London: One year into Donald Trump’s second term, it’s increasingly clear that the United States has embarked on a foreign policy experiment without precedent in the modern era. For roughly 80 years, successive US administrations, Republican and Democrat alike, operated within a broadly shared framework established in the aftermath of the Second World War. That framework rested on alliances, international institutions, open markets and a belief that American power was most effective when exercised in concert with others. Today, that settlement is in visible retreat. Under Trump, the United States is not merely adjusting its approach to the world but actively dismantling key pillars of the international order it once built and led. What is emerging in its place is not isolationism in the traditional sense, but something more disruptive: a transactional, zero-sum vision of global politics in which power is hoarded, alliances are conditional and liberal rules are viewed as constraints rather than assets.
The post-war order was founded on a simple but ambitious premise. By underwriting global security through alliances such as NATO, supporting institutions like the United Nations, World Bank and World Trade Organization, and opening its vast domestic market to allies and competitors alike, the US could promote stability, prosperity and influence simultaneously. While far from altruistic, this system aligned American interests with those of much of the world, particularly in Europe and East Asia. Trump’s foreign policy vision rejects that logic outright. To him, international institutions dilute US sovereignty, alliances create liabilities, and free trade allows others to exploit America’s economic strength. Leadership, in this worldview, is not something to be exercised for collective benefit, but a burden that leaves the US paying more and getting less.
This is not a new set of beliefs for Trump. Long before he entered politics, he railed against the North American Free Trade Agreement, the WTO and multilateral trade deals more broadly. He opposed US military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, not on moral or humanitarian grounds, but because he saw them as costly ventures that delivered little tangible return. What has changed since his first term is not his worldview but his freedom to act on it. During Trump’s initial presidency, establishment figures within his administration, such as generals, diplomats and economic advisers, all steeped in the post-war consensus, often acted as a brake on his instincts. Many have now gone. In their place are inexperienced and incompetent loyalists, such as TalkShow hosts, who do not challenge Trump’s belief that the existing international system works against American interests. The result is a far more unconstrained presidency, willing to pursue a radical reordering of US foreign relations.
At the heart of Trump’s worldview is a transactional understanding of international politics. Shaped by decades in real estate, he approaches diplomacy as a series of deals in which one party wins and the other loses. Alliances, in this context, are not expressions of shared identity or mutual obligation but financial arrangements that should be renegotiated (or abandoned) if they no longer appear profitable. This approach has been most starkly illustrated in Trump’s handling of trade and security. Sweeping tariffs, imposed with little regard for their impact on allies, reflect his belief that the open trading system disadvantages the US as the world’s largest consumer market. Meanwhile, repeated threats to withhold US protection from NATO allies unless they increase defence spending strike at the core of the alliance’s credibility. For leaders elsewhere in the west, this poses a profound challenge. The idea of “the west” has never been merely geographic. It has rested on a sense of shared identity encompassing material interests, liberal democratic values and, to varying degrees, common historical and cultural ties. That sense of collective self-understanding was essential during the cold war, particularly in making nuclear deterrence credible. The promise that an attack on one would be met by all only worked because it was believed.
Trump’s depiction of western allies as free-riding competitors, exploiting access to US markets while shirking their defence responsibilities, shatters this carefully constructed narrative. By framing allies as adversaries in economic and security terms, he undermines the psychological foundations of collective defence. For an administration that shows little interest in shared values or long-term alliances, this erosion of trust appears to be a price worth paying. Europe, in particular, has become a focal point of Trump administration hostility. This is not only about trade imbalances or defence budgets; beneath the surface lies a deeper ideological divergence over identity, culture and the nature of the state. Trump and many of his advisers draw less inspiration from the liberal republicanism of America’s founding fathers, than from a Christian nationalist tradition that defines the nation in racial and religious terms. In this vision, American identity is implicitly white and Christian.
This helps explain the administration’s aggressive anti-immigration stance and why its 2025 national security strategy elevates the ending of “mass migration” to a central strategic objective. Immigration is framed not as an economic or humanitarian issue but as an existential threat to national identity. It also explains the administration’s increasingly hostile rhetoric toward Europe. The National Security Strategy warns of “civilizational erasure,” arguing that within decades some NATO members could become “majority non-European.” While the document avoids explicit racial language, the implication is clear: Europe is at risk of becoming non-white and non-Christian, and therefore alien to what the administration regards as the true west.
This perspective was laid bare by Vice-President J.D. Vance at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025, when he told delegates that he was more concerned about “threats from within Europe” than those posed by Russia or China. For Vance and his allies, the rise of right-wing parties, such as Reform UK, that oppose immigration and seek to weaken the European Union is not a problem but an opportunity. Supporting such movements has become an informal but central component of the administration’s foreign policy. Taken together, these positions represent a direct challenge to the world order that the US once championed. For countries that continue to see value in multilateralism, open markets and collective security, Trump’s America is no longer a reliable anchor. This tension was on full display at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, where many leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the post-war order and signalled their willingness to defend it, even in the absence of US leadership. The message from Davos was not one of defiance for its own sake, but of resolve. In dealing with a transactional US president, these leaders appear to have concluded that accommodation has limits. Some principles, and some institutions, cannot simply be bargained away without unravelling the system that underpins global stability.
Whether this emerging resistance can succeed remains an open question. What is clear, one year into Trump’s second term, is that the era of unquestioned American stewardship of the international system is over. As American ships threaten Iran, the world is now grappling with a United States that sees power not as something to be exercised on behalf of an order, but as a tool to be wielded — and withdrawn — at will.
* John Dobson is a former British diplomat, who also worked in UK Prime Minister John Major’s office between 1995 and 1998. He is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Plymouth.
