CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Trump, the Dying Multinational Order and the Global South

Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain

In the second year of Donald Trump’s second term, beginning with the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 2, 2026, followed by the war of choice he has waged against Iran alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the U.S. president has continued his demolition of the 80-year-old global order set up by Washington in the aftermath of the Second World War.

That dying regime is a structure of rules, practices, and policies maintaining the hegemony of the United States and the rest of the capitalist West that was promoted with the rhetoric of freedom, free trade, and democracy. In remarkably candid words, the gap between the reality of this so-called multilateral order and the ideology that justified it was captured by the leader of a country, Canada, whose elite benefited from it. In his speech in Davos on January 20, 2026, Prime Minister Mark Carney admitted:

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection. We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim. This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes. So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

The order Carney describes is over, with the hegemon replacing its rules and practices, already unfair to the Global South as they were, with the unilateral exercise of coercion and force, with no rules at all except the rule that might makes right. Perhaps the essence of the new order is best captured by the words of U.S. Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth during the U.S.-Israeli bombing of Teheran: “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

In the first three months of 2026, Trump has already succeeded in dismantling the political fictions of the old regime, among them the central principle of the United Nations that expressly prohibits “the threat of the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” The kidnaping of Maduro and the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei were the hegemon’s announcement to the world that no country is exempt from outright, brazen intervention should Trump see it fit to do so, and there would not even be........

© CounterPunch