By JOSÉ LUÍS FIORI*
Trump did not create global chaos, he merely accelerated the collapse of an international order that had already been crumbling since the 1990s, with illegal wars, the moral bankruptcy of the West and the rise of a multipolar world.
1.
As Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office came to a close, a major Brazilian news website published on its front page, echoing much of the Western press, that “in 2016 days Donald Trump has caused chaos and shaken the world order.” This is only partially true, since the dismantling of the post-Cold War “international order” began long before Donald Trump was first elected in XNUMX.
The dismantling began in 1999, when the US and its NATO allies disavowed the United Nations and attacked and destroyed Yugoslavia without its approval. And even more so when the US and Britain attacked Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, in defiance of the position of the UN Security Council, the main body of “global governance” that they themselves had created in 1945.
This process of discredit and disorganization was aggravated by the failure of the “global war on terrorism”, declared by the USA in 2001 and waged almost continuously for 20 years, destroying countries and killing thousands of Islamic inhabitants of the Middle East, without any type of authorization from the so-called “international community”.
There is no doubt that the definitive upheaval of the current order occurred when Russian troops invaded Ukrainian territory, after the US, NATO and the European Union rejected a Russian ultimatum demanding the demilitarization of Ukraine and the revision of the European geopolitical map, which had been imposed on Russia by the “victorious powers” and NATO since 1991.
Today, when we look back on the past, we can see more clearly that on February 21, 2021, the definitive rupture of this Euro-American order occurred. At that moment, a power emerged – within the world system – that dared to disobey and challenge, with its own weapons, the Ukrainian troops and the military and financial power of the United States, NATO and the European Union, engaged in a true “proxy war” against Russia.
The Russians achieved a military victory that was magnified by the failure of the massive economic attack launched by these same powers of the G7 and the North Atlantic Alliance. Two victories that definitively demoralized the idea of the military and economic superiority of the “West” in relation to the “rest of the world”.
Almost at the same time that the absolutely cruel and insane Israeli massacre of the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, carried out with US weapons and funding, and with the silent complicity of its European allies, also liquidated what remained of the idea of the “moral exceptionality” of the “Judeo-Christian civilization” that served as the ethical foundation of the cultural hegemony of the “West”.
2.
It was in this context, and after the great financial crisis of 2008, which called into question the utopia of economic globalization, that the figure of Donald Trump, the “great player”, emerged politically. His victory in 2016 and reelection in 2024 are part of this same crisis and disintegration of “Western hegemony”. His figure is inseparable from his vehement criticism of “liberal globalism” and his proposal to reorganize American foreign policy based on the strength and national interest of the United States, without any major moral or catechetical pretensions.
And there is no doubt that Donald Trump’s national and international policies and strategies have contributed decisively to increasing chaos and disorder within and outside American society. More than this, Donald Trump’s declared intention is to destroy what remains of the “liberal-cosmopolitan” or “globalist” order of the post-91 period, and to bet on a new type of system of international correlation of forces based solely on power and commercial negotiations, without any kind of universalist utopia.
Leaving aside Donald Trump's "volatile histrionics", in order to better understand his geopolitical commitment in the international arena, what stood out most in the first months of the Trump administration was precisely his merciless criticism of "liberal globalism" and the direct attack against his own neighbors, allies and vassals - as in the case of Canada and Mexico, and Panama and Greenland - and in an even more surprising and disruptive way, against his European allies in the European Union and NATO.
And also, its attack on the multilateral institutions and organizations created after the Second World War to manage the global hegemony of the United States itself. Culminating in Donald Trump's “universal tariff” against all countries in the world and, in particular, against China and Europe itself, aiming to redirect international trade and redraw the productive map of the world.
Of all his initiatives, however, the most heterodox was undoubtedly the rapprochement and opening of negotiations with Russia, to end the war in Ukraine and bring Russia into the productive, commercial and financial circuits of the G7, in opposition to the “Russophobia” of the Europeans. To such an extent that he went so far as to recognize and denounce the responsibility of Joe Biden and NATO for the war in Ukraine itself, anticipating Russia’s inevitable victory and defending the need for peace so that the Russians do not simply end Ukraine.
It even left open the possibility that the US might abandon, in the medium term, its commitment to unconditional “mutual defense” with regard to NATO countries.
3.
