Remember that one friend who used to be central in your life until they changed? They started spending time with people you didn’t really connect with, and your weekly meetups turned into rare check-ins. While you would never forget their birthday, you’re not sure about the status of your friendship. Would they still have your back, if you needed them?
When it comes to international relations, friendship is a utopian idea. What really binds states is not a mutual relationship based on affection and shared experiences but aligning interests. Still, heads of states or governments are human and can form bonds. During the recent visit by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to the White House, US President Donald Trump declared “I am not friends with anybody,” before gesturing in Merz’ direction and adding: “I am friends with you.”
The nostalgia for past friendships mirrors how many Europeans currently think about the United States. Whether it’s Trump’s tariff playbook, his imperialist power play vis-à-vis Greenland or Panama, the US alignment with Russia in the UN Security Council, not to mention its undermining of multilateral agreements by announcing a 180-day review of its membership of all such organizations and treaties—all these examples demonstrate that the new US administration is bidding farewell to its former friends’ group, “the West,” along with the associated code of conduct.
For Europeans, this code of conduct was the backbone of the international order. So, what happens if the United States withdraws from it? Following the 2024 US presidential election, only 35 percent of Germans said they could envision Germany taking on the role of “leader of the West” if the United States stepped back, according to data from The Berlin Pulse survey.
The Global Lens
As the Körber Emerging Middle Powers Survey of experts in India, Brazil, South Africa, and Germany shows, perceptions of the US and its influence on international order vary by region. Already before Trump’s return to office, 60 percent of foreign policy experts in Brazil and South Africa and 45 percent in India viewed the US global influence as negative. In Germany, 23 percent shared this view.
Most experts in the three countries of the Global South included in the survey also see the dominance of the US dollar as unfavorable for them. Again, German experts tend to disagree. Moreover, experts in India, Brazil, and South Africa no longer viewed the US as a key peace facilitator between Russia and Ukraine. They pointed instead to themselves—or to China or Turkey. From their point of view, the whole idea of the “West” as the guardian of the international order has never worked and failed completely after Hamas’ atrocity against Israel on October 7, 2023. Over 80 percent of experts in Brazil and South Africa and almost 90 percent in India agree that the “West has lost credibility as a defender of global norms.”
This does not come as a surprise. Most countries do not share the European experience of recent decades, seeing the US as a friend having their back. And historically, the current trajectory may be less a rupture than a return to form. After announcing the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which warned European and other powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere, the United States avoided entanglement in European affairs for over a century, only intervening when world wars or the fear of communism forced its hand. Europeans might have mistakenly taken the exception as the rule.
In or Out?
Is it premature to speak of a world order without America? Trump announced that the US was leaving the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization, dismantled USAID, and threatened to leave NATO and drop out of Russia-Ukraine ceasefire efforts. In the recent escalation between Israel and Iran, however, the world is watching with bated breath to see how the US will position itself. The international financial system is also still dominated by the dollar, and this state of affairs is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
These examples demonstrate that Trump’s isolationist “America First” approach does not necessarily equate with an international retreat. And how will Europeans react if President Trump is constructive at the NATO summit or if the US takes over the G20 Presidency from South Africa later this year in an orderly manner?
Imagining a World Order Without the US
Independent of the degree to which the United States remains engaged, however, Trump’s executive orders are a catalyst for global power shifts that have been taking place for a while already. Shortly after Trump’s election, half of the German public expected US power to decrease during the next five years. This is probably the reason why seven out of 10 Germans wish for a diversification of relations with partners in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
In addition, almost 9 out of 10 of those surveyed want Germany to prioritize its relations with European partners, according to The Berlin Pulse results. It’s also a consequence of the “America First” approach that China is increasingly seen as the guardian of the multilateral system, being active in the multilateral arena, for example as the new biggest donor to the World Health Organization.
China does not need to build its global image from zero. As the results of the Emerging Middle Powers Report show, over 70 percent of experts in Brazil and South Africa view China’s global influence as positive. Also in India and Germany perceptions are slightly more positive than a year before, even if still at a low level. There is no doubt that a world order with “less United States” would be a world order with “more China.”
Even if in the 2023 Emerging Middle Power Survey, most experts described global power mainly distributed between the Washington and Beijing, China is not the only country pushing to fill the US vacuum. At the recent G7 summit in Kananaskis, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined the group of Western leaders, representing India as a guest country for the sixth time. There are even suggestions for expanding the informal forum of the seven “world's leading industrialized democracies” by including the South Asian economic powerhouse.
And then there is the fact that Brazil is also increasingly playing an active part in global affairs. The EU-Mercosur trade agreement—which is expected to come into force soon even if France and some other EU member states continue their resistance to it—was all over European news after Trump announced the US tariff wall in April. With the COP30 climate summit taking place in Brazil later this year, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is trying to unite world leaders around his climate agenda, a role that the United States never wanted to assume anyway.
European Multitasking
If Europeans are concerned about the “jungle” that US foreign policy commentator Robert Kagan foresaw “growing back” in the absence of an American superpower, they would do well to listen to some of their partners in the Global South. Many recognize that they would not benefit from global disorder and therefore prefer a reform instead of a revolution of the international system. The United Nations, the troubled World Trade Organization, and informal groupings such as the G20 remain relevant to them, as survey results show. As Ngaire Woods, a global economic governance expert, recently pointed out in Foreign Affairs, history offers examples of order grounded in diplomatic cooperation and the balance of power, rather than a hegemon, such as the Hanseatic League and the Concert of Europe.
At this critical moment, Europe must sharpen its multitasking abilities: explaining the continued benefits of an internationally engaged United States while at the same time cultivating new friendships. The European era of having this one best friend may be over, but Europe can still build a network of regular, constructive relationships, if it does its part to check in on them, too.
Julia Ganter is program director of the Körber Emerging Middle Powers Initiative and editor of The Berlin Pulse at Körber Stiftung.
