World to Come: The Return of Trump and the End of the Old Order
If it is to survive, a multipolar world will require more, not less, international cooperation to tackle climate change and prevent another financial crisis or military conflict.
Editor’s Note: The following is adapted from the first and final chapters of the forthcoming book World to Come: The Return of Trump and the End of the Old Order by Mathew Burrows and Josef Braml. It is reprinted with the permission of the publisher. The excerpt has been edited for style and clarity.
“The old world is dying, the new world struggles to be born,” wrote the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci at the end of World War I. “Now is the time of monsters.” A witness to the rise of fascism in Italy, Gramsci understood transitions can be dangerous. The world today is at a similar inflection point. With Donald Trump victorious in the 2024 presidential election, the Western liberal order presided over by the United States since the end of the Second World War is over. How will America, Europe, and the rest of the world manage this inflection point?
With Donald Trump’s second victory, America has closed the door on the post-World War II liberal order. It’s been some time since U.S. leaders and the American public believed in the effectiveness of the very multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank that past United States leaders created to ensure peace, stabilize the world economy, and end global poverty. That idealism persisted into the early years of the post-Cold War era when President Bill Clinton believed globalization would lift all boats and that other nations would come to resemble America. With the end of the Cold War, democracy, free markets, and American leadership were the destination for humanity in the U.S. elite’s “end of history” dream world.
Washington was one of the first to be disabused, coming to see globalization as a nightmare, accelerating the rise of its competitors. Whole industries and American jobs with them migrated to Mexico and China. The United States sought to impose democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, which went disastrously wrong. The 2008 financial crisis undermined U.S. financial credibility and Americans’ confidence in their own system; the financial sector—too big to fail—was bailed out while individuals were left struggling to hold on to homes and jobs.
The late 1990s saw the beginnings of a populist movement that Trump has masterfully exploited, leading him to the White House. Trump had all the hallmarks of his populist predecessors: he was straight-talking and made much of the fact that he was not a professional politician. His over-the-top language and in-your-face manner appealed to the disaffected and marginalized. His claims to wealth and business success captivated those who wanted a return of the American Dream.
His 2024 victory was even bigger than the 2016 one, attracting support from black and Hispanic men and the young, besides the white working class. More working-class voters voted for Trump than for Kamala Harris, turning the Democrats into the party of the rich. Voters forgave him for the failures of his first term, particularly his mishandling of the pandemic. Few other politicians have understood the seismic economic and social changes that have made many give up on the American Dream. Inequality has grown to unprecedented heights.
Despite being born wealthy, he has been able to connect with the poor and disaffected. In the short term, he will make them feel good with lower taxes and an end to the influx of millions of so-called illegal immigrants who blue-collar workers feared would take away their jobs. Both parties have become enamored with protectionism that could maroon U.S. industry, ceding many industry sectors to China, particularly in green technologies.
Neither party has a plan for curbing U.S. fiscal deficits and debts, and both Republicans and Democrats are big spenders. The mounting debt is a time bomb. Trump is tempting fate with a slew of new tax reductions that could add trillions to the debt. Trump is betting that the inevitable reckoning does not happen on his watch.
Trump is under the illusion that higher customs revenues will compensate for the lack of revenue from tax breaks. He said at his inauguration that “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens. For this purpose, we are establishing the External Revenue Service to collect all tariffs, duties, and revenues. It will be massive amounts of money pouring into our Treasury coming from foreign sources.” For Trump, tariffs are an all-purpose weapon. Their threat alone is intended to persuade friends and foes alike to abide by U.S. interests.
Under Trump, there might be less talk of war with China, but achieving harmony between the United States and China seems improbable. Although Trump avoids hawkish neocons, he is still influenced by some anti-China advisors. His push to decouple from China will likely harm the U.S. economy. Even if he doesn’t fully proceed with “friendshoring,” the chances of reviving global or regional trade, as in Obama’s era, are slim.
Trump’s disregard for the plight of others will be a problem for the West and an even bigger one in the near term for the Global South. Already, Biden lost the plot about the developing world, and Trump is even more ignorant. Africa and other developing countries are drowning in debt due to the pandemic’s extra health costs. After globalization lifted millions out of poverty, the number of poor people is growing again while Western assistance is declining.
There are now more interstate conflicts each year, most of which receive scant mention in the Western media. The ongoing Myanmar civil war has seen over 50,000 killed and 3 million people displaced, while the reignited Sudan internal conflict has resulted in almost 150,000 people killed in the past two years, along with over 3 million people displaced. Neither of these conflicts registered during the U.S. election. Climate change and the associated struggle for increasingly scarce resources will exacerbate conflicts between and within states, and the lack of Washington’s concern will dent America’s global leadership.
Trump believes climate change is a hoax, preferring to “drill, baby, drill,” as he repeated at his inaugural to secure fossil fuel independence. Nevertheless, on the current course, temperatures will likely rise to 2.9°C above pre-industrial levels this century. Like King Canute trying to hold back the tide, Trump’s denialism won’t keep the ever-more-powerful hurricanes from bashing the U.S. Southeast or extinguish the wildfires across the western United States, so vividly seen with the recent devastation of Los Angeles. Scientists already see a weakening of the Gulf Stream producing higher sea levels and the prospect—if it disappears—of freezing temperatures in North America and Europe. However, most of the climate burden will fall on poorer countries, which are more vulnerable to shocks and lack the resources to implement adaptation measures.
