It's hard to be objective about these things as someone who only speaks one language natively (like me), but I suspect that English does have more advantages as

It's hard to be objective about these things as someone who only speaks one language natively (like me), but I suspect that English does have more advantages as an international language than simply being the tongue of the world's biggest economic power. There are many things about English that are difficult, if not infuriating for those learning it (spellings, irregular declinations, phrasal verbs, etc), but it is also a language that is quite easy to gain a basic grasp of. It has much more simplified grammar than most other European languages, for example, and even if spoken badly it is quite often intelligible. I had a friend who taught English in Greece, and she used to say that learning English was like trying to hold sand in your hand: cup it lightly and it's easy; try to hold it tightly and it's apt to slip through your fingers. I'm sure many East Asians would disagree with me on how easy English is though, so maybe I'm being parochial.