06-07-2025
The passing of the global order
Mahmoud Mohieldin
How should the countries of the Global South react to the ongoing changes in the international order?
Those most aware of the end of the so-called global order are its own architects.
They are like the owner of a football club who invites other teams to play on a field of his own design. He also hires a referee who is told to implement rules that he has designed as well. The teams play match after match, which always end with the victory of the owner's team, because its members know the pitch better and the rules work in their favour.
However, then the other teams grow more familiar with the terrain, master the rules, and begin to win some matches. Initially, the owner doesn't mind, as long as he retains the upper hand. But when the competition gets tough and he can no longer ensure victory, he grabs the ball and leaves. These new outcomes were never my intention, he shouts, as he fires the referee, obliterates the lines on the field, tears up the rules, and makes up new ones that ensure his team comes out on top again.
Of course, the real world is much more complex than this example might have us believe. One main difference is that the other teams in the game of nations are not about to wait for the master of the old order to bestow on them a new one that has been rigged in his favour. Instead, they will pursue alternative and more equitable arrangements to facilitate trade and investment and to settle any disputes that arise.
At the same time, they will try to contain the anger of the owner of the formerly dominant team. They have too much to lose from his attempts to perpetuate his hegemony by creating friction and lashing out against all and sundry with combinations of soft and hard power, while imagining he is clever enough to avoid getting burned by his own ruses.
While we are on the subject of the use of power in international relations, let's turn to an article by the late Harvard professor Joseph Nye published just days before his death in the April edition of the journal African Economy.
Writing on 'The Future of World Order,' Nye noted how the end of the Cold War in 1991 had given rise to a unipolar world order that allowed for the strengthening of existing international institutions and agreements and the creation of new ones affirming a rules-based approach to the management of international relations.
In the role of referees in the global game were the Bretton Woods institutions the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, among others. However, Nye writes, 'even before Trump, some analysts believed that this American order was coming to an end. The twenty-first century had brought another shift in the distribution of power, usually described as the rise (or more accurately, the recovery) of Asia.'
Asia's gains have come more at the expense of Europe than the US, which still represents a quarter of global GDP, as it has since the 1970s, Nye writes. While the Chinese economy has grown considerably, it has not yet surpassed its US rival, and while the Chinese defence industry has progressed by leaps and bounds, China still lags behind the US in overall military weight, alliances, and technology.
However, the crucial point with which Nye concludes his article, which draws on both his academic expertise and his experience as a former US assistant secretary of defence, is that 'if the international order is eroding, America's domestic politics are as much of a cause as China's rise.'
He leaves readers with the open question as to 'whether we are entering a whole new period of American decline' triggered by the current Trump administration's attacks on the country's institutions and alliances, or whether the current situation 'will prove to be another cyclical dip' from which the US will recover after it hits rock bottom.
He suggests that we may not know the answer to this before a new president takes office in 2029.
Fate did not grant Nye the chance to see what a post-Trump presidency might look like. However, I doubt the rest of the world will hold its breath until US voters cast their ballots depending on whatever the American mood is at the time.
In the interim, we can expect more tit-for-tat in the ongoing global tariff skirmishes. The latest round of these was kicked off on 2 April by the blanket unilateral tariff hikes US President Donald Trump declared on what he called 'Liberation Day.' It ended on 9 April – 'Freeze Day' – when he suspended those tariffs for 90 days because the international financial markets had been severely rocked by the escalating trade war.
Since then, various parties have been trying to work out better trade agreements with the US or at least terms that are not as bad as they could have been. The UK managed to strike such a deal, and the European Union is working on one.
As for the countries of the Global South, such as the Arab and African nations, perhaps they will heed the advice to increase the added value of their sources of natural and mineral wealth by processing them domestically instead of persisting with the low-yield trade relations based on exporting raw materials and primary goods.
They could achieve the desired shift by encouraging companies to invest in domestic manufacturing activities. Working in favour of this is the US' rush to secure critical raw materials for its advanced technological industries, particularly given how China has already made inroads into sourcing such materials, especially in Africa.
On precisely this point, economists Vera Songwe and Witney Schneidman believe that the US, in its new trade agreements with Africa, should prioritise opportunities to increase manufacturing partnerships in order to compete with China, which has had a head start in the continent.
More important than the foregoing is how the countries of the Global South, having recognised the collapse of the old order, manage the process of development and progress by focusing on people, economic diversification, digital transformation, investment facilitation, and data revolution.