Trump pays little attention to the Global South. When the new president looks out on the world, he only sees the big players like China or Russia. The rest of the world is fuzzy to him, and the idea that Global South countries are middle powers with a say in the global system is unfathomable. For him, you are either for or against the United States. Trump is unprepared for multipolarity.
It’s unlikely that at the end of Trump’s term, there will be any better reckoning with America’s fading primacy in the international order. U.S. diplomacy is not ready for concessions or compromises in building a new order based on the balance of power. Unipolarity—though out of date and no longer feasible—remains ingrained into the psyche of the foreign policy elite. Trump’s desire to see less engagement in overseas wars may be positive, but his disengagement from the world could tip over into a damaging isolationism.
To return to the Gramsci quote that opens this chapter, at the end of his term, Trump won’t be finished with taking apart the old order—the post-World War II order—nor will he be far down the path to rebuilding global cooperation. Like Xi and Putin, Trump wants to break the old order. Much destruction will occur, but it’s our profound hope and belief that a new, fairer world can come out of this chaos and that nations can build a new order that reboots global cooperation.
Preparing for a New Age
There’s no doubt we face perilous times, a historical inflection point. Globalization has broken into value-based trading networks; nationalism is growing everywhere, and major state-on-state war has returned while the shift from West to East, along with a dizzying number of untested technologies, is accelerating. With international cooperation declining, we have lost valuable time in combating climate change, endangering the planet and the quality of life for future generations. What are the hard lessons needed to change the current self-interested directions of states towards cooperation?
Lesson #1: Avoiding World War III
There are two ways the current impasse can be resolved. The first is war, which Harvard political scientist Graham Allison sees as the historic norm for settling differences between two rivals. Under Biden, tensions flared, and there were worries the United States and China were headed to a conflict over Taiwan, but both sides pulled back from the brink. Putin also raised the specter of nuclear war with his repeated warnings of the use of tactical nuclear weapons to deter Western support for Ukraine.
The second way is to learn from the past two centuries of the great powers trying to live together in peace and apply them to international relations today. For the United States, it must understand that global hegemony isn’t tenable. The price for sustaining it would be bankruptcy at home and conflict abroad, possibly ending in a nuclear holocaust. The balance of power worked after the Concert of Europe. If followed today, the United States would remain a great power but would have to recognize China and, over time, Russia as legitimate players, accepting that the world is multipolar, and America could not set all the rules.
A U.S.-China expert suggested that Washington should state that it approves of Taiwan’s unification with China if it is achieved peacefully. This would counter China’s belief that military force is the only way to avoid Taiwanese independence. Yet, in recent years, Washington has gone from helping Taiwan defend itself to claiming the island as a strategic asset that it cannot lose without undermining its naval superiority in East Asia. It may take a Cuban Missile Crisis-like event to persuade both sides to dial back the ruinous security competition and inaugurate confidence-building measures.
The Middle East is perhaps the hardest of the three conflicts, given the number of players and long-running wars. Annexation of Palestinian territories will only foment additional unrest. Five million Palestinians cannot be suppressed forever. Hamas and Hezbollah aren’t likely to disappear, even if they have been severely weakened. Indeed, in the waning days of the Biden administration, Secretary of State Blinken said the U.S. government assessed that “Hamas has recruited almost as many new fighters as it has lost.” Palestinian self-rule on the West Bank and Gaza is the only solution. Israel should take the help offered by Saudi Arabia and others to establish a Palestinian state that is strong enough to stop terrorists from operating from its territory. It may take some time for Israelis to tire of an unrelenting conflict. Yet taking steps to annex the West Bank and Gaza could ignite strife between Palestinians and Jews inside Israel. The Trump administration won’t want to pressure Israel, but Europeans, Saudis, and others should step in and convince the Trump administration against any recognition of annexation by the Israelis.
The United States has sought to implement regime change with its enemies all too often. Cornering Iran will only fast-track its resolve to produce nuclear weapons. Washington would do better to reach out, as Trump has mentioned in the campaign, but it will need to avoid the maximum pressure tactics, which, instead of softening up Tehran, will result in another failed attempt at cooperation. Russia and China play increasing roles and need to be engaged in an effort to achieve regional peace.
Lesson #2: Cooperation over Competition
Climate mitigation and adaptation efforts offer another chance to renew U.S.-China relations and build trust. Protecting oneself while ignoring global climate struggles is unsustainable. This must be a worldwide effort; success depends on it. China’s role in green technology makes its cooperation vital. Why shouldn’t the United States and Europeans explore joint efforts with the Chinese and others, for example, for the development of better and more long-lasting batteries? The United States fears an expansion of China’s near monopoly on battery production and wants to wean Western countries off any reliance on China and produce its own. Rather than competing with one another, some key technological innovations should be shared as public goods for everyone’s benefit.
