Will “Trumpism” become the leading American school?
Dr. Abdul Rahim Mahmoud Jamous
Donald Trump is no longer just a former US president or a tumultuous political figure, but rather the embodiment of a dangerous structural shift in the United States’ behavior towards the international system.
The issue is no longer related to the person of Trump, but rather to the possibility of “Trumpism” becoming entrenched as a political and legal approach that redefines international relations outside the system of rules and institutions that were formed after World War II.
Since his first term, Trump has systematically dismantled the United States’ international commitments, and his withdrawal or freezing of the relationship with more than sixty-six specialized international organizations affiliated with the United Nations – in the fields of health, culture, human rights, development, and environment – was not just an administrative decision or a financial dispute, but rather an explicit political declaration of rejection of the idea of international multilateralism itself.
This withdrawal constituted a clear message that Washington, under Trumpism, does not recognize the legitimacy of international institutions except to the extent that they serve its immediate interests.
Legally, this behavior constituted a violation of the principle of international cooperation stipulated in the Charter of the United Nations, and undermined the role of specialized agencies as instruments for regulating relations between states and protecting the collective interests of humanity.
Politically, it revealed the United States’ transition from the position of “sponsor of the international order to the position of its destructive actor.”
In the same context, the threat to annex Greenland, behavior towards Venezuela, or withdrawal from international agreements cannot be read in isolation from this approach. Trumpism views geography, resources, alliances, and even laws as negotiated commodities that can be subjected to the logic of coercive bargaining and political blackmail.
This constitutes a clear violation of the principle of state sovereignty and the inadmissibility of seizing territory by force or threat, which is one of the peremptory principles of international law.
Trumpism: It has become a political school that opposes international legitimacy. Trumpism can be described as an extremist realist political school, based on four basic pillars:
The priority of narrow national interest, the rejection of international legal restrictions, the emptying of multilateral institutions of their content, and the legitimization of force as an essential negotiating tool.
These pillars do not represent a temporary departure from the rules, but rather an integrated project to reshape the international system according to the logic of naked hegemony.
Europe: It is experiencing a crisis of sovereignty in the face of blackmail. Europe appears to be the weakest link in the face of this approach. The European Union, despite its economic strength, lacks an independent sovereign decision and a real deterrence capacity.
The threat to Greenland, which is subject to Danish sovereignty, was nothing but a crude test of Europe’s ability to defend one of its members.
However, European silence revealed a deeper crisis: a crisis of sovereignty and political will, which was exacerbated by the exhaustion resulting from the war in Ukraine and the increasing dependence on the American umbrella.
In the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia, Trumpism manifests itself in its harshest form, as it provides political cover for expanding occupation, legitimizing annexation, imposing collective punishments, and interfering in the internal affairs of states.
In this context, people’s issues, especially the Palestinian issue, are marginalized in favor of security approaches that contradict international humanitarian law and international legitimacy resolutions.
It does not seem that the international system will collapse all at once, but it is being subjected to systematic erosion.
The withdrawal of major powers from institutions, the lack of accountability, and the legitimization of power are all factors that weaken the system of international law and open the door to long-term chaos.
The world today faces a historic choice: either to confront Trumpism as a political and legal approach that opposes international legitimacy, by restoring international institutions and building independent balances, or to accept its transformation into the American school of world leadership, which means moving from a system governed by rules to a world governed by force, in which politics is managed by the logic of bullying, not the law.
