Standing in a brown Nehru collared suit before a light blue backdrop emblazoned with “National Conservatism,” the Indian politician Ram Madhav delivered a 20-minute address at the July 2024 National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C. Madhav denounced the ills of global “left-liberal ideology” and pledged the fealty of the Indian right to the global national conservative movement. Among his targets was “unbridled illegal immigration in the name of ‘multiculturalism’”—a curious emphasis, given that Indian nationals constitute one of the fastest-growing unauthorized immigrant populations in the United States. Madhav appeared to be reaching for common ground with his right-wing hosts. Striking as it was, appearances like Madhav’s are increasingly common as right-wing populist forces reshape the foreign policies of several of the world’s middle powers—and with them, the landscape of the world order.
In January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney won widespread praise when he called for middle powers to stand up to Washington and help resuscitate liberal internationalism. But leaders seeking to build a constructive order for the mid-21st century must be clear-eyed about the political realities they face. The fact is that many middle powers, and the right-wing populists who run them, find U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision for the world more compelling than Carney’s. From Latin America to Europe to Asia, they are advancing an agenda that centers national sovereignty, the enduring differences between nations and civilizations, and the right of states to act on their own terms rather than defer to international institutions.
Standing in a brown Nehru collared suit before a light blue backdrop emblazoned with “National Conservatism,” the Indian politician Ram Madhav delivered a 20-minute address at the July 2024 National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C. Madhav denounced the ills of global “left-liberal ideology” and pledged the fealty of the Indian right to the global national conservative movement. Among his targets was “unbridled illegal immigration in the name of ‘multiculturalism’”—a curious emphasis, given that Indian nationals constitute one of the fastest-growing unauthorized immigrant populations in the United States. Madhav appeared to be reaching for common ground with his right-wing hosts. Striking as it was, appearances like Madhav’s are increasingly common as right-wing populist forces reshape the foreign policies of several of the world’s middle powers—and with them, the landscape of the world order.
In January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney won widespread praise when he called for middle powers to stand up to Washington and help resuscitate liberal internationalism. But leaders seeking to build a constructive order for the mid-21st century must be clear-eyed about the political realities they face. The fact is that many middle powers, and the right-wing populists who run them, find U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision for the world more compelling than Carney’s. From Latin America to Europe to Asia, they are advancing an agenda that centers national sovereignty, the enduring differences between nations and civilizations, and the right of states to act on their own terms rather than defer to international institutions.
Populist movements often revolve around the persona of a dominant leader, whether Trump, former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Argentine President Javier Milei, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In domestic politics, this type of personalism tends toward the centralization of power and increasingly authoritarian decision-making.
In foreign policy, personalism reshapes how decisions are made and the policies that follow. Most right-wing populist leaders are quick, for example, to marginalize their foreign-policy bureaucracies. Anti-elitism compels them to strip power from foreign ministries, which are an easy target for their political bases’ nativist impulses. But if right-wing populists have ideological reasons for undercutting their foreign ministries, doing so also aligns with their craving for direct control over all aspects of state policy.
Thus, Milei lifted merit-based requirements for entry into the Argentine foreign service and began ideological screenings of Argentina’s diplomatic corps. Orban and former Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto replaced about 70 percent of the Hungarian foreign ministry’s professional staff with loyalists, sidelining career diplomats and weakening the institution behind Hungary’s “Europeanization” efforts.
The dismantlement of traditional foreign-policy elites and their power centers opens the door to substantial shifts in foreign-policy orientation, and with them, shifts in world order. Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte shocked Washington when he reversed long-standing cooperation with the United States in favor of closer relations with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Orban’s turn toward both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi was a source of enormous consternation across Europe. If Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) were to come to power in Berlin, it would also be inclined to pursue a revolutionary approach to Germany’s global alliances.
Openness to China and Russia is coupled with skepticism about global institutions and an insistence on the primacy of national sovereignty: Duterte set aside a favorable 2016 international tribunal ruling in favor of the Philippines against China, Europe’s right-wing populists call for a transformation of the European Union, and Britain’s populists plotted the country’s exit from it.
