It's not just hypocritical, it completely undermines the entire concept of international law. It sends a big fat signal to countries like China that the 'rules based order' rhetoric is simply propaganda. If other states don't trust the most powerful country in the world to follow international law in good faith they sure as shit aren't going to follow it either.

What's worse is that US officials genuinely can't understand this and don't grasp that as the dominant superpower the USA's actions define the incentives that every other state responds to.