Trump's MAGA: Catalyst for Global Multipolarity & End of Western Hegemony
17:09 05.03.2025 (Updated: 20:49 05.03.2025)
© AP Photo / Alex Brandon
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US President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda will significantly impact the global order. Trump aims to replace the traditional West-dominated "rules-based order" with a New World Order, a BJP politician told Sputnik India.
The trend towards global multipolarity is largely going to intensify under President Donald Trump, who is seeking to priortise American national and economic interests over global commitments, geoplolitical expert and potliticians have told Sputnik India.
"The same way Trump's MAGA agenda puts America first, other nationalist leaders will seek to prioritise their national interests. For example, in India, we have seen how PM Modi has advocated policies geared at putting 'India First'. Nationalism is all about national interests," remarked Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician Savio Rodrigues.
Rodrigues suggested that these leaders would support the global agenda only if it aligned with the respective national interests.
"So, yes, in a way, multipolarity will continue to get bolstered, with national interests of individual countries reigning supreme," stated Rodrigues.
He argued that the US-led post World War-II alliance system was going to lose influence in Trump's new world order.
Rodrigues also commented that Trump's policies, be it with respect to trade and tariffs or in security matters, are going to significantly upset the traditional western allies in a major way.
"The imperial form of western influences will cease to exist. But, a new form of influence will or has already come to take its place. This new world order will not be western in the traditional sense, but will be actively promoted by leaders who share ideological leanings with President Trump," Rodrigues opined.
Further, he sees leaders who backed common sense conservative values such as Italian PM Giorgio Meloni, President Vladimir Putin and PM Modi as ideologically aligned with Trump's vision.
"I believe leaders with centre-right ideologies will be at the centre of the new world order that Trump is looking to create. At a geostrategic level, Trump views China as the only adversary. It is like Donald Trump is like an 'unstoppable force' trying to move an immovable object, which refers to the post-World War II West-dominated liberal order," argued Rodrigues.
"Make America Great Again (MAGA) will become a rallying cry of sorts, which I believe many countries will start employing in their own respective national contexts," Rodrigues remarked, as he noted how PM Modi referred to 'Make India Great Again (MIGA) during the joint presser with Trump at the White House last month.
The Indian politician's comments were echoed by former Hungarian minister Janos Czok, who told in an interview with Sputnik India last week that leaders like Trump and Putin should take the lead in working together towards a "new world order".
"We have so many problems in the world today. Large powers need to talk to each other to create a new world order. Geopolitics is not a moral enterprise, though it has moral consequences. But, at critical junctures of history, big powers should sit down and talk to each other," said Czok, who was the Minister of Innovation and Culture in Prime Minister Viktor Orban's cabinet till last year.
Even though the MAGA agenda was at its heart focussed on trimming US economic deficit through tariffs, attracting investments, withdrawal of foreign aid and cutting down on wasteful expenditure, its implications were reverberating globally, retired Commodore Seshadri Vasan, the Regional Director of National Maritime Foundation (NMF) and Director-General of Chennai Centre for China Studies (C3S), explained.
"Under Trump, the US is no longer going to spend billions on a foreign war or through funding global organisations such as World Health Organisation (WHO) or US Agency for International Development (USAID) for that matter. So, yes, there are big strategic readjustments taking place right now," the think-tanker stated in a converstion with Sputnik India.
Vasan commented that the post-World War II order was definitely in a "state of disarray" and that "new poles" which have emerged in recent years would continue to strengthen their positions. He warned that the process was going to be "messy".
"So, multipolarity will continue to be strengthened under different forms. No country is no longer going to accept the US as the sole superpower calling the shots. What needs to be seen is what form this multipolarity-driven new order will take and how it will impact different countries, particularly the developing nations," he said.
As an example, Vasan said that Trump's tariffs against major trading partners would have implications for the EU, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Japan, India or Southeast Asian nations.
"But we are witnessing the building blocks of a new kind of a global power dynamic, wherein some structures will crumble and some new will emerge. We are already witnessing calls to reform the UN Security Council and Bretton Woods institutions by countries like India and Brazil, which are only going to grow due to the disruptive changes underway," the expert suggested.
The comments come as significant ruptures have emerged in the transatlantic alliance on the question of military aid to Ukraine. In the wake of the showdown between Trump and Zelensky at the White House last week, the US has reportedly put on hold military funding for Ukraine.
At the same time, the observations by experts are also in line with the thinking within the Trump administration.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told American broadcaster Megyn Kelly last month that it wasn't normal for the world to have a "unipolar power", which he described as a product of the Cold War.
"But, eventually, we are going to reach back to a point where you have a multipolar world, great powers in different parts of the world," Rubio said back then.
