Kaja Puto: After the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, Europe swelled and the remainder of the planet breathed with relief. Is this the knowing of the results of the investigation you carried out in the European Council of global Relations?
Peter Buras: Indeed, the allies of the United States – not only Europe, but besides South Korea, for example – are Trump's choice frustrated and the remainder of the planet alternatively pleased. In India, Turkey, China or Brazil, the belief that the change in the position of president of the United States is good for these countries and will have a affirmative impact on planet peace – besides in the mediate East or Ukraine.
Why the enthusiasm?
Trump wants to overthrow the order that the United States created after planet War II. The US, along with a number of global institutions, served as a guardian of planet peace and a promoter of democracy. In his opinion, the order ceased to service American interests. This resonates positively in countries that felt in this order countries of the second category. People had a feeling that they had to play by their own rules, without affecting their shape.
There is besides the fact that Trump is not a missionary of Western values – both cultural values, specified as LGBT+ and organization rights. Rather, he strives to destruct them. He does not want to tell the countries of the global South how to form their governments or laws – he does not care about democracy or human rights.
W Ukraine Trump besides inspires hope – for any change. Many Ukrainians, I've been talking to lately., associate democrats with powerlessness and indecisionlessness. Does your investigation support that?
I guess so. Many Ukrainians believe Trump's triumph is good for their country. all 3rd believes that this is simply a step towards planet peace, and only 18 percent – that it happened badly. This proves, I believe, the deep frustration caused by the Biden administration, which helped Ukraine, but so as not to let it lose without allowing it to win at the same time. The soldiers bled out, and nothing changed. Trump inspires hope due to the fact that he is seen as a politician on the 1 hand strong and on the another hand unpredictable. It can change the dynamics around this conflict, and Ukraine can yet benefit from it.
If the U.S. abdicates as a global leader, who will take over? China?
Many countries see in China a fresh planet hegemon, which will scope the world's strongest power in 20 years. In Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Indonesia, the overwhelming majority of those surveyed believe. Half the Americans are besides of that opinion.
I am not full convinced that this script will be implemented. China is presently in a hard economical situation. They have reached the tallness of their economical power and are at the same time in a demographic crisis. It's hard to tell how they'll grow further.
And this fresh hegemon in the form of China seems to the planet better than the United States?
It's a cold war logic question that besides goes back to the past. Countries that we call medium-sized powers – like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Africa – do not want to position themselves clearly on the side of the West or China. Their function in the planet is growing, so they like to keep autonomy and to roam between major powers, according to their current business. Their abroad policy will be convenient, transactional.
So the planet order will not even become multipolar, but liquid?
Mark Leonard, manager of the European Council of global Relations, believes that we are heading for a planet in which there is no order that is unordered. It's not about Disorder, disorder, due to the fact that erstwhile we talk about DisorderWe have any clarity about what it is. orderThat's order. We are surviving in an expanding chaos in which any rules and principles become more exception than a rule.
No power or group of states present offers a fresh imagination of global governance. China does not have specified ambition, alternatively it focuses on the improvement of its economy.
And Russia, which expands its influence in developing countries and works for their cooperation? Last year, a summit of the informal BRICS Group was held in Kazan. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United arabian Emirates joined the co-created Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Russia has the ambition to unite as many global countries as possible The South around itself, showing at the same time that the West failed to plan its isolation in connection with the war in Ukraine. Our investigation shows that Russia is seen by the planet as an indispensable partner – on the 1 hand an energy supplier, on the another hand – a counterweight for Western influence.
BRICS, however, has its limitations – India and China are economical rivals, Brazil has its own ambitions. Saudi Arabia and Iran are eternal enemies in their region. It's an alliance that doesn't have a unified agenda, an thought of itself, much little an full world. Rather, it serves to undermine the Western order, which is already wobbly, and which Trump is likely to strike the final blow.
What does this mean in practice? The UN will fall apart? Is global law going to halt working?
Many countries are inactive curious in jointly addressing global problems: Addressing climate change, debt issues, epidemics, threats to human rights. Therefore, global cooperation and multilateral institutions will not disappear. Europe should support them at all costs. But after 1945, this organization order was secured by the United States, which thought it was the best warrant of their own prosperity and security. This has changed, Trump's policy is an utmost expression of this evolution. The institutions and the law will continue, but changing the US approach is simply a fundamental caesura.
How should Europe respond to all these changes?
We must halt looking at the United States and at the same time learn to argue them. If the Trump administration introduces customs tariffs on imports of European goods, then the Union has no choice but to respond decisively, responding with tariffs proportionately where the United States will hurt most. Trump tries to apply trade measures not only for economical purposes, but besides as part of blackmail and pressure, as he did with Canada and Mexico. The Union cannot afford this, and its economical strength is an crucial argument that the US cannot ignore. At the same time, we must be ready to negociate and compromise, but from the position of a partner, not a vassal.
It will be crucial to keep the unity of the Union, due to the fact that many governments – e.g. in Italy or Hungary – are tempted to suck up to Trump in exchange for more favourable treatment. Although duties are imposed on the full Union due to the fact that trade policy is communited, Trump can, for example, take out goods from them peculiarly crucial for certain countries to break the EU unity in formulating a common consequence to its policy. It's especially dangerous. The challenge will be to push EU rules towards online platforms, whose owners – especially Musk and Zuckerberg – support Trump and hope that their interests will be protected by him.
This may be the field of the most crucial conflict in which Europe cannot give up. Allowing even more misinformation, manipulating algorithms and thus supporting the far right is simply a threat to the foundations on which the Union and European democracies are based. Last thing: the Union must search agreement with countries that are besides curious in a planet based on rules alternatively than violence. Strengthen relations with countries of South America, Asia and Africa. This will sometimes require hard compromises.
What does that mean in practice? We should make a free trade region with Mercosur countriesThat would harm the nature of the land? Increase arms exports to Saudi Arabia that do not respect human rights?
Without the United States, Europe is not able to change the planet to its prayer and impose its values on it. Even during the top triumph of the West, in the 1990s, specified anticipation was marked by pride and detached from reality. Let us defend them where possible, but let us focus above all on a Europe in which the far right takes over. And in abroad policy, as in politics in general, the regulation of lesser evil is frequently a better signpost than trying to implement the program maximum. Our investigation shows that the Union, despite all its crises, is seen as an influential player, comparable to China, Russia and the United States. Many non-European societies have had adequate of our morality, our sense of superiority, but they inactive admire our economical power. Let's usage it.
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Peter Buras is the manager of the Warsaw Office of the European abroad Affairs Council (ECFR).
