Trump ends the liberal world order

A single phone call last week signalled the death of the so-called western alliance and the collapse of the system of world relations that has held sway since the Second World War. That phone call was, of course, between Trump and Putin.

This was no mere formal opening of dialogue. It was, by both accounts, an extremely cordial call. For one and a half hours, the two warmly discussed their nations’ common history of cooperation going back to the Second World War, and their mutual desire not just to move towards peace, but towards normalisation of economic and political relations.

Trump’s phone call was followed by another, much shorter call, ‘informing’ Zelensky of the facts: that the US would open negotiations to end the Ukraine war… and that neither the Europeans nor the Ukrainians would be present. It isn’t clear how cordial that call was.

By these acts alone, Trump has, in a stroke, exposed the lie that this war was anything other than a proxy war between the West and Russia. If the Ukraine war is, as the liberals have constantly repeated, a purely defensive war of a small nation fighting against a large aggressor, and not one between proxies, how can one explain that its end will be negotiated without even the presence of one of the belligerents?

At least Zelensky got a phone call. The ruling classes of Europe, on the other hand, seem to have been completely blindsided. Just weeks earlier, US special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, had been dashing back and forth between Kyiv and European capitals, listening to top diplomats and prime ministers, nodding thoughtfully to their suggestions, and promising harsher sanctions on Russia.

But this is much more than just a defeat for the West in Ukraine. It’s the end of ‘the West’ as such / Image: Public domain

Now it’s clear… the Europeans were being played for fools all along! Trump had no such intentions, and if Kellogg’s talks served any purpose whatsoever, it was to convince Trump that the place for the Europeans is as far away from the negotiating table as possible.

After their amiable exchange, Trump and Putin immediately put the ball in motion vis-á-vis negotiations. While Kellogg was dashing around Europe, another Trump envoy, Steve Witkoff, had secretly been in Moscow negotiating the friendly gesture of a prisoner exchange! After that was announced, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth then publicly outlined the US’ negotiating position. This is what it consists of:

• Ukraine will have to make territorial concessions, and the “unrealistic objective” and “illusionary goal” of returning to pre-2014 borders for Ukraine will have to be abandoned. Future borders will instead have to be based on “a realistic assessment of the battlefield”;
• Future “security guarantees” for Ukraine going forward will not include US troops on the ground. Instead, European troops would have to step in, although they would not be covered by NATO’s Article 5;
• A future peacekeeping force will also include non-NATO troops – de facto, that would mean Russian-allied forces being stationed in Ukraine;
• That there is no question of the eastward expansion of NATO to include Ukraine.

This is just the American starting position in negotiations, and already Trump has conceded all of Russia’s main war aims: his territorial aims and, more importantly, an end to NATO’s eastward expansion.

This is a war that Trump simply is not interested in, a war in which the West has suffered an utterly humiliating defeat. The Ukrainians are beaten now. Their army is short of troops and demoralised. New mechanised brigades have disintegrated one after another as soon as they have entered the field. Things are so dire that skilled airmen are being sent to the front to fight as infantrymen. Russia is tightening the noose.

But this is much more than just a defeat for the West in Ukraine. It’s the end of ‘the West’ as such. Trump has signalled that he is not concerned about Russian influence in Eastern Europe, or in the fate of the continent as a whole. The whole purpose of NATO as a military alliance, however, is precisely aimed at Russia, at preventing Russia from exerting influence over Europe.

With the US stepping away from this war, while NATO still possesses its outer shell, de facto it has ceased to function.

It wasn’t meant to end like this

There couldn’t be a starker contrast between how this war is actually ending, and how the liberals had once dreamed it would end. It was supposed to finish with Russia crippled, even in the downfall of Putin and the breakup of the Russian Federation. Instead of that, what are we seeing? The endgame of this war has become the endgame for a whole world order that has been in place since the end of the Second World War.

The curtain is falling on a decades-long relationship between the US and Europe, in which the US politically, economically and culturally propped up its European allies as part of a liberal ‘rules-based order’ under the banner of which US imperialism imposed itself on the whole world.

Trump couldn’t have been clearer about his policy: America First. American interests in Europe are small compared to other parts of the world, and yet, here the Americans are, while federal debt is at an all time high, subsidising European healthcare and benefit systems, by allowing them to piggyback off US military might under the NATO umbrella – and for what? This is Trump’s thinking. European industry, European military ‘security’ can go to the wall for all Trump cares. In fact, much better to cut a deal with Putin to boost gas and oil production, thus lowering energy prices, and delivering on Trump’s promises to bring down inflation.

