Trump, Multilateralism and the Changing World Order

Obinna Chima, Editor, THISDAY Saturday

EDGY OPTIMIST BY Obinna Chima

President Donald Trump’s return to the centre of global politics has revived old questions about the United States’ commitment to multilateralism in a world already strained by conflict, rivalry and institutional fatigue.

As power shifts and alliances are tested, Trump’s worldview once again puts the future of collective global action and the rules-based international order under sharp scrutiny.

That was why the challenge facing multilateralism was one of the major issues discussed at the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meetings in Davos, Switzerland.

The conference, with the theme “A Spirit of Dialogue,” saw global leaders express concern over the retreat of multilateralism as fragmentation, rising protectionism, and disdain for rules-based systems continue to weaken international relations. Today, the rules and norms are not respected by the same powers and institutions that created them.

Declining trust, diminishing transparency and respect for the rule of law, along with heightened protectionism, are threatening longstanding international relations, trade and investment and increasing the propensity for conflict. A contested multipolar landscape is emerging where confrontation is replacing collaboration, and trust – the currency of cooperation – is losing its value.

Indeed, these are all the ingredients promoting extreme nationalism and isolationism, which is ironic since countries such as the US, at the forefront of this ugly development, benefited from multilateral initiatives.

In his speech delivered at the WEF, Emmanuel Macron, President of France, stressed that a shift towards autocracy, against democracy, was hurting the international system. Macron, who pointed out that there were more than 60 wars in 2024 – an absolute record, noted that conflict has become normalised, hybrid, expanding into new demands, space, digital information, cyber, trade, and so on.

“It’s as well a shift towards a world without rules. Where international law is trampled underfoot and where the only law that seems to matter is that of the strongest. And imperial ambitions are resurfacing. This is as well as a shift towards a world without effective collective governance and where multilateralism is weakened by powers that obstruct it or turn away from it, and rules are undermined,” he added.

Equally, in his intervention, Mark Carney, the Prime Minister Canada, also emphasised the end of the rules-based international order, noting that “It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.

“I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of the various states,” he added.

Clearly, Trump has continued to show antipathy toward international collaboration and has been largely accused of moves to dismantle cooperation in the international system.  His administration has in the past one year, followed a pattern of abandoning opportunities for international engagements.

In fact, he recently ordered the US to withdraw from 66 international organisations, a move that marked one of the most sweeping rollbacks of US participation in multilateral institutions in modern history, as the administration moves aggressively to realign foreign engagement with what it calls core American interests.

According to a White House Fact Sheet, the directive ordered all Executive Departments and Agencies to cease participating in and funding 35 non-UN organisations and 31 United Nations entities, which the administration stated operate “contrary to US national interests, security, economic prosperity, or sovereignty.” The White House had said the withdrawals were intended to end American taxpayer funding for institutions that, it argues, prioritise global agendas over US needs.

“Many of these bodies promote radical climate policies, global governance, and ideological programs that conflict with US sovereignty and economic strength,” it had stated.

From the foregoing, it is clear that without fixing or reforming the global order, both international and national economic security will remain vulnerable to instability, conflict and even war, a danger Prince Turki AlFaisal, Chairman of the Board of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, captures succinctly in his argument that a peaceful and secure world depends on embracing multipolarity, respecting the interests of all nations and recommitting to an inclusive, rules-based multilateral system capable of fostering dialogue, cooperation and the preservation of humanity’s hard-won achievements.

Ultimately, the choice confronting the world is not between multilateralism and some abstract notion of sovereign strength, but between cooperation and chaos. History offers no comfort to those who believe that unilateral power, unchecked by rules and institutions, can deliver lasting peace or prosperity.

From global trade to climate change and security, the most pressing challenges of our time do not recognise borders, and no nation, however powerful, can manage them alone without imposing unacceptable costs on others and itself.

Trump’s scepticism toward multilateral institutions may resonate with domestic political audiences, but it collides with the hard realities of an interdependent world. A retreat by the US from collective leadership does not eliminate the need for global coordination; it merely creates a vacuum that others will fill, often with less transparent norms and weaker commitments to shared values. In such a setting, rules give way to raw power, and uncertainty becomes the defining feature of international relations.

Rules-based systems, however imperfect, offer smaller and intermediate states protection, voice and predictability in a competitive global arena. Reforming multilateral institutions to reflect today’s multipolar realities is therefore a strategic necessity for global stability and shared prosperity.

Multilateralism, at its core, acknowledges that dialogue is cheaper than conflict and cooperation more sustainable than coercion. Abandoning it in favour of narrow nationalism risks dismantling decades of progress in peace, development and human dignity.

In a changing world order, the task is not to weaken multilateralism, but to renew it and make it more inclusive, credible and effective because the alternative is a world governed not by rules, but by force.