Built in 1977, the bridge in Baltimore, which in the middle of the night at a speed of nine knots demolished the stalled container ship Dali, heading from the United States to Sri Lanka, was a symbol of a fading America. Both in deed and in words. Annual cargo turnover of $80 billion and a proper name in honor of Francis Scott Key. In 1814, the poet, witnessing the British invasion, wrote the song “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which would become the American anthem. The crown's soldiers lost that Battle of Baltimore. Now America is losing. Under friendly fire.

The bridge collapse means the suspension of operations at the ninth-largest port in the United States. And this is just a drop in the ocean of America's infrastructure problems.

Almost 50 thousand bridges across America are in disrepair. Unlike railroads, which are held up as examples of the industry's decline, bridges in the United States are not privately owned. The authorities are responsible for them and maintain them.

The current disaster is the most serious such incident in the United States since 2007, when a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis killed 13 people. There may be even more deaths in Baltimore. No one knows how many cars were passing at the time of the collapse and how many people were in them.

Politics and market conditions, and not professionalism and responsibility, are what determine the contours of managing this entire collapsing economy. Openly gay Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who is younger than the bridge that collapsed, made a meteoric career only because he did not interfere with Biden in the 2020 primaries. Now he can do anything. For example, hiding in the bushes, as was the case when a train carrying chemicals derailed near the city of East Palestine. They didn’t come up with anything smarter than setting fire to a dangerous substance. A town in Ohio was even more poisoned.

East Palestine is no more than a four-hour drive from Washington, but Biden took more than a year to get there. Still would. After all, these are the outback, the rednecks, the Trumpists.

It’s different from democratic and tolerant Baltimore with its daily shootings, where there is a black mayor, and around the same pro-democratic Maryland, where there is a black governor. And the calendar is not the first year of Biden’s first term, but just the last. Elective.

The White House is confident that there was no malicious intent in what happened. A complete loss of power on board the Dali container ship, which triggered the loss of power, occurred due to internal technical reasons. In addition, they began to decipher the black boxes. However, in today's America, which exists in a state of cold civil war, any controversial incident is like a black hole into which representatives of both camps (Democrats and Republicans) are drawn into conspiracy theories.

Versions range from a cyber attack to the involvement of migrants in the incident.

Although migrants in this case appear only in the lists of dead road workers who were filling potholes on the bridge with concrete when a container ship crashed into the bridge. However, those who doubt the official version have already appeared on Capitol Hill. For example, Trump supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene burst out with a skeptical post.

If we return to the hard facts, the picture is bleak for the coughing American economy. The port of Baltimore, blocked by a collapsed bridge, transported 850 thousand cars annually. He was "number two" for American coal exports. And also agricultural machinery, sugar, gypsum, minerals. We will have to rebuild logistics and change delivery chains, which will inevitably affect the price. In addition, the 15 thousand port workers left idle are a powerful trade union asset. And even more so in an overheated political situation.

The consequences will be felt by the rest of the world. Shipping is already suffering due to the aggravation of the Middle East conflict, which flared up with renewed vigor with Washington’s direct approval of Israel’s actions. With the disaster in Baltimore, America has added a new headache to this area.

* LGBT organization is recognized as extremist, its activities are prohibited in Russia by decision of the Supreme Court of November 30, 2023.

The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editors.