The Making Of Trump’s Tripolar World Order – OpEd |
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 represents a fundamental departure from the era of US global hegemony. Instead of trying to police the entire world through an increasingly disrespected and widely regarded as duplicitous and even hypocritical liberal world order most recently exposed by its indifference to the genocidal war pursued by Israel in Gaza, Trump is steering toward a system where three major powers dominate their respective spheres of influence, with the US asserting itself as the “first among equals” and maintaining dominance, if not hegemony.
The Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) implicitly recognized three primary coexisting centers of power. Its goal is not to eliminate China or Russia as rivals, but to “contain and manage” them through transactional deals that reduce US global burdens whilst maximizing returns for America.
This is the “fortress” from which the US operates, focusing on resource extraction, regional supply chains, and border security to make America great for the domestic constituency. It is one in which Venezuela, with its oil wealth, became the first target, with Greenland in the cross-hair now as a national security priority due to the island’s strategic military position and natural resources.
Under Trump as well as the incoming Republican president, Canada is no longer treated as a “special ally” but as a junior partner whose sovereignty is secondary to US security and economic interests. Annexation Mexico is also being extended this new subordinate status.
Trump’s focus on controlling Venezuela and minting money from its oil has been touted as designed to make his American sphere self-sufficient and immune to the increasing economic challenge from China. However, this unilateral action against diplomatic norms, regional sovereignty and international relations principles is also intended to warn all South American governments to accept US overlordship of the region or risk replacement with a US imposed one.
Trump’s policy of “pragmatic retrenchment” in Europe – including his push for a negotiated end to the Ukraine conflict – effectively acknowledges a Russian sphere of influence in Europe.
By reducing US support for NATO in Ukraine, Trump has signalled that European security is a European problem, not an American one. At the same time, he has successfully manoeuvred NATO to be more than the US’s useful idiot by pressuring his allies to spend 5% of their GDP on defence and security by 2035. This unprecedented surge will create a massive pipeline for US armament sales.
Over the next five years (2026–2030), total sales of US armaments to NATO allies are expected to exceed US$400 billion. Ensuring that the American economy does not implode from its current fiscal crisis is a key part of his tripolar strategy. Hence increased US armament sales to the rest of the world is necessary to create American jobs, boost the defence industry and generate revenue.
Whilst Trump’s remaking of the American and European spheres have seen much action, that in Asia appears to be a work in progress. For now, with the US locked in a trade war with Beijing, the Trump administration is starting to pivot from its emphasis on military containment to include economic containment, with new demands that allies like Japan and South Korea help rebuild the US industrial and hi-tech manufacturing sectors.
The evolution of the China segment of the tripolar framework of Trump’s administration has posed an unprecedented challenge because China offers an exceptional model of political and economic development through a communist government that has successfully challenged the global appeal of liberal democracy and American capitalism.
Hence, the Trump handling of the Chinese sphere has seen a shift to a more transactional and regionalized strategy. This approach basically moves the US away from its post-WWII policeman of Asia Pacific role toward a system of mutually recognized spheres of influence with China; and leave Australia and Japan as deputy sheriffs to maintain the regional status quo in favour of the US.
Before his April visit to Beijing, Trump has indicated a willingness to “share the world,” provided China respects and gives way to US interests. If the visit is successful, it is likely to see the US cede influence in parts of the Asia-Pacific in exchange for bilateral concessions or trade deals. Recent analyses suggest Trump is not committed to countering Chinese claims in the First Island Chain (e.g., the South China Sea or even Taiwan) if the visit outcome facilitates a major trade deal to reduce US financial frailty.
It is early days to make any prediction about how Trump’s tripolar world order and associated world system in the economic realm will shape and work out.
Key wild cards include North Korea where Trump has signaled a shift toward recognizing North Korea’s reality as a nuclear-armed state, moving away from long-standing demands for immediate denuclearization. The latest action is in Iran which possesses advanced nuclear capabilities, particularly in uranium enrichment, reaching near weapons-grade levels though American and international intelligence assessments indicate it has not yet weaponized this program. Previous administrations have relied on Israel as the primary regional kinetic anchor for the West, besides direct public diplomatic and media pressure and economic sanctions, and other covert actions to bring the government down. This strategy avoids military confrontation and allows the US to focus on high-level competition with China and Russia.
Whatever lies ahead in the world order dynamics, smaller nations in the three spheres will have to continue defending their political and economic sovereignty and leverage their collective weight on the major powers to ensure fairness and justice in international relations
For countries in the global South whose development already faces compounded challenges including severe impacts from climate change, overwhelming debt burdens, poverty, food insecurity, and inadequate health/education systems, BRICS membership may be seen as necessary to provide an additional layer of security and well-being in any permutation of the tripolar world order.