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Toward restoring the international order : the role of Japan
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2467-4540
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EUI; RSC; Policy Brief; 2025/09; Global Governance Programme; [Europe in the World]
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MIMAKI, Seiko, Toward restoring the international order : the role of Japan, EUI, RSC, Policy Brief, 2025/09, Global Governance Programme, [Europe in the World] - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/92838
Abstract
In his second term as U.S. President starting in January 2025, Donald Trump has taken a more radical "America First" approach than during his first term. His administration has suspended foreign aid, except to key allies like Israel and Egypt, alienated traditional allies, and made bold, imperialistic claims, such as proposing U.S. control over Gaza and suggesting the annexation of territories like Greenland and even Canada. Trump’s disregard for international law is evident in his transactional and coercive diplomacy. He offered Ukraine aid in exchange for access to mineral resources in Ukraine while withholding security guarantees, thereby undermining norms about sovereignty and encouraging others’ great-power territorial ambitions. In 1945, during World War II, the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union met in Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula and agreed to divide and occupy Germany among the U.S., U.K., France, and the USSR. They also agreed on the return of southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union in exchange for its entry into the war against Japan. Today, there is a growing view that a new global order—referred to as “Yalta 2.0”—is emerging, in which modern great powers such as the United States, Russia, and China divide the world into spheres of influence, acknowledge each other’s dominance, and maintain a form of peace centered on great-power primacy. Trump administration has also attempted to reshape global trade through extremely high tariffs, targeting allies and adversaries alike. While Trump views tariffs as strategic leverage, this protectionist stance threatens the multilateral trading system developed after World War II. Japan, while seeking tariff exemptions, is also trying to uphold free trade norms and build regional cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, such as through the CPTPP and RCEP. To survive the crisis and navigate the new world beyond it, Japan must strengthen its leadership in defending international law and the global economic order, without allowing itself to become preoccupied solely with maintaining the Japan–U.S. relationship.