Joe Biden’s presidency now appears to be an elegiac endeavour to reestablish the United States’ leadership in a rules-based international system. Meanwhile, Trump’s second term looks certain to usher in a full embrace of the zero-sum transactionalism that the order was designed to replace. Democrats must adjust to the new reality: the old United States will not return, and the rest of the world does not expect it to.

Trump did not bring about this transition on his own. Confidence in American leadership, both at home and internationally, has long been low. The invasion of Iraq and the excesses of the so-called war on terror undermined trust in Washington as a steward of global security, providing a good foundation for leaders in Moscow and Beijing to justify authoritarianism and acts that contradicted the rules-based order. The 2008 financial crisis, as well as the ongoing concentrations of wealth caused by globalization, increased opposition to the post-Cold War embrace of democratic capitalism. These challenges came from autocratic populists within liberal democracies, as well as blocs of countries offering alternatives to American hegemony. Technology—The proliferation of platforms and access to data provided autocrats with tools for surveillance and control, while also facilitating the spread of conspiracy theories, misinformation, and negativity, which polarized citizens worldwide. Biden’s initiatives reflected a schizophrenic reaction to this dynamic. From his early assertion that “America is back,” Biden hinted to a restoration following the aberrant Trump years. However, the unravelling of the rules-based order over the first two decades of this century made that impossible. Biden’s initiatives frequently acknowledged that fact, even if the words he used to portray those programs spoke the familiar language of American primacy within a rules-based tensions in modern US foreign policy. The declaration of a struggle between democracy and autocracy included exclusions for authoritarian partners in cities such as Riyadh and New Delhi. Calls for collective action to tackle climate change and manage the rise of new technologies were met with resistance from the industrial strategy entrenched in the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as a web of export and investment regulations aimed to limit China’s growth. Global principles were invoked to justify the heavy use of sanctions, but these efforts merely brought together states with opposing views, such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, as well as alternative alliances like the BRICS. NATO’s expansion and mobilization of allies behind Ukraine were less motivated by principled appeals for democratic solidarity than they did to a realist reaction to the threat posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s frontal assault on the West. While framed as a defense of a liberal order, Washington’s policies were often a response to its absence.