What is the rules-based order and is Trump really threatening it?

When German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared that the rules-based international order “no longer exists”, he joined a growing chorus of global leaders issuing similar warnings. In his opening speech at the Munich Security Conference last weekend, Merz told other world leaders that “our freedom is not guaranteed” and the world had returned to an era of “big power politics”. His remarks echoed those of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who weeks earlier told the World Economic Forum in Davos that the world was in the “midst of a rupture, not a transition”. Carney warned that middle powers, such as Australia…