Above photo: Alexandra Beier / AFP / Getty Images.
The conference’s final report criticized President Trump’s unilateral use of force.
And sabotage of world trade.
Washington is attempting to fundamentally alter the liberal world order using “wrecking-ball politics” and “sweeping destruction,” rather than careful reforms and policy changes, according to the final report of this year’s Munich Security Conference (MSC).
According to the report, US President Donald Trump wishes to free his government from “the existing order’s constraints.” It concluded that, “As a result, more than 80 years after construction began, the US-led post-1945 international order is now under destruction.”
The report was issued at the end of the three-day MSC in southern Germany, the most important independent forum for the exchange of views by international security policy decision-makers.
Each year, the conference brings together hundreds of senior figures from governments, militaries, business, science, and media worldwide for intensive debate on current and future security challenges.
During the MSC, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a speech declaring that the US would defend “western civilization,” urging Europe to join its project, including through restrictions on immigration and turning away from deindustrialization caused by energy policies promoted by the “climate cult.”
He also said the UN had failed to end global conflicts, including in Ukraine and Gaza, and should be eclipsed by Trump’s ‘Board of Peace.’
According to the MSC report, the US has renounced “core elements of the existing international order … impacting different regions of the world and disrupting various policy domains,” including global trade, international development, and humanitarian assistance.
The report noted Trump has “disregarded some of the most basic norms of the post-1945 system, including the principle of respect for territorial integrity of other nations and the prohibition of the use of offensive force against other states.”
In just one year since returning to the White House, Trump has used force against Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. He has also considered using force to “take back” the Panama Canal, and threatened to use force against other nations such as Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico.
Europe has also been significantly affected, the MSC report observes, as Washington scales back its support for the war in Ukraine, seeking closer negotiations with Moscow and shifting the burden of financing arms purchases for Kiev to Brussels.
Tensions between Europe and the US have also erupted over Trump’s effort to seize Greenland from fellow NATO member Denmark.
These factors have combined to heighten Europe’s “sense of insecurity” and caused the US commitment to European security to be “perceived as volatile, oscillating between reassurance, conditionality, and coercion.”
As a result, European nations are preparing for greater autonomy and taking more responsibility for their own collective security.
The US break with the current world order is also evident in the Indo-Pacific region, the MSC report notes, amid China’s effort to achieve regional dominance.
Countries in the region have responded to China’s “provocations and coercion that threaten regional stability” by stepping up their own defense efforts, the report claimed. “Meanwhile, doubts have grown about US security guarantees and strategic interest in the region.”
The report argues that while the US “claims to be countering Chinese dominance,” some regional powers “worry that dealmaking with Beijing is now more important to Washington than backing its partners.” As a result, these countries are moving away from the US and reaching out to China to secure their security interests.
The MSC report also discussed US efforts to dismantle the global trade system. According to the US administration, globalization governed through the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has contributed to China’s rise and industrial decline in the US.
As a result, “Washington has openly dispensed with the rules of global trade it once helped create.”
Since returning to the White House, Trump has ignored the WTO rules, imposing trade tariffs on nearly every country in the world, and used economic coercion to secure bilateral deals that “benefit America first.”
At the same time, “China has continued its market-distorting practices and escalated its weaponization of economic chokepoints,” the report stated.
