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Didn’t the former empires collect taxes or extract some sort of tribute from their “subjects”?

The means vary. The British forbid us to manufacture, one of the real causes of the American Revolution. They wanted us and their other colonies to be exporters of raw materials to them or others with them as the transport medium. Control of trade is very important.

The British were finding it somewhat unprofitable so they tried minor taxes like the tea tax and the Stamp Act. Resentment that we were being taxed without any members in England's Parliament is why we so hate "taxation without representation". I really really hate it. LOL. Anyway, the upshot was that we discovered that it was much much more expensive to pay to defend ourselves than the minor taxes the British tried to collect on stamps and tea. Of course, had we tolerated those first taxes, they would have escalated.

Control of trade, securing our resources (some of which happen to be unfairly located under Arab sands), control of markets (including labor markets), and emerging tech countries are the high-stakes chips in the current poker game. GATT and NATO and even the U.N. occasionally are just part of the mechanism.

A lot of people misunderstand how this works. The ordinary people in many countries resent this arrangement, often exploited by demagogues seeking to gain political power. But the elites in the various countries are generally supportive of this international order because it is in their personal interest to do so. And nature does abhor a vacuum. The British empire filled this role before we did, making the sea lanes safe, providing steady supplies of raw materials and manufactured goods and promoting the advance of science. When the old empires collapsed after WW II, we and the Soviets competed for influence. Then they fell apart and we are the last empire, never having planned to be one to begin with. Well, at least not as a national policy goal that our citizens embrace. It's the whole world policeman/nation-building thing along with being the engine of world trade.

Moving towards the positions that Ron Paul advocates would not entirely change this. But the role of world police and nation-builders would diminish considerably. Unless you're a person who believes we have to hold the world hostage at the point of a gun, it's worth considering whether we should consider changing our direction.