This is a question has been bothering me as someone who’s country was colonized by the British Empire. We were taught about it in schools and how it lost power over time but never how the USA came to take its place especially over such a short compared to the British Empire.
As far as I understand it, it’s in terms of soft power. With projects such as USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and others like it, USA maintains the status-quo in it’s favour; however, the new Republican administration have been shooting themselves in the foot by cutting funding for those programs. Thus, the USAs power is diminished.
Likely also a lot of financial things, especially after/during WWII, but I really don’t know enough about that to even guess.
A lot more can be said about the CIAs work in destabilizing “non-American aligned” countries by initiating coups and assassinating/kidnapping democratically elected leaders, but that has arguably done more harm than good to American influence.
*Also it was, for a time, the centre of the world in terms of scientific advancement and urbanism. Los Angeles had what was once the worlds largest tram network that still hasn’t been matched by anyone to this day. Melbourne comes close, but it’s still a fraction of what LAs was… Goddamn shame.