Today’s trade disputes epitomize a new stage of the globalization process. More and more countries are employing trade sanctions and customs duties for the purpose of national security. As globalization moves from integration to fragmentation and as competition becomes more intense and friction more frequent, open markets will become increasingly rare.

President Trump’s most recent threat to leave the WTO has caught worldwide attention. Would removing itself from the organization be beneficial for the United States, or is it just a bluff?

Many analyses of the most recent American tariffs discuss the impact on China or China-US relations. But none discuss the reverse: how will such tariffs impact the US? What will the result of this impact mean on the future of American global leadership?

Drawing upon the past 70 years of Chinese global engagement, Vice-Minister He shines light on how multilateralism has benefited the Chinese nation as well as how China has played an important role — and can continue to play such a role — in the success of this ideology across the world. With the chaos brought by the new US regime and the rise of global populism, He emphasizes the need for China as an emerging power to support and help maintain multilateralism domestically and internationally.

The recent crisis in Venezuela showed diverging Chinese and American attitudes towards global governance: China’s longstanding commitment to non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, and rejection of military force as a tool of diplomacy; contrasted with the Trump administration’s response, that displayed America’s penchant for interventionism backed up by the US military.

American leadership helped build the multilateral world order after World War II, but now US unilateralism — spurred by domestic partisan divisions — is undermining the UN, the WTO, and accords on Iran and climate change. US allies’ continued cooperation on a successor to the TPP, and China’s proposed Belt and Road Initiative, show that the world will continue down a multilateral path, no matter if the US swerves off onto a unilateralist road.

The Trump administration’s “America First” style of unilateralism has alienated even longtime European allies. The leaders of France, Germany, the EU Commission, and China have all pledged themselves to support multilateralism — in a sign of the times, Trump’s America is left out in the cold.

Huge changes are taking place in Western politics: unprecedentedly young or inexperienced leaders have taken power in Canada, France, Austria, Ukraine, the US, and beyond. This shift shows Western voters’ increasing dissatisfaction with traditional elites and modes of governance. While “new faces” may offer the possibility of reform, the result of inexperienced leadership, especially in the US, has been disruption and chaos.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is putting forward an alternative vision of global economic development to help developing countries escape poverty, and help developed countries head off inequality and populist challenges. But the US seems poised to squander its chance to participate and thereby shape this future of infrastructure, inclusivity, and innovation.

The US has to come to grips with the changed balance of power and accept the coming of a “new era” in international relations and global governance.