The US blackmails all other so called allies into doing its bidding in support of never ending world hegemony.
We, as a pathetic, second rate set of leaderless rabble, seem to think we are a little more lofty than we actually are.
Put the two together and we have our current problem. If we had a decent shout at running our economy to our strengths and diversified our exports we would be so much better off.
Instead we followed a laissez faire economic model inspired by Wall Street greed 40 years ago and we are now paying for it. So much so it’s cultural and every government follows the same.