There is, however, another less noticed but equally important aspect of these first 100 days of government: the increasingly clear perception that Donald Trump does not have the power he initially imagined he had, when he proposed to reorganize the world unilaterally.
This is what happened in the economic attack against China, which met with an unexpected, harsh and aggressive response. The Chinese were not intimidated or submissive, and ended up forcing the Americans to retreat and negotiate on an equal footing, and on the terms demanded by the Chinese government.
Something similar to what happened with the hasty American attempt to pacify Ukraine, which clashed with the resistance of its own vassal, and even more so with Russia's firm position in defense of a broader renegotiation of the geopolitical map of Europe, which had been imposed on it in 1991, and of the very foundations of the new international order that Russians and Chinese also believe should be rebuilt.
And the same should be said about Iran’s resilience in defending its nuclear program, despite Donald Trump’s repeated apocalyptic threats. Not to mention the Trump administration’s retreat in the face of Mexico’s courageous response, or even its failure to prevent countries from its “Latin American backyard” from attending the 4th China-CELAC Ministerial Forum in Beijing this May, one of the most important multilateral cooperation initiatives in the Global South.
From our point of view, the weakness demonstrated by Donald Trump's USA has also contributed, and in a decisive way, to the almost complete disappearance of any type of limits, rules, institutions and arbitrators capable of preventing war from becoming the most common and natural means of "solving" any and all international conflicts.
This is what is happening in the case of Israel's attacks on Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen; and in the case of Yemen's attacks on "enemy" ships crossing the Red Sea; and also in the case of the massive attacks by the US and Great Britain on Yemen, as well as in the border dispute between India and Pakistan.
Yet, when one looks more closely at this “world disorder,” one realizes that it is much more concentrated in the zones of “Western influence,” or the North Atlantic powers that have dominated the world for the past 200 years, than in the “Eastern side” of the world system. This is especially true because this disorder has been produced by the erosion of the military power and economic and moral leadership of the “Western powers.”
For this reason, it can be said that the end of chaos and disorder in the world will only occur with the construction and consolidation of a new international order. This is a process that will inevitably involve redefining the relations between these “two worlds”. There will certainly be advances and setbacks, but this construction will take many decades and will still involve many conflicts and wars, but it will no longer be an order protected by the US, much less by Europe. This is over.
4.
The process of unification of Europe began with the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and reached its peak with the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992, shortly after the creation of the Euro in 1999 and the reunification of Germany in 1990.
And this was, without a doubt, one of the most important utopian projects of the 800th century: with its proposal to pacify and unify a system of territorial powers and nation states that had competed and fought against each other almost continuously for 100 years. It is worth noting that this project of dismantling this true “European war machine” was only possible after the two Great Wars of the XNUMXth century, which killed around XNUMX million Europeans.
It is therefore not surprising that this process of building the European Union has faced major limitations and contradictions, which have almost permanently blocked its progress and the full realization of its unitary ideal. To begin with, the European Union has always been extremely heterogeneous and unequal, and has never managed to establish a “central power” capable of imposing its will and strategic decisions on all its member states.
Even less so after 1991, when the Europeans were forced to incorporate, in a hasty and disorganized manner, the Eastern European countries of the former Warsaw Pact. Furthermore, the European Union does not have, and has never had, a unified fiscal budget that would allow it to make decisions and implement short, medium and long-term economic and strategic policies that would reduce the internal inequality of its member states. Furthermore, after 1991, it became a “one-eyed organization”, which began to have a single currency without having a unified fiscal budget.
Finally, even after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, the European Union never had a common, sovereign and active foreign policy, much less a security and defense policy that was managed by the Europeans themselves. In fact, after the Second World War, and even more so after the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949, the European continent delegated its military sovereignty to the United States, and transferred responsibility for its defense to NATO.
In other words, from the point of view of the Westphalia System, the European nation states became “military vassals” of the USA, submitting to its global strategy of containing the Soviet Union and combating communism around the world.
It is no coincidence, therefore, that the Maastericht Treaty was only possible after the end of the Cold War, which allowed the unification of Germany. But, paradoxically, the end of the USSR and the reunification of Germany can also be considered as the starting point of an inverse process, of progressive dismantling of the European Union.
