Larry Summers Describes How U.S. Is Getting ‘Lonely’ as Other Powers Band Together

April 17, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—“There’s a growing acceptance of fragmentation, and—maybe even more troubling—I think there’s a growing sense that ours may not be the best fragment to be associated with,” former U.S. Treasury Secretary and President of Harvard University Larry Summers told Bloomberg in an interview published April 14.

“Somebody from a developing country said to me, ‘what we get from China is an airport. What we get from the United States is a lecture,’ ” he added. (Summers used that quote in his tweet to advertise the interview:

“We are on the right side of history—with our commitment to democracy, with our resistance to aggression in Russia,” he insisted. “But it’s looking a bit lonely on the right side of history, as those who seem much less on the right side of history are increasingly banding together in a whole range of structures.”

He recognized that the failure of the Bretton Woods institutions to deliver development is a leading factor in the reshaping world: “If the Bretton Woods system is not delivering strongly around the world, there are going to be serious challenges and proposed alternatives.”