The US is number 2 by median income, and number 1 for median disposable income, both of which are pretty important, especially to younger people that want cash flow to enjoy life.

Personally I think it's better to "do by example" with other open western democracies. And then when dealing with China etc rather than letting them roughshod over your financial and data economies because of principles or whatever, enforce the same rules upon them as they put upon you. Then there's an actual incentive and mechanism by which trade can open up in a fair manner. Our (speaking broadly about the west) current approach to China is madness.

> First, this ignores that the USA benefits tremendously from trading with other countries, most of all with China. If this mindset was applied universally, the USA (and the world) would be worse off.

This is true, but it only works if everyone does it. If one country is the main one that safeguards trade, releases costly scientific research (and open source codebases) for nothing and plays as well as it can, but others don't (and even look down on the safeguarding country for spending so much on defence instead of bread/circuses) then it takes a massive force of goodwill on the part of that one country to keep doing it.

(I am not a US citizen/resident, to pre-empt the standard ad hominem :)

> the average US citizen would still be better off than the average Chinese citizen

By what metrics? As an example, longevity is slightly higher in China than in US (77.30 years vs 77), it is GROWING in China while decreasing in US, or china has a transportation system that is orders of magnitude better than the US one. Ever heard of the high speed train system and how quickly was it built?

Median income alone isn't enough to judge the quality of life of a country. I'd rather be poorer but live longer and in a country that works also for non-millionaires, but you can take more money with the lower longevity if you prefer.

Your first argument sounds like appeasement, didn't work so well in WW2. Sounds like burying your head in the sand hoping no one will do anything bad.

I think the parent post means top dog in military and power sense, not welfare of citizens which is all well and good until another nation is trying to undermine your core values.

> Your successor will be judged by the standard you set

What successor are we thinking of here? Is that China? India? Russia? These are all very scary regimes.