American, Asian, and European green technology value chains could be severely impacted if the U.S.-China trade war escalates. True leadership in our multipolar world involves addressing global issues, not just self-interest. The West must show it considers broader interests beyond its own to maintain influence. Isolating behind its own “democracy wall” and ignoring the wider world will hinder the spread of Western values and undermine our economic foundations.
China has become the global renewable energy leader within the past decade and is expected to exceed its 2030 solar and wind energy target already in 2025. Its more affordable renewables are pivotal for the clean energy transition in the developing world. However, coal plants are also increasing, partly as backup for all the new wind and solar farms, and China is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. Despite its progress, China too must do more. Russia has the most potential for solar, wind, and nuclear energies, but the government’s reliance on oil and gas revenues to fund the Ukraine war is a big obstacle to the green energy transition. Instead of confrontation, more cooperation is needed to tackle global climate change and prevent another financial crisis.
Lesson #3: Avoiding the Next Financial Crisis
In today’s multipolar world, international coordination would again be needed to reduce worsening macroeconomic imbalances, which have the potential to turn into a crisis. These risks were evident during the global economic and financial crisis of 2007–08, when global imbalances were large and a key factor in the spread of the crisis.
Imbalances are on the rise and won’t be reduced by Trump’s tariffs and decoupling supply chains, but by long-term, structural adjustment processes: surplus countries such as Germany and China should save less and consume more. Such a move by Germany would also strengthen Europe’s political unity. Chinese leaders are only likely to favor a turn towards a consumer-led economy if tensions with the United States ease. Deficit countries such as the United States should save more and reduce government deficits and debt, which are also promoting macroeconomic imbalances.
As long as the United States has a budget deficit, it will have trade deficits, and the twin deficits —budget and trade—are in part a consequence of a strong dollar. Hence, measures should be taken to reduce the structural overvaluation of the dollar as well as force a correction of the undervalued Chinese yuan. John Maynard Keynes proposed a global trade and capital regime in 1944 that involved a synthetic currency designed to absorb global imbalances, such as a supranational currency based on the Special Drawing Rights of the International Monetary Fund. Yet, none of the major players—the United States, the EU, and China—will want to coordinate their monetary and fiscal policies in such an arrangement, which would be seen by all of them as a loss of sovereignty.
Even another Plaza Accord that sought to appreciate the yuan against the dollar and try to cut back on Chinese exports is unlikely. The 1985 Plaza Accord was a deal struck by Washington with its allies to bail out the United States by appreciating their own currencies. America is in a similar situation to today, roiled by inflation and suffering high fiscal and trade deficits. China has no doubt absorbed the lesson that Japan learned. In helping out the United States, Japan increased the value of the yen, making its exports unaffordable and ushering in the long deflationary decade at home.
More practicable may be an informal but regularized trilateral mechanism by the Big Three—United States, European Union, and China—central bank and treasury heads for sharing views on the threats to global financial stability and needed macroeconomic changes that each should take. Establishing such routine, high-level, confidential exchanges won’t necessarily prevent another financial crisis, but could help accelerate the rapid decision-making needed if a crisis unfolds. As in 2008, financial crises often require quick agreements to avoid further escalation. The routinised three-way, high-level discussions would also build trust and facilitate solutions to other problems, such as the debt crisis in poorer countries.
Lesson #4: Inclusivity: A More Representative Multilateral System
Historically, the best time for multilateral reform was when there was a recognized global hegemon. Paradoxically, with multipolarity, it is harder to reform with various rising powers vying for a permanent seat and suspicious of changes that could favor their opponents. Therefore, the reform of the UN Security Council has been stymied. While UN membership has risen from fifty-one to 185 countries, Security Council seats have only increased from eleven to fifteen in the mid-1960s. The five permanent members were victors in the Second World War and each retains a veto. The ten non-permanent members represent different regions and only serve for two years.
Without such reform of the UNSC and other multilateral institutions, developing countries would tend to put more hope and trust in Russian and Chinese-founded bodies such as the BRICS, where their voices are more likely to be heard. Competing multilateral bodies will increase confrontation and undermine cooperation necessary to enable a sustainable and peaceful future.
Woodrow Wilson, the twenty-eighth president of the United States, failed to achieve a new, more peaceful world order at the end of World War I, not least because of the domestic restrictions against the United States joining the League of Nations and assuming a bigger global role. Isolationist and protectionist voices prevailed in U.S. foreign policy—one that was unilateral and inward-looking, disentangling itself from “extra-hemispheric” security commitments and turning away from international economic cooperation. We all know how this story ended: a second world war.
It is not just about avoiding catastrophes; it is about forging a future where shared prosperity, security, and sustainability become the foundation of a truly global order. The alternative is not merely failure—it is the collapse of everything we value.
Dr. Mathew Burrows is the Counselor and Program Lead of the Stimson Center’s Strategic Foresight Hub. Prior to joining Stimson, he had a distinguished career in the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the last ten years of which he spent at the National Intelligence Council (NIC).
Dr. Josef Braml is the Secretary General of the German Group and the European Director of the Trilateral Commission—an influential global platform for dialogue between America, Europe, and Asia. Previously, from 2006 to 2020, he worked at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).
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