“Banana republic” is specifically a term referring to countries that are puppets of the United States on behalf of commercial interests (the trope-naming example being Gautemala on behalf of United Fruit Company); in the absence of an imperial power pulling US strings on behalf of that powers’ commercial interests which dominated the US economy, it would be hard for the US to be reasonably described as going the direction of a “banana republic”.

What it is more going the way of a major power resenting a weakened position in the world falling into authoritarian and/or kleptocratic nationalist dictatorship leaning on the propaganda of restoring national greatness, somewhere between Hitler’s Germany and Putin’s Russia, which is a very different situation than a banana republic.

No.. that's not specifically it at all.

> dependent on exporting a single product or commodity, often controlled by foreign-owned entities [0]

Such countries/regions long existed before the US, although the term was coined by a US writer (William Sydney Porter), and the Banana industry (specifically) has a lot to answer for (in the US specifically). A region making money from.. foreign-owned chips, oil, IT-consultants or Sardines has the same status. The term has a terrible history (surprising the Gap hasn't rebranded).

[0]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/banana-republic

The US being a puppet state of US commercial interests seems to be an apt description.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

Banana republic isn’t specific to US control and it’s actually not that unreasonable to call Russia a banana republic