Ramaphosa and Trump met at the White House in Washington. Picture: Screengrab. North West University Professor and political analyst Andre Duvenhage says US President Donald Trump has fundamentally shifted the global order, adding that he is not “optimistic” about South Africa’s global position.
Trump’s stated interest in the annexation of Greenland has escalated into a geopolitical flashpoint that threatens to strain the cohesion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). In early January, US authorities detained Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and transferred them to the US on charges related to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism, raising renewed concerns about Washington’s approach to the sovereignty of nation-states. What the next move of the commander-in-chief of the world’s last remaining superpower might be remains uncertain.
However, according to Duvenhage, Trump has already begun to reshape the global order through a distinctive combination of coercive diplomacy and assertive power politics. “We are witnessing a changing world order, and increasingly the defining feature is that the period we know, or have come to know, as the Cold War era has finally come to an end. The first major break was in 1991 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dynamics that followed.
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However, what we are entering now may be even more significant,” said Duvenhage. Duvenhage said that one outcome is that the US is defining its own path. “It is not particularly concerned about NATO.
The approach is very much “America first”. Why, from this perspective, should it defend Europe if Europe does not take responsibility for itself? “Clearly, a divide is developing between the United States on the one side and leading Western countries such as France, Germany, Britain and Spain on the other.
Italy, perhaps, is a slight exception, although I believe Italy will also align with the broader Western European position. I have no doubt that some form of conflict will emerge from this,” Duvenhage said. Looking at South Africa’s global position in this changing world order, Duvenhage said he is not optimistic.
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