By Anita Inder Singh, Founding Professor, Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution
One year of Trump 2.0 has turned out to be a shadow cast across the world, and 2026 is unlikely to lighten the shadow. While every country advances its national interests, his pursuit of “America First” betrays a pronounced aversion to international order and multilateral institutions, whether the United Nations or Bretton Woods. In short, Trump is trying to bully the world as he tries to build the US as the world’s strongest economy with a robust industrial base. National resources exist to serve America and American interests alone. The US must therefore rely less on foreign technologies, against which Trump has imposed high tariffs.
Even America’s traditionally close European allies have come under pressure from tariffs. They have also faced attacks on the weaknesses of European civilisation because of their former liberal migration policies.
Strategically autonomous India, therefore, should not be surprised at the imposition of 50% tariffs for buying Russian oil, or Washington’s indifference to Delhi’s talk about the greatness of Hindu culture—whatever that means to India’s current political dispensation.
Meanwhile, Trump admires the leaders of an expansionist China in Asia and Russia in Europe, both of whom in part defend their imperialism as reflecting their great civilisations. Notably, his top priority is the Western Hemisphere, where he has invaded Venezuela because it has allegedly exported migrants and large quantities of drugs to America. Those threats probably mask his obvious ambition to lay hands on Venezuela’s oil reserves.
No retrenchment
Neither in Europe nor Asia does Trump’s National Security Strategy (NSS), published in December, advocate retrenchment. While reserving sharp criticism for Europe, Washington does not reject the NATO transatlantic alliance. It just wants NATO allies to spend more on their defence. More troubling is the apparent failure to recognise that allies have long shared America’s global vision.
In Southeast Asia, the NSS takes note of the Chinese threat. It singles out the South China Sea as the main shipping passage having major implications for America’s economy, and warns that the US will “harden and strengthen our military presence in the Western Pacific”.
Simultaneously, Trump will continue to demand increased defence spending from old Cold War allies like Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan. He is unworried about China’s naval drills near Taiwan.
What shape will the international order take under this administration? At times Trump says he will spend 50% more on defence.
But Trump’s conception of “threats” extends to wide-ranging foreign influences, including espionage, trade practices, narcotics trafficking, human trafficking, propaganda, and cultural subversion. Complete control over borders and immigration systems stands as an explicit goal. The country that once prided itself for being a nation of immigrants is now envisioned as a Fortress America—much to the disappointment of many Indians.
Trump’s NSS acknowledges the importance of a peaceful, open Indo-Pacific and freedom of navigation. It will undoubtedly please China and Russia by its silence on democracy and human rights as universal values, favouring above all strong commercial relations with China.
This is unfortunate, even if the US, while professing those values under previous presidents, has occasionally shown that it can side with dictators to protect its national interests. Trump couldn’t care less about international law. Only America’s economic and military capacity to browbeat other countries counts.
International politics will undergo profound transformation in 2026 as the effects of Trump’s foreign policy shifts ripple outwards. Some countries will increasingly seek greater strategic autonomy. Will this lead perhaps to frameworks centred on Japan, Europe, and parts of the Global South; or perhaps to strengthened ties between these countries and China? The guessing game is on.
What is clear is that even America’s Asian and European allies are losing confidence in the US. Since the end of the Second World War in 1945, those allies have placed in their alignment with American strategic direction. The European Union stresses greater autonomy but, lacking a common defence policy, remains economically and militarily dependent on the US.
That fact applies, in different ways, to strategically autonomous India. A world without American power cannot come into existence, but developing countries worldwide have had much to lose by the shutdown of USAID, which contributed to their well-being. Now their expectations of America are minimal. This situation could favour an economically and territorially aggrandising China.
Of what transactional value is India for Trump? India figures twice with reference in the NSS to Indo-Pacific security as America’s “partner”, and once, when Trump takes credit, for the nth time, for pushing nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to agree to a ceasefire in the post-Pahalgam four-day war last summer.
For Trump, commercial ties with India must be improved, “and India must bear a greater share of the burden for Indo-Pacific security”, including through continued cooperation with Australia, Japan, and the US in the Quad. The reality is, whether in Asia or Europe, Trump wants strategic partners and allies to spend more on their own defence, while reducing America’s military spending.
Does MAGA actually represent an insecure US?
All told, Trump wants India to reduce its tariffs on US exports while accepting Washington’s duties so that he can Make America Great Again. That wish disguises insecurity. Old foes like Russia and China resent the sole superpower. But even they are surprised that Trump perceives his America as a weakened or weakening country. Is that why he is determined to make America great again? 2026 will reveal the answers.