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‘Trump May Be Returning But the Post-War World Order Is Not’

Donald Trump is throwing his second US administration into an already volatile mix – adding his own blend of disorder, writes Alexandra Hall Hall

Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump. Photo: Alamy

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Are we entering a new era of Disorder? Some would say we are already in it.   

The United Nations Security Council has for years been unable to fulfil its mandate to uphold international peace and security because of ideological disputes between its five permanent members. 

The UN General Assembly, where no member state has a veto, reaches more agreements, but cannot enforce its resolutions.  

The UN’s programmes and agencies, such as the World Food Programme and Refugee Agency do valuable work, but face massive funding shortfalls. Funding for peacekeeping is also drying up.  

The UN Human Rights Council has become a pantomime, whereby human rights violators use their membership, not to advance human rights, but to thwart accountability.   

The International Criminal Court has been able to bring only a handful of war criminals to justice, mostly from Africa.  

The World Trade Organisation’s rules are routinely violated by China, and the US, which also blocks important reforms, such as of its Dispute Settlement Mechanism.  

International financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank face challenges navigating global rivalries, and to their legitimacy, amid accusations that their governing bodies are too Western-dominated.  

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Regional Groupings such as the EU, ASEAN, the African Union, and Organisation of American States also struggle to perform effectively. 

In Europe, populist parties are gaining ground, amid growing hostility towards migrants, and previous pillars of international law, such as the UN refugee conventions, which prevent the forcible expulsion of asylum seekers to countries where they face a genuine risk of mistreatment.  

The chaos of Brexit has deterred other countries from leaving the EU. But, ideological differences are hampering EU consensus on essential matters of foreign policy, enlargement, migration, environment, or economic reform.  

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is in disarray as Russia blocks consensus and operation of its core functions.  

ASEAN has fostered economic growth in south-east Asia, but had limited success tackling political crises, such as coups in Thailand, or conflict in Myanmar, due to its requirement for consensus and principle of non-intervention in each other’s internal affairs. The grouping also faces a new challenge navigating the strategic competition between the US and China for influence in the Asia-Pacific.  

The African Union is similarly hamstrung by lack of political will and reluctance to intervene in domestic affairs. It has been unable to prevent a swathe of military coups in recent years or resolve raging conflicts such as in Sudan, Ethiopia or Somalia.  

The Organisation of American States has a better record in standing up for democratic values, for example, suspending Honduras in 2009 following a coup, and criticising democratic decline in Nicaragua and Venezuela. Its election monitoring missions and human rights bodies are generally well-regarded. However, it also suffers from budget shortfalls. Many members resent America’s dominance of the body and the exclusion of Cuba.  

The Middle East remains a seething cauldron, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the heart of regional tensions and instability. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria was a rare bright moment, but it remains unclear if its new leaders will be able to meld a cohesive new society.   

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Countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar have become increasingly assertive internationally.  Sometimes this can be productive – for example, Qatar’s role in trying to negotiate a hostage deal in Gaza, or Turkey in facilitating grain exports from Ukraine, and prisoner swaps with Russia. Other times, they just meddle unhelpfully, for example, by backing different sides in Libya or Sudan.   

Without robust international or regional mechanisms, cooperation on cross-border challenges such as climate change, organised crime, trafficking, terrorism, or arms control becomes harder.  Worthy initiatives are still launched, but follow-through is limited.  

Elections in many countries have become increasingly performative: staged events to give the outward appearance of democracy, while being rigged in favour of the incumbents – as in Georgia or Venezuela recently.  

Azerbaijan seized the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh by force in 2023. China continues to make claims on Taiwan, in the South China Seas, and in several places along its border with India. As the Arctic ice cap melts, Russia and China assert new interest in the region, opening a new front in great power competition.   

Iran may temporarily be on the backfoot, but may double-down on efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Other countries, observing Russia’s use of nuclear threats to deter more assertive Western action in Ukraine, may also be tempted down this path.  

Unregulated social media and artificial intelligence make it easier to spread disinformation, and exploit sensitive issues, such as immigration, to further polarise societies.  

Into this volatile mix comes Donald Trump, adding his own blend of disorder.  

