They realised it in 1961.

In the 1980s, "The US could not let Japan dominate key industries and had to respond with its own industrial and trade policies. Not just because these might help the US economy, but also because the US simply could not be No 2," wrote Prof Dani Rodrik. In a meeting between France, Germany, the US, the UK and Japan at the Plaza Hotel in New York, the US forced Germany and Japan to revalue their currencies in relation to the US dollar. "The Plaza Accord led to the yen and Deutsch mark dramatically increasing in value relative to the dollar -- the dollar depreciated by as much as 25.8% in the two years that followed," Investopedia. This resulted in Japanese exports becoming too expensive so the Bank of Japan adopted "cheap money policies, such as a lower interest rate, a credit expansion". "But cheap money policies would later create a slower consumption rate at home, rising land prices, and the creation of an asset price bubble that would burst years later, leading to the period known as the lost decade," Investopedia. The US is now uncomfortable with China's rise. "The view that US foreign-policy goals are fundamentally benign underpins the myth of American exceptionalism: what is good for the US is good for the world." But, the rest of the world is not playing. "If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese army will definitely not hesitate to start a war no matter the cost," said Defense Minister Wei Fenghe. The US has imposed savage sanctions on Russia, BBC, for daring to stop NATO missiles across its border in Ukraine. "But almost no countries in the Global South have signed onto them," Vox. "Analysts looking at these responses see a reinvigorated non-aligned movement."  "The Non-Aligned Movement was founded and held its first conference (the Belgrade Conference) in 1961 under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Kwameh Nkrumah of Ghana and Sukarno of Indonesia," Britannica, and called for the "abstention from the use of arrangements of collective defense to serve the collective interests of any of the big powers". How prescient! The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Britannica, and with it the Comecon alliance of nations, Britannica. But the malignant NATO still remains. "Russia earned 93 billion euros ($98) from fossil fuel exports during the first 100 days of its war in Ukraine, with most sent to the European Union, NDTV. "President Joe Biden said he could drop some of the tariffs imposed against Chinese imports to help control rising consumer prices in the US," CNBC. "The US wants companies to ramp up purchases of Russian fertilizer as global food costs rise and shortages loom, according to a Monday Bloomberg report," BI. What if Russia refuses to sell? Would that be reverse sanction?