Consider This from NPR - Is President Trump changing the rules-based world order?

Episode Date: August 23, 2026

For years, President Trump has been openly criticizing multilateral organizations like NATO and the United Nations.Criticisms like these were once rare from American presidents, since the US had such a prominent role in these organizations and the order they brought to global affairs.How might this shift affect how countries deal with conflict and one another?Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.This episode was produced by Christopher Harland-Dunaway. Our director is Elena Burnett. It was edited by Tinbete Ermyas. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

It's consider this, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, the fading rules-based world order. For years, President Trump has been critical of multilateral organizations. Here he is discussing NATO at its conference in Turkey last month. Despite the fact that I'm very upset with NATO, that we pay far, far too much, billions and billions of dollars too much, because it's unfair, because we're protecting them. So we protect them, but they're not there for us. Think of it. It doesn't work.

And at the UN General Assembly in 2025. What is the purpose of the United Nations? The UN has such tremendous potential. I've always said it. It has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it's not even coming close to living up to that potential. For the most part, at least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. Criticisms like these were once rare from American presidents since the U.S. had such a prominent role in these organizations

and the order they brought to global affairs. Consider this. Foreign policy experts say the world's U.S.-led rules-based order is fading. How could that change how countries deal with conflict and one another? After the break, one expert explains why he thinks President Trump is both a symptom of this trend and has accelerated it. From NPR, I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. It's consider this from NPR. As President Trump pursues new tariffs and disparages international organizations,

a new reality is emerging when it comes to how countries deal with one another and handle conflicts. The world's U.S.-led rules-based order is fading. And that's a scary fact given the number of conflicts around the world. And major issues that need to be addressed, like climate change. That's the argument Mark Leonard makes in a recent, essay for foreign affairs. He's the co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. He joins me now from London. Welcome. Lovely to be with you. Now, you warn that the world's rules-based order is changing. Before we

dive into your argument, I want to ask, how would you describe what that world order has looked like and what has been good about it? Well, Henry Kissinger said that world order depended on two things. One is a set of rules which all of the big powers are willing to live with. They might not love them, but they will put up with them. And the other is a balance of power which allows those rules to be enforced. And if we look at the last 80 years or so, there was a rules-based order, which was developed firstly within the West. And then after the end of the Cold War, it spread more widely and lots of other countries took part in it. And the US was its main sponsor. And there was an idea of trying to ensure that countries could trade freely,

with one another and that sea lanes were kept open and that people didn't introduce tariffs and barriers on each other, not using military force to change borders, not attacking civilians, not attacking civilian infrastructure, not attacking journalists or doctors. And those rules were growing and growing. So eventually there were rules about climate change, rules about how technologies should work. But the big shift, I think, was the second coming of President Trump, who then launched a revolution against this order that America created and told a new story about American history and said that actually America, rather than benefiting from this order, was one of the biggest victims of it. Right. And you also write in the piece that

this, that the order had been eroding to some degree before Trump's second term. But it does sound like you're saying that Trump has acted as an accelerant of sorts? Is that a fair way of putting things? Or how would you describe how this second term has really changed things? I think Trump's been a massive accelerant of it because he's made a bonfire of lots of different institutions. It's withdrawn the US from the World Health Organization from lots of different parts of the United Nations. He's made it clear that he doesn't believe in the World Trade Organization. But even more dramatic than that has been the way that he's told NATO members that if they don't spend enough, he won't defend them. He's threatened to annex the territory of Denmark by saying that he wants

to get hold of Greenland. Right. Would have been unthinkable before, before him. Even in the imagination of science fiction writers and people like that, you wouldn't, you know, these would not have been credible storylines. However, the US could get an entirely different leader after the 2028 elections. And also, on that note, any number of other countries' leaders could change. Could any of that stop or at least slow down the changing of this established order? The fact that Donald Trump has not just been elected once, but twice, means that it's irresponsible not to hedge against that happening again and at least take certain precautions and make yourself less dependent on the United States than you were beforehand.

But the other shift I think is within American culture because I think Donald Trump in some ways is channeling how a lot of Americans feel. There aren't that many people in the American political space who think that it's right that America goes back to being the world's policeman to defend a lot of these global institutions which are quite expensive. People right across the spectrum do think that nation building at home

is more important than being the leader of a global system. we've talked about a lot of moves that the U.S. has made, but on some of these things you've mentioned, I'm thinking, you know, restricting access to certain types of technology like AI or semiconductors, could you argue that the U.S. is just acting in the interest of national security, that whether or not it's about the global order, this is about the U.S. just trying to protect itself from what it perceives to be malicious actors like China? I think that's definitely true. And I think all countries are trying to protect themselves in different ways.

one of the features of our world is that we're bound together more tightly than we've ever been in human history. And at the same time, those connections between countries are being turned into weapons, which people are using to hurt each other. I sometimes think that geopolitics is a bit like a marriage which has gone wrong, but where the couple can't get divorced. And therefore, the things which brought them together in the good times become the tools that they used to hurt each other in the bad times. I want to finish with this. You write in your essay that you've spoken to a number of world leaders. I'm curious, what concerns do they share with you? And what are you advising them to do?

My sort of main advice to different leaders is that they need to expect the unexpected and therefore, rather than relying on predictable order and trying to preserve that order, and they need to be flexible, they need to think on their feet, they need to have lots of different relationships with different players. and they need to be better at defending themselves and to think about security in a much wider way so it's not just about tanks and planes and missiles but everything in our lives can be turned into a weapon against us so you need to think about food security and health security and cyber security and you need to think in a much kind of wider way

about the different things which are part of our everyday lives but which are very, very fragile and how to make them less fragile. And that is quite a bewildering change of mindset. That's Mark Leonard, co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. His piece, The Abandoned Order, Learning to Live in a Post-American World, can be found in foreign affairs. Thank you so much, Mark. Thanks. It was great talking to you.

This episode was produced by Christopher Harlan Dunaway. Our director is Elena Burnett. It was edited by Tin Beat Airmeas. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorney. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben.