It's another fine mess Washington has got us into

Editor's note: The US administration appears to have no qualms about the trouble its unilateral policies have caused for the world, and confident with its already outdated outlook on national security, comments Zhong Sheng, a columnist of People's Daily, in an article published on Thursday. Excerpts:

Washington pretends to be blind to the fact that its "maximum pressure" tactics, which ignore international rules and conventions, have only made the global situation more complicated, and turning "national security" into a business has only led to it being caught in its own trap. In history, no country has ever become safer by pitting itself against people everywhere.

If there is anything positive to take from Washington's wheeler-dealer moves, it is that the world is now well aware of the source of global instability and unrest. While the United States hypes up its security being threatened, its interests being encroached upon and its jobs and know-how being stolen, multiple surveys have yielded the same finding that the number of the people deeming the US as a threat to the world has reached a record high.