If Donald Trump represents the backlash against the liberalrules-based order, then we may now be seeing the backlash to the backlash. In a recent speech, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, spoke of just that. “They scream and shout not because they are winning, but because they know their time is running out,” he said, of those seeking to undermine international law and normalise the use of force. While the Trump administration and its allies seek to remake the world in their view, alternative visions of the international order are finally beginning to take shape.
The Canadian prime minister Mark Carney, in his now famous Davos speech in January, laid bare the vulnerabilities of what he described as a world in “rupture”. Middle powers must act together, he argued, because “if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu”. The way forward is not to abandon globalisation altogether but to remake it: preserving openness while upholding a rules-based order and avoiding over-reliance on a single country.
The article was originally published on 04.05.2026 in The Guardian.
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