Trump is a stress test to the Global South

Revisiting notes from earlier this year, I came across a short essay I had written making a simple claim: one of the most transformative forces in the international order over the coming decades will be the rise of the Global South as a driver of complexity and normative pluralism. 

Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey no longer act like “emerging economies” in search of validation, but as strategic middle powers — pragmatic, autonomous and capable of negotiating simultaneously with Washington, Beijing, Brussels or Moscow.

That trend, however, faces a harsher test under Donald Trump. His second term has brought an aggressive return to his “America First” platform, translated into punitive tariffs, targeted sanctions and the explicit use of trade and technology as geopolitical weapons. The result is a stress test for the model of autonomy and pluralism that these middle powers have been trying to cultivate.