10 places around the world where US influence has plummeted

Themba Hadebe/AP

Chinese President Xi Jinping on a visit to South Africa in 2015. China has been replacing the US as the main foreign power in Africa and elsewhere around the world.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US became the sole superpower on the world stage, and was able to take advantage of the vast global influence it had amassed since the late 19th century.

But in recent years, this power has been fading.

From the South China Sea to the Middle East to Latin America, places where the US once comfortably exerted its economic, military, and political power are slowly beginning to slip out of America's grip, and often into China's. Although former President Barack Obama initiated this trend in some regions through calculated disengagement, it has accelerated sharply under President Donald Trump.

Here are 10 regions where US influence has faded most dramatically: