Trump and the Unraveling of the Rules-Based International Order

The Trump administration’s threat of sweeping tariffs has set the stage for an economic confrontation with a trade war now fully underway. However, Canada did earn a last-minute reprieve with a 30-day grace period to see whether Trump acts on his threat. Beyond the immediate retaliatory measures from affected nations, one of the most striking consequences has been a  surge of nationalist sentiment. This fervour has galvanised Canadians into a rare moment of unity. Be it over the airwaves or in grocery stores. Indeed, the latter have become a zone of contention, where the quiet rituals of consumption have been transformed into acts of defiance with every purchase carefully scrutinised, each product weighed against patriotic duty. The directive is unspoken yet unmistakable: Buy Canadian. Shun American. The atmosphere is charged, almost militant. It is a brutal reckoning.

Into this shifting global landscape steps the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose declarations on the passing of unipolarity carry an air of inevitability. Whether his words stem from genuine ideological conviction or simply a pragmatic response to the prevailing Trumpian order, they bear a gravity distinct from the usual diplomatic pronouncements. No longer a senator merely commenting from the periphery, Rubio now speaks with the authority of high office, and his tacit acceptance of a multipolar world order underscores a fundamental shift in the American strategic psyche. While he stops short of outrightly endorsing the relinquishment of American primacy, his rhetoric signals a recalibration – an acknowledgement that national interests must take precedence over the lingering illusions of liberal hegemony.

If unipolarity is indeed an aberration, a fleeting anomaly in the relentless tides of history, then the very foundation of America’s grand strategy – its pursuit of dominance under the guise of benevolent leadership – begins to unravel. This reality is reflected in Rubio’s tenure at the helm of American diplomacy. During his confirmation hearings, he pledged that every expenditure, every allocation of resources, would be rigorously aligned with the national interest, lamenting USAID’s historic tendency to operate as an independent philanthropic entity rather than an instrument of statecraft. Now, as Acting Administrator of USAID, his words take on the weight of policy. The agency’s absorption into the State Department, coupled with murmurs of its potential dissolution, marks a decisive transformation that reconfigures the contours of American humanitarian engagement, placing it firmly in service of foreign policy imperatives, invoking memories of the DFAIT and CIDA amalgamation in 2013. Secretary Rubio has since reinforced this doctrine, insisting that USAID’s functions must be subordinate to America’s strategic objectives. Its mission is recalibrated to serve not abstract ideals but the hard imperatives of power.

How are we to make sense of the Trumpian tempest – a storm of discontent and disruption that has not merely unsettled the global order but questioned its foundations? How are we, as Canadians, to chart our foreign policy amid the fallout of this upheaval? To answer these questions, we must confront uncomfortable truths, shed romantic illusions, and recalibrate our understanding of both the world and Canada’s place in it. Donald Trump is no mere aberration in the landscape of geopolitics; he is its lightning rod. The global order, long enshrined in the rhetoric of Western democracies, is not being remade by him so much as it is being unmasked. Trump’s brash assault on the so-called “rules-based international order” exposes it for what it has always been: not a covenant of universal values but a gilded construct built to perpetuate Western dominance. This structure, which our political leaders dutifully venerate, now lies exposed as both an engine of imperial ambition and a failing arbiter of global stability.

Through its public figures, Canada has become a high priest of this fragile orthodoxy. Prime ministers and foreign ministers extol the virtues of the “liberal international order,” invoking its supposed neutrality as the guiding star of Canadian foreign policy. Yet the glaring contradictions in Canada’s global posture tell a different story. In the age of Trump, these contradictions have been cast into sharp relief.

Consider, for instance, Canada’s approach to two protracted crises: the war in Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza. Ostensibly, Canada champions peace, human rights, and multilateral diplomacy. In practice, it has become a cog in the machinery of war, supplying arms to allies. It was the classic case of aiding with arms to two sides of the argument – to counter the Russian invasion and defend the indefensible when it suits the calculus of Western unity, as in the case of the Israel-Hamas conflict. 

