The United States and the Erosion of the International Order

The world is undergoing rapid transformation, marked by unbridled competition, profound fragmentation, and growing geopolitical instability. The rivalry between the US and China is gradually permeating multiple issues on the international agenda. As the dominant superpower, the United States under President Donald Trump is increasingly perceived—both domestically and abroad—as a predatory force whose objective is anchored in the dismantling of the Liberal International Order, built on rules and norms.

Since the end of World War II, Washington and its allies have led the construction of a system based on stability, predictability, and cooperation. This order rested on pillars such as free markets, economic interdependence, the primacy of international law, the protection of human rights, and the creation of institutions focused on mediating disputes and facilitating global governance. For decades, these principles have underpinned American leadership, the balance of power among nations, and the global framework based on rationality as the guiding principle in global diplomacy.

Trump's foreign policy—characterized by tariff wars, transactional diplomacy, and unilateral coercion—is eroding the US position in the Western Hemisphere and other vital regions, including Asia and Latin America. The White House's diplomatic stance has vilified American soft power and, in turn, undermined confidence in the country and its global legitimacy across multiple geostrategic arenas. The primacy of American power is steadily eroding, a trend that will ultimately only serve to strengthen Washington's strategic rivals around the world. 

One of the primary victims of this stance has been the multilateral system. Trump has attacked and weakened institutions such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and the World Health Organization—reducing funding, disregarding collective mechanisms, and prioritizing ad hoc bilateral agreements. By paralyzing the forums created to manage crises jointly, Washington has diminished its own influence and opened the door for China and Russia to reshape these institutions in accordance with their interests.

No less damaging was Trump's rejection of the climate agenda. By withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement and dismantling domestic environmental regulations, his administration denied the scientific consensus on global warming and abandoned leadership on one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. This stance weakened international initiatives, delayed collective action, and sent the message that immediate gains may take precedence over the long-term survival of the planet. At a time when climate change defines not only the environmental future but also the legitimacy of global governance, America's abdication on this issue, in particular, is corrosive to a structural and vital pillar of the global order.

The fragility of American diplomacy was once again exposed at the recent summit between Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Stephen Walt's (2025) statement, in an article published in Foreign Policy, is apt: "Trump has no idea how to do diplomacy; even when he is partly right, he is wrong." Walt continues his analysis of the meeting between the two leaders: 

The combination of that weird summit in Alaska with Vladimir Putin and the only slightly less bizarre gathering of NATO leaders in Washington was the latest reminder that U.S. President Donald Trump is a terrible negotiator, a true master of the “art of the giveaway.” He does not prepare, does not have subordinates lay the groundwork beforehand, and arrives at each meeting not knowing what he wants or where his red lines are. He has no strategy and is not interested in the details, so he just wings it.

During the meeting, Trump failed to extract any concessions from Moscow. Quite the contrary, he was willing to offer Russian President Vladimir Putin everything in terms of territorial concessions. He positioned himself as a capable agent to convince Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders to accept Moscow's demands, virtually without reservation. Putin emerged victorious on the battlefield and diplomatically. The US, on the other hand, lost precious resources on the battlefield and surrendered everything it could diplomatically.

The same unpredictability has shaken the transatlantic relationship. Under Trump, ties between the US and Europe have been eroded by disputes over North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) obligations, climate commitments, and trade. His open hostility toward the European Union, combined with protectionist tariffs and erratic diplomatic signals, has reduced trust to decades-low levels. In response, European leaders are seeking alternatives: greater strategic autonomy, deepening security cooperation within the European Union itself, and a cautious approach to China. The erosion of transatlantic trust further weakens Washington's normative power, accelerating the transition toward multipolarity.

