The issue before India is to navigate a so-called new world order being created by dramatic developments at the international level on the political, security, economic and trade fronts.

US President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again" is a blueprint for economic recovery based on protectionism and de-globalisation and revival of its depleted manufacturing sector. As the world’s largest economy, the biggest consumption market, with huge capital resources, controlling the global financial system through the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, Trump has cards to play, however disputable the results of his policy choices may turn out to be.

With his decision to use tariffs against virtually all countries, including allies, in order to reduce America’s yawning trade deficit and bring manufacturing back home in pursuit of bettering the economic future of America’s middle class and creating more employment opportunities for the American worker, Trump has upended the existing rules-based international order incarnated by the WTO, an organisation that has evolved from GATT under US impulsion.

At the end of the day, it has most often been economic rivalry, the search for markets, control over resources that has been the source of wars and conflicts historically. While an actual military conflict may not result from the unilateral moves by Trump on the trade front, the danger of his use of the tariff lever to browbeat his allies, partners and adversaries alike could trigger trade wars between the major centres of economic power with major consequences that could include lower global growth, economic recession, economic distress across countries, rise in poverty levels, and so on.

The developing countries will particularly suffer, with, for instance, the attaining of UN approved SDG goals by 2030, whose implementation has already lagged, getting delayed further. Trump has not only walked out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement, but his strategy for America’s energy security also involves boosting domestically produced oil and gas as well as coal usage which threatens to derail the agenda of decarbonisation of the global economy. At the international level, the core developing country agenda at climate change negotiations to access technology and fund transfers from the developed world for attaining mitigation and adaptation goals will also get derailed.

Multilateralism has already been faced with such a crisis that the UNGA devoted a special session—the 78th in September 2023—to reform of multilateralism. Trump is striking a further blow at multilateralism by also walking out........

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