Trump is trying to shape a new world order. Here’s what it looks like. |
President Donald Trump speaks as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth looks on during a meeting of the Cabinet at the White House on January 29, 2026. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
It’s no secret that President Donald Trump has global aspirations — despite his promises of focusing on “America First.” The past few weeks have seen US action in Venezuela; threats to Greenland, Europe, and Iran; and Trump’s open solicitation of a Nobel Peace Prize.
The president’s latest global push: the Board of Peace.
With its billion-dollar lifetime membership fee, the new body has been labeled a minor bid to replace the United Nations. So far the countries who have joined are relatively minor players on the world stage, including Belarus, Azerbaijan, and El Salvador.
But whether or not the board ends up successful in its mission to create “a more nimble and effective international peace-building body,” it’s Trump’s latest attempt to exert a new kind of international power, especially over America’s neighbors.
“He’s trying to reestablish the US sphere of influence, its control over the Western Hemisphere,” said Monica Duffy Toft, professor of international politics at Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and director of the Center for Strategic Studies.
Today, Explained co-host Noel King spoke with Toft about where our idea of a “world order” came from and where it may be headed after Trump’s shakeup. Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
It is unbelievably still January of 2026, and we have had really significant events in Venezuela, over Greenland, with the EU and NATO. And all of this is leading people to say President Donald Trump is trying to remake the world order.
What is the world order?
So the world order was established after World War II. The United States and its Western allies decided to establish rules that would govern the international system and along with that a series of institutions, including, by the way, the United Nations. And what they were trying to do is set up a system of law — international law, norms, and rules in order to prevent a third world war.
The idea was that the use of force — the use of the military — was no longer going to be........