The abduction of Nicolás Maduro and his wife in early January 2026 conducted by the US military and the subsequent detailing by Trump justifying it as part of the “Donroe Doctrine”  – a rebranding and radical expansion of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine – can be seen as the first major pillar of a tripolar world order that President Donald Trump is defining for the US and the world.

​Under this tripolar strategy, the Trump administration is not seeking a return to the bipolar Cold War (US vs. USSR) era with China or Russia singled out as the existential threat and enemy today.

Neither is he intent on propping up the post-1991 unipolar liberal order of which the US has been the undoubted leader until recently. Instead, he has recognized his inability to ”make America great again” without reinventing the US dominance of the world order and system.

Why he is doing so is self-evident. The last 20 years has seen the breakdown of the western dominated global order marked by the rise of non-Western powers, internal fractures in the Western bloc, and the emergence of new forms of global competition. 

This breakdown is not the result of a single failure. Rather It is a “perfect storm” of structural, economic, and domestic factors, with the main stemming from developments within the US, the decline of western neo-colonial power, and the rise of China, and South countries.

It is clear that these three components – the “rise of the rest,” the internal fracturing of the US, and the decline of Europe and inherent contradictions of the liberal order – have galvanised Trump into action toward a world that he sees and wants divided into three distinct, non-overlapping spheres of influence: the Western led by the US, the European led by Russia, and the Asian led by China, with India and other Asian countries in a supporting role. 

​If realized, this concept of a “tripolar world”- centered on the US, China, and Russia – will move from academic theory to become the core of President Trump’s “America First” realism.

​This vision........

© Eurasia Review