Thus, not only has Trump torn up the transatlantic alliance that has propped up Europe for 80 years, going back to the end of the Second World War, but he is essentially teaming up with Putin against Europe!

The Europeans are having a collective nervous breakdown, quite understandably. After the bombshell news of the Trump-Putin phone call, they hoped to win back some of the limelight and to elbow their way to the negotiating table by flaunting ‘shared US-European values’ at the Munich Security Conference last week.

In answer to that, Trump’s vice president JD Vance gave them more than they bargained for, effectively declaring war on Europe’s whole ruling liberal establishment.

US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth then publicly outlined the US’ negotiating position. Trump has conceded all of Russia’s main war aims: its territorial aims and, more importantly, an end to NATO’s eastward expansion / Image: Public domain

“The threat I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s the threat from within,” said Vance. He might as well have pointed at his audience and said, “you’re the threat!”

While wrapped up in culture war rhetoric, the content of his speech was clear: the transatlantic alliance is over, and there will be no hiding under the banner of ‘common values’ to keep it together. He excoriated the hypocrisy of the so-called ‘democratic values’ of the European Union. And there was more than a hint of mockery when he turned on the European Commission for overturning elections in Romania: “if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country,” he goaded, “then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.”

The whole speech was dripping with contempt, especially for the Germans, with Vance making clear the Trump administration’s support for Alternative für Deutschland in the elections this weekend.

Instead of ending in a show of political strength by the Europeans, the conference ended with the chairman breaking down in tears!

Europe attempts a show of strength

The negotiations have now begun in Riyadh. On the first day of negotiations, the Russians and Americans have agreed to “address irritants” in their bilateral relations… which is a rather impolite way to refer to Zelensky, Starmer, Macron and the rest of the gang, who are following the proceedings of the negotiations like the rest of us: through the press.

Certainly the Ukrainians and Europeans have made themselves irritating – there’s little else they can do! Zelensky tried, with little success, to gatecrash the event. Unsuccessful, he’s taken to talking to the press from Turkey.

Trump answered him by telling Zelensky clearly, that he certainly shouldn’t be surprised that he wasn’t invited to the talks, given that he had years before 2022 to negotiate with the Russians, which he failed to do! If he wanted to give Ukraine a legitimate voice that could speak on its behalf, Trump advised him to start by calling elections, which have been suspended throughout the duration of the war.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to get their voices heard by the Americans and Russians, Macron convened an emergency conference of European powers at the Élysée Palace… not all the European powers, mind you, but only those most likely to agree on a common position. There was no invite, for instance, extended to Orban from Hungary or Fico from Slovakia.

And how did this show of ‘unity’ go? Farcically. It has exposed the complete fracturing and impotence of the European continent.

The Americans had asked the Europeans to step in as peacekeepers to guarantee Ukraine’s security by guarding the new borders, but the Europeans couldn’t even agree a common position on this point. Italy’s Meloni turned up late. Germany’s Scholz expressed his irritation that this was even being discussed at all… before leaving early. Even the hawkish Poles expressed their aversion to sending peacekeepers.

Only Macron and Starmer were stupid enough to express their willingness to send troops. But this is just hot air, given that Starmer made his promise conditional on the Americans sending troops as a “backstop” – something Trump has already ruled out.

It is now clear that the Europeans cannot depend upon their interests aligning with those of the US / Image: President Of Ukraine, Wikimedia Commons

The fact is the British Army is in such a woeful state that it’s doubtful Starmer could send troops even if he wanted to. Retired British generals have pointed out that such an operation would require at least 30,000 British troops, but given that Britain only has 70,000 British Army personnel, and many of them are office staff, that would mean stationing most of the British Army in Ukraine!

Lavrov has made it quite clear that he wouldn’t accept any European troops stationed in Ukraine after the war – and given that the Europeans cannot even agree among themselves on this question, they’ve made it very easy for the Americans to agree to his terms.

The Europeans all agreed, of course, that they will boost arms spending, something that Trump has long demanded. But even here it’s all falling apart. Macron has been pushing for common European debt to fund rearmament, something that the German ruling class are unwilling to pay for.

Meanwhile, where would the arms come from? It is now clear that the Europeans cannot depend upon their interests aligning with those of the US. The only solution would be to build up an autonomous aerospace industry, independent of American standards, software and technical assistance. That is Macron’s proposal. Other Europeans aren’t so keen. Trump has made clear that that is a non-starter: if they know what’s good for them, they will buy American-made weapons, they will buy them in huge quantities, and they will thus remain ever tethered to the US defence industry.

Game over for Europe

What is the meaning of all this? The breathtaking pace of events over the last weeks, which are remaking the world, are the culmination of processes that have been ongoing for decades.

The capitalist system has been lurching from crisis to crisis since 2008, when the state stepped in to prop up the system from complete collapse after the financial crisis. Huge, unsustainable debts have been built up. New crises, like the COVID-19 pandemic, added to this enormous burden that has constantly grown. The evil day when it would have to be paid back was put off and put off, seemingly indefinitely.

Meanwhile, US imperialism too has been gradually losing ground, suffering a long drawn-out process of relative decline, as new rivals like Russia and China emerged and challenged them.

These processes can continue for a long time without seeming to cause any fundamental change. But eventually, everything explodes at once. A turning point is reached. We are living through a profound turning point right now.

Trump has completely upturned the established policy of US imperialism, which for many years has had an air of unreality about it. The liberal ‘rules based order’ – the guise under which US imperialism attempted to impose itself simultaneously on the whole world – had become utterly unviable.

Trump has completely upturned the established policy of US imperialism, which for many years has had an air of unreality about it. The liberal ‘rules based order’ – the guise under which US imperialism attempted to impose itself simultaneously on the whole world – had become utterly unviable / Image: Public domain

Trump stands for retrenchment and isolationism. With that comes the withdrawal of support for European capitalism, which has become a footnote in the interests of American capital. Europe’s security, its economy, its politics, even its culture have, for 80 years, all turned on the axis of US support. No longer. The US has bigger fish to fry elsewhere than in Europe. Without that support, as we have explained elsewhere, the European continent has been utterly exposed.

Although not dead, NATO is a shell now. And so, the Europeans intend to take on more debt to fund a feverish rearmament, desperately grasping for a way out. But the last few days alone have exposed what fundamentally hobbles European capitalism: here we have a patchwork of small economies, uncompetitive on a world scale, lacking clout, with different national interests that quickly diverge without external US support. These little nations will be pulled in different directions as we move forward. 

In the past, the EU, ECB and so forth stepped forward to bail out those countries facing bankruptcy in order to keep the EU together. We saw it during the eurozone debt crisis. More recently, we saw it in the recovery programme after the COVID-19 pandemic. Huge amounts of cash were funnelled into Italy, for instance, to keep it in the EU, Italy being among the EU members closest to bankruptcy, while the Brothers of Italy were closing in on power.

But will they, can they repeat that? Moods are developing among the ruling classes of Europe that they must bail themselves out first, at the expense of the rest of the continent if necessary: we can see Germany First, France First, and so on, gaining in the future. The years to come could even see the complete breakup of the European Union.

While Trump is talking about lifting sanctions on Russia, he hasn’t dropped his threat of tariffs on Europe. Without the Americans, the Russians are now the big military power on the edge of Europe, and they too will also extract a price for that. These little countries will be picked off by the big powers, by the US, China and Russia.

Europe is the continent where capitalism was born. Now, amidst capitalism’s death agony, Europe finds itself at the heart of the storm, being eaten up, without a future under this system.

All this has enormous social consequences for the continent. It is mired in a debt crisis, even before new military spending is added onto the pile. The ruling class knows what needs to be done: they have to attack the working class brutally. But Macron is more or less finished, Reform is riding high in the polls in Britain, the AfD looks poised to take second place in Germany. The same is true in many other countries.

The rise of these parties is no mere symptom of a ‘shift to the right’ in society. It is an expression of enormous moods of anger building up in society against the whole ruling class and establishment. The absence of a left alternative – or rather, the utter betrayals of the left, who have tied themselves to the liberals ever since 2008 – have made this possible. But this will prepare the ground for new, even sharper swings to the left across the continent, and for revolutionary explosions that will shake the foundations of capitalism in Europe – foundations that are cracking and splintering as we speak.