Even before taking office, he has refused to rule out seizing Greenland from Denmark by force, and staked a claim on the Panama Canal. He has offended Canada by suggesting it should become a state of America; and Mexico, by accusing it of not doing enough to curb migration, and proposing to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

His plan to slap tariffs on countries around the world risks a global trade war. He is expected to force Ukraine to the negotiating table, rewarding Vladimir Putin for his aggressive behaviour.  

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Trump disdains multilateral institutions, and is sceptical about America’s alliances, which he believes tie the United States down. He is likely to slash funding for the United Nations; withdraw the US (again) from the Paris Climate Agreement; and sanction the International Criminal Court, because of its arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.  

He has already undermined NATO, by raising doubts about his commitment to allies, especially those who fail to meet his latest declared target of 5% GDP expenditure on defence. He’s also demanded that allies in Asia pay more for their own defence.  

Much of Trump’s rhetoric may be trolling, to pressurise countries to bend to his will. In the short term, it may even have some success in deterring countries such as China and Iran from aggressively pursuing their geopolitical ambitions. Trump’s defenders will argue, not without reason, that it was the perception of American weakness under his predecessors which allowed so much global chaos to unfold – and that his more assertive stance is precisely what is needed to re-establish global deterrence. 

But the longer-term effect is likely to be the acceleration of the decline in respect for international laws and institutions. When the chief defender of the international ‘rules-based order’ no longer seems to care, why should other countries bother paying even lip service to it? 

It is also likely to lead to further geopolitical alignments, as countries decide whether it is in their best interests to seek to appease Trump, even at the cost of sacrificing some of their principles or interests, distance themselves, hedge their bets between the US and China, or actively align themselves to China.  

Countries such as the UK, heavily dependent on the US for security; democracies in Asia, such as Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan; and countries in central and north America, which cannot escape their geographical proximity and economic dependency on the US, are most likely to fall into the first camp.   

Many countries of a populist or autocratic bent will actively welcome Trump’s authoritarian instincts, since it will let them off the hook on their own domestic record, and give them free rein to pursue their own interests more nakedly, with less regard for international law. 

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Countries such as India, Turkey, Hungary, Israel, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia, may fall into this category, and find the Trump administration easier to work with than Joe Biden’s – with its transactional approach, inclination for hard power, and focus on major threats such as China and Iran.  

President Emmanuel Macron of France is a champion of the second approach, arguing that Europe must establish strategic autonomy from America, and develop its own more robust foreign policy and defence capability. These ideas have merit, irrespective of Trump.

The European Political Community also initiated by Macron, in 2022, is another potential vehicle for addressing European security challenges, independently from the US or NATO. Failure to address Europe’s current economic and security weaknesses risk the continent slipping into irrelevance. Unfortunately, ideological divides, and dithering by weak governments, such as in Germany, may doom this effort. 

Overtly hostile regimes, such as Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, are already close to China. China has been cultivating additional partnerships around the world, including with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka in Asia; small island states in the Pacific; many Arab, African and Latin American countries; much of central Asia, the lynchpin of China’s Belt and Road initiative; and several countries in Europe such as Belarus, Serbia, and Greece.  

The most visible manifestation of a changing world order is the growing BRICS bloc, comprising the five original members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa; five new members who joined in 2023 – Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and UAE; and nine partner countries announced late last year – Belarus, Bolivia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Cuba, Malaysia, Uganda, and Uzbekistan. Algeria, Turkey, Vietnam, and Nigeria have also been invited to become partners, but not yet accepted.  

Established in 2009, BRICs seeks to coordinate its members’ economic and diplomatic policies, found new financial institutions, and reduce dependence on the US dollar. The group possesses growing economic and demographic heft, comprising more than a quarter of the global economy and almost half of the world’s population. By contrast, the G7 nations comprise less than 10% of the world population and under 30% of GDP.  

However, though all members favour a less US-dominated world order, they do not agree on what should replace it. Many are wary of China. Rivalries between different members, tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and domestic economic and political weaknesses also limit what it can achieve.   

 As Donald Trump begins his second term, what is certain is that the world order established after the Second World War is not returning.   



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