Largely due to the disappearance of the “common enemy” that helped keep it unified until 1991, but also thanks to Germany’s “return” to the status of “largest country” and the greatest demographic and economic power in Europe, after having been the pivot of the two great world wars of the XNUMXth century, as a direct enemy of the USSR, France and Great Britain.
5.
In 2003, Germany openly opposed the invasion of Iraq by US and British troops, which was carried out without the approval of the UN Security Council. Soon after, in 2005, France, the Netherlands, and Ireland rejected a draft European Constitution that had been proposed and shelved by the Council of the European Union. In turn, during the 2008 financial crisis, Germany once again disagreed with France, but especially with Great Britain, which ended up taking an isolated position within the group.
And once again, in the same year of 2008, Europeans were divided over the US proposal to incorporate Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, supported by Great Britain but rejected by Germany. And on January 31, 2020, Great Britain finally decided to leave the European Union, setting a precedent that continues to be echoed in several other countries in the community to this day.
But there is no doubt that this internal division within the European Union took on a completely different dimension after the US, NATO and several European governments got involved and supported the coup d'état that overthrew Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. This is where the so-called “Ukraine crisis” began, which lasted until the outbreak of military hostilities on February 22, 2022, when Russian troops invaded Ukrainian territory and the war returned to Europe after 77 years.
Especially after the US and Great Britain prevented the peace negotiations that were underway in Istanbul in March of that same year. From that moment on, the Ukrainian conflict turned into a European war, between the US/NATO and Russia, which also involved a massive “economic attack” by the European Union against Russia. Two decisions that ended up affecting Europe itself and contributed decisively to the current dismantling of the European Union.
First, because the economic attack failed in terms of its fundamental objectives. The Russian economy continued to grow, the Russian government redirected its trade and financial flows to Asia, and Russian military technology made truly impressive leaps.
While the European economy has entered into crisis and recession, led by the German economy, which has been stagnant for almost three years, undergoing an accelerated process of deindustrialization. Secondly, despite financial support from the US and military support from NATO, the European Union has been defeated in the military field, regardless of how long the Ukrainians' resistance may still last.
6.
Three years after the start of the war in Ukraine, the governments of the main “Western powers” involved in the conflict were overthrown by their own voters, in Italy, Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Of all this, the most important blow to the unity of the European Union was undoubtedly the election of Donald Trump, with his international policy of rapprochement with Russia, pacification of Ukraine, and distancing – almost hostile – from the Europeans and NATO itself.
In one fell swoop, Russia is being brought back into the “Western economic community” by the hands of the United States, and Europe is losing its main ally and nuclear protector. At this moment of European defeat, several proposals have been hastily put on the table, especially by France and Great Britain, but none of them has the slightest chance of reversing this situation of military defeat, economic crisis and social discontent in the short term.
There is currently a corruption charge pending against the President of the European Council, the German Ursula von der Leyen, and her Foreign Representative, the young Estonian Kaja Kallas, who is hardly representative and seems completely unprepared for the position. On the other hand, the Social Democrats have lost their identity and are now warmongering parties and staunch defenders of the “neoliberal globalism” attacked by Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the conservative and liberal parties want to bet on the remilitarization of the European economy, even without the necessary unity and resources. And even then, they would need at least a decade or more to match Russia's current military technology. Their period of military vassalage was very long and it will take a long time for the Europeans to regain their sovereignty in their own hands. And it is not unlikely that during this time the European "great powers" will once again divide, compete and fight among themselves, as they have always done for the last 800 years.
As they are already doing with regard to the corruption allegations hanging over the current president of the European Commission, Germany's Ursula von der Leyen. This is at least what has already happened in the case of the “trade agreement” recently signed by the US and Great Britain, which looks more like a capitulation than a trade agreement. In fact, Great Britain submitted to US pressure and ran ahead of the other European countries to sign, separately, what the newspaper Financial Times, described as being “a pact that is closer to a protection payment to a mafia boss than to a liberalization agreement between sovereign countries”.[1] And it is most likely that other European countries will end up doing the same, deepening the dismantling of the European Union.
* Jose Luis Fiori He is professor emeritus at UFRJ. Author, among other books, of A theory of global power (Vozes) [https://amzn.to/3YBLfHb]
Originally published in Bulletin no. 11, May 2025, of the International Observatory of the XNUMXst Century.
Note
[1] Beattle, A. Financial Times, reproduced in the newspaper Economic value, May 9, 2025, page A 17.
the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE
