Debt Imperialism: From Financial Hegemony to the Chaos of Semi-Peripheries

This paper argues that the current proliferation of commercial tensions, monetary conflicts and military confrontations is not an irrational departure from economic logic, but the manifestation of a structural transformation of the world economy. We develop a model of debt imperialism in which the centre sustains its dominance by issuing internationally demanded liabilities that enable persistent external deficits and reinforce dependence on the dollar and on the centre’s market, while simultaneously favouring the industrial expansion of semi-peripheral economies. As these economies grow, they become potential challengers whose trajectories must be actively managed and periodically disciplined in order to preserve the hierarchy of the system. The paper confronts this framework with a wide set of international data (World Bank, IMF, UNCTAD, US Treasury and BEA). We analyse global balance-of-payments indicators from 1975 to 2023 and then examine the evolution of the United States’ trade creditors and the geography and composition of foreign holdings of its external liabilities. The results identify two distinct phases: a pre-2008 hegemonic phase characterised by relatively smooth surplus recycling into the centre, and a post-2008 phase marked by growing volatility, the fragmentation of the integrated world market, the reconfiguration of trade and financial circuits, and the decline of the previous globalisation regime. This analysis shows that the fragmentation of the global economy after 2008 has not resulted from a collapse of U.S. centrality, but from a defensive reorganisation of trade, financial and geopolitical relations aimed at disciplining both allies and semi-peripheral challengers.