a colloquialism, first used during the Cold War, to describe either the United States or, more commonly, the President of the United States. The term when used in this context suggested that the United States was the principal democratic superpower, and the US president was by extension the leader of the world's democratic states, i.e. the "Free World". The phrase has its origin in the 1940s during the Second World War, especially through the anti-fascist Free World magazine and the US propaganda film series Why We Fight. At this time, the term was criticized for including the Soviet Union (USSR), which critics saw as a totalitarian dictatorship. However, the term became more widely used against the USSR and its allies during the 1950s in the Cold War era, when the US depicted a foreign policy based on a struggle between "a democratic alliance and a communist realm set on world domination", according to The Atlantic. The term here was criticised again for including right-wing dictatorships such as Francoist Spain, and Nikita Khrushchev said in the 21st Congress of the Soviet Communist Party that "the so-called free world constitutes the kingdom of the dollar". Although in decline after the mid-1970s, the term was heavily referenced in US foreign policy up until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. After the presidency of George H. W. Bush the term has largely fallen out of use, in part for its usage in rhetoric critical of US policy. Terms implying a leadership role in the "free world" later came to be used for other persons, places, or states. European Union On 6 May 2010, upon an address to the plenary chamber of the European Parliament, the then US Vice President Joe Biden, stated that Brussels had a "legitimate claim" to the title of "capital of the free world", normally a title reserved for Washington. He added that Brussels is a "great city which boasts 1,000 years of history and serves as capital of Belgium, the home of many of the institutions of the European Union and the headquarters of the NATO alliance." Germany When Time declared the German Chancellor Angela Merkel Time Person of the Year for 2015, they referred to her as "Europe's most powerful leader", and the cover bore the title "Chancellor of the Free World". Following the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency in November 2016, The