The steps taken by the Trump Administration in the arena of foreign trade relations and their accompanying rhetoric have raised questions concerning whether the forceful return to economic nationalism marks the end of the liberal order whose formation and expansion were overseen by the United States after the Second World War. This order revolved around the notions of the free market and free trade, which were fostered within the context of what came to be known as the Washington consensus and the emergence of neoliberalism beginning in the late 1970s, and around the political values of liberal peace and its accompanying normative discourse. If Trumpism is the manifestation of a transitional phase or an attempt by the United States to reposition itself in the face of China’s rise and the sense that the institutions of the global order once supported by the United States have begun to operate at cross-purposes with US interests, then the Trump Administration’s economic nationalist policies and mercantile bent will result in the dissolution of alliances and realignments, as well as, possibly, the emergence of new political, economic and military conflicts.
