Trump has buried liberal world order but what comes next could be better

The two terms of US President Donald Trump have shaken the old style of US liberal internationalist leadership. Yet, as some doors close, others open. The summit between President Xi Jinping and Trump in Beijing last month suggests that the United States and China might now have an opportunity to move beyond ideological confrontation and towards a more realistic framework of coexistence, strategic stability and managed competition.

For decades, Washington has held global primacy and pursued a liberal internationalist foreign policy of promoting democracy, open markets and stewardship of global institutions. Trump’s more realist foreign policy has been more transactional, sovereignty-centred and more openly sceptical of the post-war order.

Its focus on tariffs, alliance burden-sharing and resistance to Western progressive social values has changed the narrative that American power serves a universal project larger than itself. Further, even if Trump left office tomorrow, his tenure has made any future attempt to re-embrace old-style liberal internationalism less credible.