Freed from their bureaucracies, populist leaders are free to innovate—but also to err. The risk of dangerous errors compounds on account of the populists’ confrontational and combative style. Combined with their laser-like focus on domestic opinion, this combativeness intensifies the risk these leaders will spark crises. The Modi government has clashed with Bangladesh over the ouster of pro-India leader Sheikh Hasina, and, amid a crisis with Pakistan in 2025, Modi became embroiled in a duel of egos with Trump that deepened tensions between Washington and New Delhi. Erdogan, meanwhile, has fought openly with French President Emmanuel Macron; how a combative personality like Marine Le Pen, who recently announced her intention to run for the French presidency in 2027, would handle France’s foreign policy is a question worth asking.
Needless to say, these are not the behaviors of nations destined to rebuild international cooperation along the lines of Carney’s now famous Davos speech. These right-wing populists are serious about strengthening their transnational ties, but in ways that often directly conflict with liberal hopes.
No middle-power populist invested more in building these transnational networks than Orban, who sought to turn Budapest into a hub for the international right on a scale unmatched in Europe. He hosted the first European edition of the American right’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), forged ties between the Danube Institute and the staunchly pro-Trump Heritage Foundation, and adopted “Make Europe Great Again” as a slogan for Hungary’s 2024 presidency of the Council of the European Union. Orban-linked banks also funneled financial support to his political allies abroad, including Le Pen and Spain’s Vox.
The sinews of this transnational web naturally converge on Trump and the Make America Great Again movement. By associating themselves with MAGA and adopting its symbols, right-wing populists worldwide can signal their own political values to voters at home. Praising Trump can also earn his endorsement and the surge of media attention that follows. But the benefits between Trump and the middle-power populists are mutually reinforcing: These alliances reinforce Trumpism abroad while expanding the confidence and political space for right-wing populism globally.
Like Orban, Milei has regularly appeared at CPAC events and visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago. In the process, he has sought to position Argentina as proof that right-wing populism (inflected with his own libertarian ideology) can thrive in the global south—a southern outpost and model for the movement. In Europe, the AfD has also worked with CPAC, while Modi has emulated Trump with a “Make India Great Again” theme.
So how far can this transnational cooperation go in building a coherent alternative to liberal internationalism? There are certainly limits. Populists’ elevation of national sovereignty as a political ideal will hamper any efforts to build cooperative international structures that would by necessity constrain that very sovereignty. The case of the AfD makes an additional obstacle clear. Unlike its French counterpart, the AfD has struggled to find European partners in part due to its association with German nationalism, which is widely viewed as a root cause of both world wars and against which many other European nationalisms are constructed. In other words, the content of some nationalisms can hinder transnational cooperation if it pits one nationalism against another. Finally, Orban’s recent electoral defeat demonstrates that the gains right-wing populists have made over the last decade can also be reversed at home.
But none of these contradictions or reversals should generate undue optimism among liberal internationalists. The underlying social and political forces that have given rise to Trump and MAGA remain powerful around the world. As a result, those seeking to build a workable international political order for the mid-21st century will need to learn to work with populists. This entails developing practical mechanisms that can manage populist middle powers and prevent potential crises and wars. Call it a program of procedural minimalism. Three approaches can help: back channels, mediation, and minilateralism.
Liberal internationalist leaders should make a habit of building back channels to populist governments. Because populist leaders centralize decision-making and marginalize professional diplomats, an envoy with direct access to a populist leader will achieve more than formal channels. European leaders, or future U.S. ones, should also position themselves as mediators. Populists may be skeptical of international institutions, but they are often open to practical mediation. Neutral third parties can still convey messages and broker restraint. Finally, even liberal internationalists need to rethink their multilateral ambitions. Cooperation with (and among) populists is more likely to last when it is narrow, reciprocal, and does not require states to cede sovereignty. Modest minilateral arrangements organized around specific interests are apt to be more fruitful than comprehensive multilateral commitments.
None of these measures will restore the declining liberal order. But they offer a realistic means of managing the international frictions generated by middle-power populism. Defenders of the erstwhile order need to accept that right-wing populism is neither an aberration nor a uniquely American phenomenon and that they must work within the limits it imposes.