America First and the End of Certainties: Trump and the World Order That Isn't Coming Back
Trump has ceased to be a disruptive anomaly within the international system and has become its new operator. Ukraine, NATO, Iran, Venezuela — four scenarios where the liberal order that emerged after the Cold War is being rapidly reconfigured. An analysis of what is changing, what remains, and what has already passed the point of no return.
By Francisco Veracoechea Barquero
Journalist and strategic communications analyst · News LATAM
Donald Trump's role has ceased to be that of a disruptive political actor on the domestic American stage and has become a force directly reshaping the international system. His return to power does not merely confirm a domestic political trend — it deepens a global transformation already underway: the weakening of the liberal order that emerged after the Cold War and its replacement by a more volatile, transactional dynamic centered on raw power.
For decades, the United States sustained an international framework built on stable alliances, shared rules and a degree of strategic predictability. Under the America First principle, foreign policy has ceased to function as collective leadership and has become a constant negotiation — one in which even historic allies are evaluated based on their immediate return on investment. The shift is not rhetorical: it alters the fundamental logic of the system itself.
Ukraine: War as a Bargaining Table
The war in Ukraine illustrates this mutation clearly. Since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion in 2022, American support was decisive in sustaining Kyiv's resistance, accumulating commitments exceeding $180 billion. Under the new administration, however, that backing has undergone a substantial shift. Direct aid has been drastically reduced and, in its place, a negotiation-oriented approach has been prioritized.
Trump has insisted on the need for a swift agreement with Moscow, promoting parallel diplomatic contacts and supporting dialogue initiatives in venues such as Riyadh, Berlin and Anchorage. In this context, the war is no longer purely a territorial conflict — it has become a space for strategic redefinition in which the United States no longer acts as an automatic guarantor of one side, but as an actor seeking to close the conflict on its own terms. For Europe, this introduces a structural element of uncertainty: the American commitment is no longer perceived as unconditional. For Russia, it opens a window of opportunity, suggesting that Western attrition can translate into political concessions.
NATO — More Robust, More Uncertain
The same pattern is reflected in NATO's evolution. For the first time in its history, all 32 alliance members have reached the 2% of GDP defense spending target — driven both by the Russian threat and by direct pressure from Washington. At the Ankara summit of July 2026, allies agreed to raise that commitment to 5% of GDP by 2035, an unprecedented leap in the alliance's history. Europe and Canada additionally committed to maintaining $80 billion per year in military support for Ukraine through 2026 and 2027.
Yet this compliance has not necessarily strengthened political cohesion. On the contrary, it has revealed a deeper shift: collective security is no longer perceived as an automatic commitment but as a responsibility each country must sustain on its own. NATO is not so much weakening as transforming. Trump's pressure has forced Europe to react, to increase its military capabilities and to rethink its historic dependence on Washington. The result is an alliance more robust in resources but more uncertain in its political dimension.
"It was a great meeting, there was a lot of love in that room, a lot of unity. We want to stay with you."
Donald Trump · NATO summit in Ankara · July 2026
Iran: The Pressure That Did Not Contain
In the Middle East, the relationship with Iran offers another dimension of this foreign policy. The withdrawal from the nuclear agreement in 2018 and the maximum pressure strategy marked a turning point whose effects have intensified over time. Today Iran holds reserves of uranium enriched to 60%, significantly reducing the time needed to achieve military nuclear capability, according to International Atomic Energy Agency reports. Strikes on nuclear facilities recorded in 2025 have raised the risk of direct escalation in the region.
The pressure policy has not led to containment but to a dynamic of sustained confrontation in which deterrence coexists with the real possibility of open conflict. Iran has not collapsed or conceded on its strategic objectives; on the contrary, it has reinforced its capacity for resistance and expanded its regional room for maneuver. Rather than resolving the nuclear problem, the strategy has helped shift it toward a zone of greater instability.
Venezuela: Forced Break, Open Transition
In Latin America, the case of Nicolás Maduro marks a turning point rather than a continuation. Following his capture in January 2026 in a United States-led operation, the Venezuelan scenario entered a phase of uncertain transition. The economic sanctions that for years choked the country — triggering a GDP contraction of over 75% between 2013 and 2020 — no longer operate in the same context. Maduro's removal from power has opened the door to political reconfiguration and a possible gradual easing of restrictions, particularly in strategic sectors such as energy.
Stability, however, is not guaranteed. The internal power structure remains contested, with Chavismo actors still influential and a transition marked by political tensions, institutional uncertainty and the weight of inherited international alliances. Venezuela is no longer a case of regime resilience — it is a case of forced rupture whose impact is still unfolding. The lesson is clear: prolonged external pressure can prepare the ground, but does not always determine the final moment.
The End of the Alliance as We Knew It
Across all these scenarios, a common element emerges that redefines contemporary international politics: the transformation of the very concept of alliance. Under the traditional framework, alliances implied long-term strategic commitments based on shared values and common objectives. In today's logic, those relationships tend to become conditional agreements subject to constant renegotiation. The United States is not withdrawing from the global stage, but redefining its role within it. Permanence is no longer automatic and has come to depend on specific conditions — often economic or immediately political. Leadership becomes a form of transaction.
In Trump's logic, even historic allies are evaluated on their immediate return. Alliances are no longer sustained by shared values — they are negotiated, renewed or abandoned according to the day's ledger.
Francisco Veracoechea · News LATAM · analysis
China, Russia and the New Balance of Power
This shift is occurring alongside the rise of other powers seeking to consolidate their influence. China is expanding its presence through strategic investments and technological development, while Russia maintains its military intervention capacity. Global supply chains are being reorganized along security criteria. International trade, once governed by principles of openness, is adapting to a more defensive logic. Even multilateral organizations are struggling to maintain relevance in an environment where key decisions are being moved to direct state-to-state negotiation.
In this context, Trump's figure cannot be understood as an isolated anomaly. His style, his decisions and his narrative respond to a broader transformation running through multiple societies: the questioning of globalism, the distrust of political elites and the reassertion of national interest as the central axis of state action. The international system is not collapsing abruptly. It is reconfiguring, adapting and, in that process, leaving behind many of the certainties that defined it for decades.
What is emerging in its place has no name yet. It is a more uncertain world, where rules are no longer beyond question and where power — in its various forms — has reclaimed the central role that postwar liberal optimism believed it had outgrown. That process bears Trump's fingerprints on every corner. But someone would have built it regardless.
SOURCES: AFP · Reuters · El Orden Mundial (EOM) · Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica · La Nación Argentina · Mundiario · El Gráfico México · International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) · Statements by Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Volodimir Zelensky, Pedro Sánchez · NATO Ankara Summit Final Declaration, July 2026 · NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte · World Bank / Venezuela GDP data · Trump-Putin Summit, Anchorage, August 2025 · G7 Évian-les-Bains, June 2026 · NATO The Hague, July 2025 · News LATAM field analysis.
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endirectofv@gmail.com · Francisco Veracoechea · News LATAM
© 2026 Francisco Eduardo Veracoechea Barquero · News LATAM · Partial reproduction permitted with attribution to author and source
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