Western leadership in disarray amid Trump’s return

Opinion

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This article was published 27/01/2025 (225 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Donald Trump has declared his second presidency will herald a new golden age for America. That’s questionable. But all indications are Trump thinks this can be achieved by doubling down on his bombastic, zero-sum approach to diplomacy.

This isn’t just a problem for U.S. adversaries.

Liberal democracies must also now navigate the whims of an emboldened America First administration. Their top priority is to prevent the rules-based international system from backsliding into law-of-the-jungle style competition. Small and medium-sized nations, including Canada, derive their security and prosperity from an orderly form of globalization.

The contemporary model is not perfect. Its main institutions date back to the end of the Second World War. They are unfit to handle the complex, cascading crises of the 21st century. But existing structures need careful reform, not annihilation.

A broad alliance of the Western world, if unified, can defuse Trump’s worst impulses. Yet many liberal democracies must first get their own houses sorted. And soon.

Justin Trudeau’s resignation as prime minister has left a gaping hole in Ottawa at precisely the wrong time. His replacement — likely Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre — will only be elected and settled into office six months from now.

Until then, Poilievre’s pushback against Trump seems bound to remain vague and muted.

Trying awkwardly to fill the void are provincial premiers and Liberal cabinet ministers. Their scattershot ideas and public contradictions of each other over how Canada should respond to tariff threats caters to Trump’s strengths. The former reality TV star routinely says false and outlandish things to mask his true intentions. And dictate news cycles. The goal is to put undisciplined counterparts on the back foot, luring them into making negotiating mistakes.

The situation is hardly better in Europe. The European Union’s executive branch assembled an informal “Trump task force” last year. The group has been brainstorming measures since before Trump was re-elected to safeguard the US$1.5 trillion in annual EU-U.S. trade against any tectonic shifts in Washington’s policies.

Yet this strategy requires co-ordination among the EU’s 27 member states. Unfortunately, many of them are consumed with internal problems. The continent’s twin powers, France and Germany, are especially mired in political dysfunction and economic malaise.

French President Emmanuel Macron has appointed three different prime ministers in just the past year alone. One government was toppled after circumventing constitutional procedures to ram through unpopular fiscal policies. Macron then impulsively called a snap election in June, hoping to quash surging support for France’s hard-right opposition party. Such instability has spooked away business investment, crushed consumer confidence and inflamed tensions within the electorate.

Germany heads to the polls on Feb. 23 after its government collapsed last month following a no-confidence vote in Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The country’s export-driven economy — the world’s third-largest — previously thrived off cheap Russian energy to power its manufacturing sector. Automotive exports flowed to China.

But now it’s flatlining. Sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and an explosion in Chinese electric vehicle production have brought Germany’s industrial heartland to its knees. Unemployment is at levels last seen during the height of the pandemic. The country’s central bank foresees the economy barely growing in 2025 after contracting by 0.2 per cent last year.

Ultranationalist groups are ascendant across the continent as well, capitalizing on anti-immigrant sentiment and voter concerns over falling living standards. Such feelings propelled Kremlin sympathizers to recent election wins in Austria and Slovakia.

Across the English Channel, Britain’s new Labour government — only a few months old — is already floundering. It has swiftly broken a series of promises, including by cutting off winter fuel payment benefits to seniors. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has meanwhile been tainted by revelations he’s been prone to accepting free gifts.

Elsewhere, South Korea continues to spiral after President Yoon Suk Yeol’s bizarre decision on Dec. 3 to declare martial law. In Japan, only one-third of voters approve of the cabinet makeup of the current governing coalition; a shakeup could be imminent.

In an essay published a few days before Trump’s inauguration, political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon warned that “experience shows that Mr. Trump usually backs down when an opponent shows a spine.” But, he adds, “… it’s hard to have a spine when you don’t have a head. And at the very moment of greatest danger for Canada, we’re close to headless.”

The same could be said about much of the liberal democratic world.

Kyle Hiebert is a Winnipeg-based researcher and analyst, and former deputy editor of the Africa Conflict Monitor.