One of the consequences of the Trump administration's erratic policies is the impact on how Brazil will reorganize its foreign policy. Cautious and concerned about burning bridges, the Brazilian government has maintained the necessary balance and prudence to avoid breaking off diplomatic dialogue with Washington. However, since the beginning of the Trump administration, the US government has deliberately chosen to freeze or reduce the degree of interaction in its relations with Brazil. A binary choice between Washington and Beijing has never been a strategic option considered by Brasília. However, given the current circumstances, it is natural for Brazil to seek to deepen its relations with China to the detriment of the US.  

It is also worth noting that, even among conservative sectors, skepticism toward the United States is growing under Trump. The US is being seen as an unreliable partner, while China is consolidating its position as a pragmatic and predictable player. The Brazilian private sector reinforces this trend by urging the Lula administration to expand trade with Beijing. China's move to offer to buy part of the Brazilian production, heavily sanctioned by the American tariff hike, reshapes the bilateral relationship and readjusts how part of the Brazilian business sector, and a significant spectrum of right-wing political parties in Brazil, perceive China's importance as a strategic partner in the face of this situation imposed on the country. 

Added to this is the value and growing importance of the BRICS in this scenario of international fragmentation. What was once a contested choice within certain intellectual circles and strategic circles of the foreign policy establishment has now become widely accepted as an essential platform for defending national interests in a multipolar order. The Trump administration's hostile stance toward key allies, including Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia, definitively confirms Brazil's conviction that an exclusive commitment to bilateral relations with Washington is a foregone conclusion. This conviction further highlights and strengthens the principle of autonomy and non-alignment as non-negotiable pillars of Brazilian foreign policy in any minimally democratic government committed to the Federal Constitution. 

The Brazilian worldview is increasingly embodied in the thesis that Western hegemony is in decline. A multipolar order is emerging with increasing force from countries in the Global South. This shift, in Brasília's view, is seen as a strategic opportunity and an imperative for Brazil to expand its global influence and pursue its interests. 

It is worth noting that Brazil does not define its partnerships in terms of a dichotomy between democracy and autocracy. Instead, it adopts a pragmatic approach guided by concrete and tangible interests, engaging with the United States, China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, France, Germany, and Mexico, among others, regardless of their political regimes. Like Brazil, many Western countries ignore this framework and base their relations with China, Middle Eastern autocracies, African dictatorships, and non-democratic regimes—and in many cases, they remain silent in the face of serious violations of International Humanitarian Law, such as in Gaza. On the other hand, they denounce less serious violations in Latin American countries. 

Indeed, nowhere is the loss of US influence more evident than in Latin America. US policy toward the region has yielded few successes over the past three decades, undermining trust in the country and weakening hemispheric cooperation. President Donald Trump's stance on migration and his coercive trade measures against Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and others have increased skepticism toward Washington. In the US vacuum, China, which had already been expanding its economic and strategic presence in South America, will now find fertile ground for establishing irreversible bonds of trust, where Washington's strength will have no apparent ability to weaken Beijing's expansion. 

As John Mearsheimer said, "The pursuit of hegemony is a formula for endless conflict." The United States was once the primary architect of an order that projected stability, balance, and prosperity. Today, under President Donald Trump's disruptive stance, that order is crumbling. 

This 14th issue of CEBRI-Revista addresses precisely this international context, which Trump's foreign policy has enormously influenced. The focus of the articles is, in fact, Brazil and its international presence. Bilateral relations have reached one of their lowest points in history. The articles gathered here discuss the causes and consequences of this new era.

References

Walt, Stephen M. 2025, "Trump Has No Idea How to Do Diplomacy with Putin or Europe." 2025. Foreign Policy, August 19, 2025. https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/08/19/trump-diplomacy-putin-ukraine-europe/ . 

 This translation was produced with the support of digital machine translation tools and subsequently reviewed by the editorial team. The following tools were employed: Google Translate (initial draft), Grammarly (grammatical and syntactic revision), and ChatGPT (selective phrasing refinements).

Copyright © 2025 CEBRI-Revista. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original article is properly cited.