Jimmy Carter Says US in Inevitable Decline: Sees China As Future Economic Power

Former U.S President Jimmy Carter has said the United States is losing its global influence and believes a bunch of developing countries such as China, India and others will be filling that vacuum.

“As they increase in economic and cultural influence, it will replace a lot of the power and preeminence the U.S has enjoyed in the past,” Carter said in a media interview. Carter is now on a media wave for discussing his newly released book, “A Full Life.”

Speaking on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Carter said the U.S. is suffering "an inevitable relative decline in role influence" around the world and predicted China will "succeed the United States as the number one economic power in the world. We're in an inevitable decline in role influence. Not because of any fault of ours, but it's inevitable. I think economically, China will soon, you know, succeed the United States as the number one economic power in the world," Carter declared.

Middle East Peace

Carter sounded diffident about America’s attempts to forge a peace deal in the Middle East. “I don’t see any prospect in the immediate future for any progress to be made in terms of making peace between Israelis and the Palestinians," he said.

Carter said the fading influence of the U.S is getting reflected in the United Nations also. He said influence in politics is shifting inside the United Nations and the ability of the United States to use its influence to change situations is dimishing. At the same time, Carter said he was not blaming President Obama, but only attributing his prediction to a power vacuum left by the United States to "evolutionary, unavoidable circumstances."

BRICS Surge

Carter sees a combination of China, India and Brazil and South Africa and others to be increasing economic and cultural influence and replacing the power and pre-eminence the United States enjoyed in the past. “So we're having whether we like it or not to accommodate that necessity of realizing other people are going to be as powerful and as influenced as we are in some aspects of life, not militarily. We'll stay preeminent there for a long time. But I think economically, China will soon, you know, succeed the United States as the number one economic power in the world.”

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