How the World Can Push Back: The Playbook to Counter Trump's Second Term

[Celerity]

As Trump tears up democratic norms, foreign governments must counter his playbook with bold, coordinated resistance.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/how-the-world-can-push-back-the-playbook-to-counter-trumps-second-term



US President Donald Trump has shown a callous disregard for the checks and balances that have long protected American democracy. As the self-described “king” makes a momentous power grab, much of the world watches anxiously, aware that his administration’s growing illegality and corruption is eroding not only the US Constitution but what remains of the post-1945 international order. A return to great-power spheres of interest looks increasingly likely.

But foreign governments, businesses, and civil-society groups have more power than they think in the face of a revisionist America. They can take five steps to create external checks and balances on the Trump administration, and on anti-democratic forces more broadly. Anti-democratic forces around the world cast a long shadow, but with a boost of courage and the strength of solidarity, pro-democracy coalitions can come together to fight for the light.

The first step is to unite and make as much noise as possible. Would-be autocrats depend on divide-and-rule tactics, maximizing fear by convincing individuals and governments that they alone are on the chopping block. Imagine if all governments in the Americas (with a few exceptions, like Argentina) denounced Trump’s designs on the Panama Canal and Canada, loudly and repeatedly, and refused to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. Indeed, they could collectively rename it the Gulf of the Americas.

Another option is for all the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and European Union governments to issue a joint statement repudiating Trump’s claim that Ukraine started the war with Russia, instead insisting on the truth: Russia violated Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s 57 members could collectively introduce a censure resolution in the United Nations General Assembly condemning any suggestion of expelling all Palestinians from Gaza, as Trump casually suggested last month, while reaffirming a collective commitment to a Palestinian state.

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