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For fear of finding something worse: Trump and the end of the global rules-based order

You don't need the insight of Kissinger or Acheson to see that the international rules-based order is hopelessly unsound. Donald Trump's impending second term as president poses a challenge to the framework of global politics and diplomacy, and this framework may not survive.

As he heads into his next term, Trump has already floated some surprising concepts. Before Christmas he proposed Canada should be number 51 after the United States. called the Panama Canal He said it was a “vital national asset” and would “demand” that it be “returned in full, promptly and without question” unless the fee for its use was reduced. and announced He revived a 2019 proposal to buy Greenland from Denmark, arguing that “ownership and control of Greenland is absolutely necessary” to U.S. national security.

This is not so much old-fashioned power politics as an approach to territorial claims and sovereignty that was thought to have ended in the aftermath of World War II and the signing of treaties. united nations charter [In1945[1945年に。

During the Cold War, international relations were shaped by global competition between East and West. However, that competition was regulated and conducted with the presence of the United Nations, International Court of Justice, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. Bretton Woods Agreement — and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Although the rules and decisions of these institutions may not always be recognized, it is a world of multilateralism that supports the governing structures of democratic nation-states, such as law and order, justice, and economic freedom, even if imperfectly. It was an attempt to replicate it internationally. The World Trade Organization took over GATT in 1995, and the International Criminal Court was established in 1998 (albeit without ratification by the United States, Russia, Israel, or participation by China, including India, Pakistan, and Turkey).

It's not like that. Russia's war of conquest against Ukraine, China's growing assertiveness on the high seas, repeated upheavals in the Middle East, and piracy and terrorism around the Horn of Africa are all disrupting the rules-based order. Should we consider the possibility that Trump is nothing more than an instrument of euthanasia?

Last year, I wrote that the United Nations was “failing everywhere…an incompetent organization teetering on the brink of worthlessness.” The reason is existential and fundamental: the United Nations is “based on the mistaken idea that all nations are equal and of equal moral weight and integrity.” It may be unusual for my views to align with Trump's, but there is also truth to the idea that the United Nations is the best thing for us at this time.

The various multilateral organizations that have proliferated around the world since World War II have been imperfect and sometimes harmful. Nevertheless, they represent an attempt to regulate interactions between states, to provide some notion of rules, and to alleviate the ancient human impulse to “might be right.”

The impending Trump administration simply does not believe in that attempt, that impulse. it is widely expected The US government will drastically cut funding to the United Nations, as it did during President Trump's first term. Caroline Levitt, who will soon become White House press secretary, declared that “President Trump will use American power to restore world peace.''

Regarding global finance, Scott Bessette, an investor and hedge fund manager who was nominated by President Trump as Secretary of the Treasury, I said it last November. “We're in the middle of a Bretton Woods reorganization from a global policy perspective, and I want to be a part of that.” It means that some IMF is involved. Meanwhile, President Trump idolizes tariffs. set him at odds Exactly in line with the objectives of the WTO.

The idea that Trump will destroy the rules-based order and overturn the framework of multilateral institutions, like Jesus driving the money changers out of the Jerusalem temple, excites his MAGA followers. It's not without merit. The United Nations is a perversion of what it is supposed to be, the International Court of Justice is brutally but often politically biased, and so is the IMF. prefer politics to economics.

If these institutions are simply set aside, the United States will maintain its hegemonic position for some time. it is world's largest economy — larger than its closest competitors China, Japan and Germany combined — and spend more on defense It's bigger than the next four countries combined. When power is right, America is more powerful than anything else.

Not necessarily. If the U.S. economy were to falter or its military power could match or eclipse it, President Trump would lead a country that espoused such love into a world where there are no longer any rules or safeguards for anyone. I might have to put it down.

The president-elect is not known as a fan of writer and politician Hilaire Belloc, but he should remember the fate of the boy of the same name in the following poem:Gym” — he ran away from the care of a nurse and was eaten by a lion. Jim's father warns the other children to “attend to James' tragic end/And keep an eye on the nurse/for fear you'll find something worse.”

Elliott Wilson is a freelance writer covering politics and international affairs and co-founder of Pivot Point Group. He was a senior member of the UK House of Commons from 2005 to 2016, including Secretary of the Defense Committee and Secretary of the UK Delegation to NATO Parliament.

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