We are in the chaos of a new world. Regardless of your politics or where you live in the world, it is clear that the United States has changed its course from decades ago. Leaders of the world’s most powerful economic and military nations feel unfettered by domestic or international laws when it comes to waging war or overthrowing the leaders of countries they see as a threat; they no longer want to be responsible for the defense of Europe; and they see international trade not as a global public good but as a zero-sum game that must be won by any means necessary.
Supporters of US President Donald Trump will find this change in policy interesting. Critics won’t. The Spring 2026 edition of Foreign Policy is not designed to prosecute this conflict. Nor does it attempt to portray Washington’s international role over the years as perfect or selfless—far from it. The truth is that Trump in his second term has brought about a generational change. “The World After Trump” is our attempt to push beyond the news drumbeat and think about where this new direction is headed.
We are in the chaos of a new world. Regardless of your politics or where you live in the world, it is clear that the United States has changed its course from decades ago. Leaders of the world’s most powerful economic and military nations feel unfettered by domestic or international laws when it comes to waging war or overthrowing the leaders of countries they see as a threat; they no longer want to be responsible for the defense of Europe; and they see international trade not as a global public good but as a zero-sum game that must be won by any means necessary.
Supporters of US President Donald Trump will find this change in policy interesting. Critics won’t. The Spring 2026 edition of Foreign Policy is not designed to prosecute this dispute. Nor does it attempt to portray Washington’s international role over the years as perfect or selfless—far from it. The truth is that Trump in his second term has brought about a generational change. “The World After Trump” is our attempt to push beyond the news drumbeat and think about where this new direction is headed.
We start with the essay from Hal’s productsone of the sharpest strategic thinkers in Washington. Brand offers three events for how the world may look in the coming years. First is the new cold war where the US and China are forcing and influencing the whole world to choose a side. The second is a planet fragmented into regional spheres of influence—a new era of empire that would bring frequent conflicts amid the tussle for land and power. The third scenario is darker still: A “self-help” world in which the United States adopts an aggressive approach and the international system collapses into chaos. Businesses see tips for every situation in our current time. “The key question, to be answered in the next decade,” Brands concludes, “is whether Washington will try to replace that world with something fraught but tolerable — or push the current uncertainty toward something worse.”
Historian Nils Gilman provocatively complicates these conditions: that our era is different because countries must make choices that are not fundamentally ideological. Gilman argues that Trump has divided the world into petrostates and electrostats. While the United States, Russia, and the Gulf states are building power based on fossil fuels, China is lobbying countries to join the green community that is betting its future on solar panels and batteries.
Shidore’s nest of the Quincy Institute focuses on countries caught between these conflicts. His essay on central forces argues that nations from Brazil to India to South Africa are being pushed towards cooperation and transgression of the laws of the great powers. But can these nations form a true third force in international politics? Shidore says that the situation has never been better.
FP journalist Emma Ashford takes one of the most important relationships of the last eight decades: transatlantic union. Instead of lamenting what has been lost, Ashford asks what a better partnership and balance between the US and Europe might look like—and argues that both sides can end up happily in a relationship between equals.
Finally, the question everyone will be asking ahead of this year’s US midterm elections: Does the Democratic Party have an alternative vision for US foreign policy? FP journalist Suzanne Nossel suggests one that builds upon internal “plural” agenda. which has won fans on the American left. “Instead of aiming to run or remake the world,” he writes, “a pluralist foreign policy should make America’s economic strength and broader prosperity its first order of business.” In practice, that would mean a push by all governments to be a leader in access to essential minerals, to put the United States back at the forefront of innovation, and to return to a preferential strategy of cooperation with international international institutions.
Taken together, these five essays do not present a single vision of the future—and that is exactly the point. One might even say that our present time may not be an interlude between orders but a new normal – a return to the chaotic history that humans have struggled with. All that is clear is that the current uncertainty means that there is now a different future that our leaders can create.
There’s much more in this issue, including a roundup of our best quarterly quotes from around the world and our favorite book and movie reviews. Remember to visit our website for the latest information.
As before,
Ravi Agrawal