The dissonance in Canadian foreign policy lies in its conflation of two eras: the post-World War II order, defined by collective security and containment, and its post-Cold War successor, a unipolar hegemony steeped in liberal triumphalism. The latter, now crumbling, has left Canada clinging to a phantom, unable to reconcile its peacekeeping ethos with its participation in the war-making apparatus of NATO and other Western-led coalitions. For over two decades, the rush to impose democracy – framed in crude civilizational binaries – has led nations down the path of war, not peace. Afghanistan stands as its bleakest ruin. Canada must choose differently. Choose democracy and development. Not war in its name. Tim Martin, in his recent book Unwinnable Peace, makes this plea.

This unipolar moment – an era of American-led globalisation – was always an anomaly. It sought to globalise not just commerce but a Western-centric ideology anchored in free markets and liberal democracy. Yet, paradoxically, as Hans Morgenthau and other realist school thinkers predicted, such hegemony was doomed to be undone by its hubris. In The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama declared liberal democracy not just triumphant but terminal – the grand finale of ideological struggle, after which history would dissolve into the meticulous choreography of bureaucrats, endlessly managing the dividends of victory, tending to a world stripped of grand conflicts, where governance became mere administration, and politics, a bloodless routine. Yet beneath this veneer of triumph lay an unspoken dread – that without an adversary, freedom might languish, enfeebled by its complacency. The “Washington Consensus” of the mid-1990s, birthed amid the euphoria of Cold War victory, promised a flattened world of seamless trade, frictionless capital, and borderless labour. But the flattening brought fractures: deindustrialisation, rising inequality, and a swelling tide of disillusionment. 

The invocation of a “rules-based order” operates on twin fronts: outwardly, as a clarion call against perceived disruptors – chiefly China and Russia – summoning international consensus; inwardly, as an ideological lodestar, fortifying domestic resolve against authoritarian adversaries while consolidating Western alliances. Though this order commands allegiance beyond its traditional bastions, its political function extends beyond mere governance – it crafts narratives, instils coherence, and confers legitimacy upon those who wield it, even as it excludes, disciplines, and marginalizes.

China’s 2001 WTO accession, once seen as an integration into this order, revived the notion of “the West.” In an era of presumed liberal ascendancy, North America, the EU, and the Pacific – Japan, Australia, and New Zealand rediscovered themselves as a distinct bloc. The G7, long eclipsed economically, now reasserts itself – not as the engine of global growth but as a geopolitical command centre for a world slipping from its grasp.

We see this accentuated between 9/11 and the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a period of intense upheaval exposed a deep erosion of public trust, forced a painful reckoning with national identity and purpose, and demanded difficult answers about Canada’s role in the world, its economic priorities, and its internal cohesion.

The disillusionment emerging from this has roared to life in the populist uprisings of our time, from Brexit to Trump and, yes, in Canada’s trucker siege of Ottawa. It has also found expression abroad in the emergence of economic powerhouses like China and India and the resurgence of Russian aggression. Spurred by their nationalist imperatives, these nations have forged alternative frameworks like the BRICS to challenge the liberal order. The unipolar era, in which Canada reflexively played the role of a loyal ally, is over.

What remains is a fractured and contested landscape. The liberal international order, which promised peace, prosperity, and universal rights, has proven woefully inadequate in the face of climate change, systemic inequality, and the rise of authoritarianism. Nowhere is this failure more evident than in Gaza, where Canada’s silence on the impunity of Western allies, such as Israel, undermines its moral credibility. The order that claimed to be a bulwark against human rights abuses has become a system of selective enforcement, offering hollow promises to those it purported to protect. The disarray is accentuated by Trump’s speech acts.

The specter of Canada as the “51st state” is no longer the stuff of jest but a warning whispered beneath the din of US politics. As relations with Washington fray and sovereignty feels less assured, it is time to reconsider the weight of old alliances – none more so than NORAD. Once a pillar of continental security, it now stands as a relic of Cold War logic, offering little but the illusion of shared defence. For too long, Canadian policy has rested on quiet deference, trusting that America’s shadow would shield it from harm. Yet, with Trumpism’s resurgence and US commitments growing mercurial, the assumption of automatic protection is not just outdated – it is reckless. Canada’s 2005 exclusion from ballistic missile defence has already left it voiceless in the architecture of North American security. To remain tethered to NORAD without influence, agency, or guarantees is to mistake proximity for partnership. In an era where the rules are shifting and past assurances mean little, it is high time Canada takes stock – before sovereignty becomes a footnote to American grand strategy.

When releasing Canada’s Arctic Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said at a press conference on December 6 last year, “I don’t think the Arctic will be the primary theatre of conflict. I see the Arctic as the result of what is happening elsewhere in the world.” This statement is particularly telling in the context of Trump’s aggressive pursuit of buying Greenland – a moment emblematic of the geopolitical importance of the Arctic. However, the Arctic isn’t about a Whiskey War anymore with its jovial tale of who owned Hans Island. In a region increasingly viewed as a flashpoint for global competition, as Greenland emerges as the new Congo of 21^st century, we cannot offered to see the Arctic  as a frontier; it is our homeland.

Will Canada continue to follow a US-led order or seize the opportunity to lead the charge for a new global paradigm? The time for half-measures and minor adjustments is over. The challenge is clear: build a global order that is equitable, inclusive, and sustainable – a system that prioritises the common good over narrow national interests seen through the lens of American priorities. Of course, much easier said than done. Nevertheless, if Trump’s acts put this liberal order in a disarray, Canada has an opportunity to pivot. The liberal order is neither natural nor eternal; it is a construct that is increasingly incapable of meeting the demands of a multipolar world. Yet, for all of Trump’s recalibration, the world he seeks to navigate is no longer the world of the 1990s. The liberal order, as it once existed, is beyond revival. The institutions remain, but their authority is diminished; the ideals persist, but they no longer command universal allegiance. The great contest of the 21^st century will be a contest of visions – between those who seek to restore a lost consensus and those who would chart a new, more fragmented path.

This recalibration demands moral courage, political will and vision. It requires Canada to reimagine itself not as a mere appendage of Western power but as an independent actor capable of bridging divides. It must engage with emerging powers on its terms, even as it upholds its core values of peace, equity, and multilateral cooperation. It must advocate for a genuine system that prioritizes justice over power and accountability over alliances of convenience. In this pivotal moment, will it continue to follow a US-led order or seize the opportunity to lead the charge for a new global paradigm? The time for half-measures and minor adjustments is over. The challenge is clear: build a global order that is equitable, inclusive, and sustainable – a system that prioritises the common good over narrow national interests.

The Trumpian tempest, for all its chaos, offers an opportunity: a chance to discard the illusions of a bygone era and embrace a more pragmatic, inclusive, and principled foreign policy. The question is whether Canada has the vision and the will to seize it. In this storm, our compass must point not to the ruins of the past but to the horizons of possibility ahead.

It demands bold action: rethinking power, sovereignty, and the very role of international institutions. It means embracing true multilateralism and recognising that our fates are deeply interconnected. The stakes could not be more profound. Canada must find the resolve to lead – not as a mere adjunct to great powers, the middle power, but as an architect of a future that serves humanity, not just the entitled few. This is no mere policy debate; it is a moral reckoning, a philosophical challenge that demands more than calculated pragmatism. Canadian foreign policy needs a new normative imperative to rescue it from the realist security paradigm thinking. Engaging deeply with the study of international relations is not an academic exercise but an urgent necessity – to reclaim a vision, to redefine our purpose. Our work begins now.