Trump's new world order: Strongmen make the rules

Zachary Basu

https://www.axios.com/2025/02/28/trump-new-world-order-russia-china-europe

The international order forged after World War II is imploding, squeezed on all sides by the return of strongmen, nationalism and spheres of influence — with President Trump leading the charge.

Why it matters: Trump is openly scornful of international institutions and traditional alliances. Instead, he sees great opportunity in a world dominated by superpowers and dictated through dealmaking.

Between the lines: Trump's approach is based, according to U.S. officials, in "realism" — and the belief that "shared values," international norms and other squishy concepts can never replace "hard power."

• "The postwar global order is not just obsolete," Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared at his confirmation hearing last month. "It is now a weapon being used against us."

Where the U.S. once helped enforce global norms, such as on trade, Trump is undercutting them.

• Trump's first term posed newfound threats to 20th-century alliances and structures — NATO, the World Trade Organization, even the UN.
• A second Trump term could render them virtually obsolete.

Zoom in: The frailty of the rules-based order was exposed this week on the preeminent global stage built to support it.

• At the UN General Assembly on Monday, the U.S. voted against a resolution condemning Russia for invading Ukraine on the third anniversary of the war.
• It was the first time since 1945 that the U.S. sided with Russia — and against Europe — on a resolution related to European security, according to the BBC's James Lansdale.
• Nearly all other Western leaders see Russia as a rogue state and an aggressor. Trump sees a potential partner.

Zoom out: For Europe, which has relied on the U.S. to guarantee its security for the last eight decades, this isn't just a wakeup call: It's an existential challenge that throws the entire transatlantic alliance into question.

• Germany's conservative leader Friedrich Merz said after his election victory Sunday that his "absolute priority" is to rapidly strengthen Europe so that it can "achieve independence from the USA."
• "I would never have believed that I would have to say something like that on television," Merz admitted. "But after Donald Trump's statements last week, it is clear that the Americans ... are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe."

Trump officials have expressed open contempt toward Europe on a range of issues beyond collective defense, including trade, migration, free speech and culture.

• "The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That's the purpose of it, and they've done a good job of it," Trump said in the Oval Office this week as he floated 25% tariffs on EU goods.
• "There's a new sheriff in town," Vice President Vance announced in a fiery speech in Munich this month that painted globalism as the downfall of European society.

The big picture: In today's multipolar world, the U.S., Russia and China are all racing to secure their strategic interests and solidify — or expand — their spheres of influence.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin dreams of reconstituting the Soviet bloc and has tried to do so by force — invading Ukraine and meddling in elections across the Western world.
• China, an economic and military superpower under Xi Jinping, is watching Ukraine carefully as it ponders whether to invade Taiwan and cement Xi's legacy through "reunification."

Trump, meanwhile, has broken sharply with his predecessors by calling for the expansion of U.S. territory — potentially to include Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal and even the Gaza Strip.

• He's also floated grand bargains with both Beijing and Moscow on everything from trade to nukes.
• This is great power competition in its purest form, and it's the direction that Trump — to the deep consternation of small and mid-sized countries — seems intent on taking the world.

The bottom line: What's old is new again.

• 80 years ago, three great powers — the U.S., U.K. and the Soviet Union — gathered in what is now Russian-occupied Crimea to decide the fate of a European continent ravaged by war.
• There at Yalta, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin set the terms for what ultimately led to the Iron Curtain, fueling the decades-long Cold War.
• "I think that's Donald Trump's mindset. It's certainly Putin's mindset. It's Xi Jinping's mindset. It's not Europe's mindset," former MI6 chief Alex Younger warned last week. "That's the world we're going into."