Part of the reason why the US has so much power and influence is that many important global resources, like oil, are bought and sold using the US dollar as currency, which means any country that wants to buy or sell oil needs to have a reserve of dollars in its banks. This system is known as the petrodollar, and it benefits the US in many ways, such as allowing it to get loans for lower interest rates than usual, making the US dollar a more stable currency (since every country has at least some), it lets it handle budget deficits more easily (since there's a constant inflow of foreign currencies in exchange for those dollars they need)...
But the main benefit, like Rubio says, is sanctions. If the US doesn't like what a country is doing, all it has to do is forbid that country from accessing the dollar banking system, which leaves it effectively unable to buy oil. And if you try to trade oil in a currency that isn't the US dollar, the USA will simply bomb you or fund and arm a terrorist/revolutionary group that will overthrow your government and replace it with one that does want to trade in US dollars :)
However, this is changing. More and more countries are trying to use other currencies, like the Chinese yuan or Indian rupees, to trade oil. If the petrodollar collapses and the US dollar stops being the global reserve currency, the US loses a significant part of its power over the world. And the Epstein admin's idiotic actions throughout both of Trump's presidencies have accelerated this process.
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