Thanks to Trump, the gloves are off. There may be no new global order

The old order is dead. We just don’t know what will replace it. As Henry Kissinger reminded us in his 2014 book World Order, “no truly global order has ever existed”. After US President Donald Trump’s erratic actions, the gloves are off. American comedians and Iranian Lego cartoons tell us all we need to know about the demise of the old order. If the unipolar order is not viable, and America is abandoning the multilateral order and the rules of the game it created after World War II, what are the alternatives? Given the United States’ perfidy as an ally, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is pushing for a coalition of middle powers, what I call “midi-lateralism”, whereby the likes of Canada, Australia and the European Union, those with significant economic clout but not superpower status, unite to find a third path of autonomy, pushing back against great powers’ might-is-right bullying. Another emerging alternative is “minilateralism”, the variable geometry of small countries working together quietly to become more self-reliant and minimise great power disruptions. The United Nations membership reflects a pyramid of 193 members, mostly small countries, dominated by a handful of great powers who can veto what they do not like in the Security Council. The top two – China and the US – account for 32.8 per cent of world gross domestic product in purchasing power parity terms as of 2025. The next 16 UN members with the largest proportion of world GDP – with the sole exception of India at 8.7 per cent – have shares ranging from 3.5 per cent to 1.3 per cent. These 16 countries account for 40.2 per cent of world GDP. This leaves the vast remainder of 175 countries making up 27 per cent of global GDP Since China traditionally considered itself a developing country, it is a partner of the G77, a group that has expanded to a membership of 134, coordinating on policies related to UN issues. Unlike the UN’s one-member, one-vote system, voting in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank is weighted according to economic clout. The G77 operates as the G24 in the IMF and World Bank to push for global economic and financial reform. These include changing IMF quotas related to voting arrangements to share power more equitably, more help for smaller countries to avoid debt distress and innovative ways to use IMF special drawing rights (SDR) to help poorer nations. The US and Europe traditionally voted in unison to push back G24 demands for quota and SDR reforms. But even if the Europeans were willing to vote with the G24, the US can still veto with its 16.5 per cent voting share – IMF quota reform requires 85 per cent of votes. The painful reality is that meaningful reform will only happen if advanced economies enter a recession or financial crisis, like in 2008. The next crisis may be about debt distress. The IMF, as of end-March, classifies nine countries as debt-distressed and a further 23 countries as at high risk. No one wants to say outright that the US may be the next to face debt distress. Since the US economy survives on continued borrowing from the rest of the world to finance its fiscal and trade deficits, the price of losing moral leadership is the loss of more creditors. The irony is while Trump defends the “Make America Great Again” movement by rupturing the status quo, the rest of the world is trying to defend what they like about the old order while reducing over-dependence on an unreliable hegemon. When the big incumbent institutions are simultaneously disrupters and barriers to change, change is more likely to occur at the minilateral, even “microlateral”, levels. Such reforms can have global impact only if they can achieve scale. In short, we need global platforms to network meaningful innovation at the mini-country and micro-local levels. The global future is made up by the futures created by individual parts. We cannot have one order because there is no consensus on the future model. There is only unity in diversity, as stakeholders compete and cooperate to find ways to defend their sovereignty and stable development. The only truly universal institution is the university, because it straddles the important functions of teaching the new generation and undertaking research and development for the future. Universities also enable the older generation to empower the young. Universities, therefore, are both the actors and diffusers of knowledge for change. Order has a tendency to descend into chaos from which a new order emerges. History confirms that cycle. Nations that have inclusive and innovative education systems perform best over time. If artificial intelligence is both saviour and curse, then let the universities diffuse its use through diverse experimentation to see what, where and who becomes more efficient, resilient and impactful on human and planetary well-being. The contest between the Global South and the great powers can either end in war or in simultaneous competition and cooperation at the lower levels of universities and communities, each striving to create its own future, including avoiding being dominated by great power plays. We cannot predict the future exactly, but if we want to know who is likely to survive, look at the quality of the institutes of learning. Those that defend the status quo may not survive. Those who engage locally and globally will.

Thanks to Trump, the gloves are off. There may be no new global order

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}With the UN, IMF and World Bank mired in old power structures, universities could be the platform to shape how the global future unfolds

With the UN, IMF and World Bank mired in old power structures, universities could be the platform to shape how the global future unfolds