As opposed to which other wildly successful space programs? Ariane? Lol. I'm not American but yes us space programs are absolutely way ahead and have been so since Apollo. They are also pretty good arguments whenever someone tries to argue that the US is backwards technologically because of... measurement units lol. Not sure why it's even worth denying that. There is tons of stuff to criticize the US for, or where the US is behind but space programs are probably not one of them lol.

The irony here is that even the not so great American space programs, like the two you mentioned, are still leagues ahead of most of the rest of world’s space programs. Also, the SLS launch that’s happened was flawless. Sure the thing is expensive, but how is it a failure?

Orion and SLS will medium to long term likely both be replaced by Starship / Superheavy.

The only non-American super impressive space program that I’ve seen is actually India’s ISRO. Their cost for traditional rockets price per kg to orbit is quite impressive, though Spacex dominates everyone on price due to reusability.