Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term as US President on January 20 last year. One word sums up his first year in office: Disruptive.
Even as the world is coming to terms with the enormity of Venezuela, where a sitting president was abducted with impunity, Greenland looms large on the Trump radar. EU nations are rattled about the long-term consequences of the US President’s actions. While increased tariffs are on the anvil, the probability of an intra-NATO war is being discussed in Brussels and beyond.
Trump’s approach to global affairs remains Pavlovian, often involving impulsive deal-making and impetuous unilateral actions. The US mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine, attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities (by all accounts, to advance Israel’s interests) and brokered an iniquitous ceasefire in Gaza, while remaining indifferent to the killings in the aftermath of the October 2022 Hamas attack.
Globally, the disruption has been most palpable in relation to multilateralism and the conduct of international relations. Trump’s approach to multilateralism represents a sharp acceleration of “America First” principles — it emphasises unilateral actions and bilateral deals and is marked by scepticism toward international institutions. This has manifested as a deliberate retreat from many multilateral frameworks, with the White House viewing them as constraints on US sovereignty, wasteful, or misaligned with American interests. On his first day in office, Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Agreement and initiated withdrawal from the WHO. These reversed Biden-era re-engagements and echoed first-term decisions.
Subsequently, a comprehensive State Department review of all international organisations, conventions and treaties to identify those “contrary to the interests of the United States” was ordered, leading to the country’s withdrawal from global organisations. A presidential memorandum, earlier this month, directed the US’s withdrawal from 66 international organisations, including 31 UN-affiliated entities (for instance, UNFCCC/IPCC for climate, UN Women, UN Population Fund/UNFPA, parts of UN Human Rights Council, remnants of UNESCO, and others) and 35 non-UN bodies. Decades of patiently arrived at, consensual multilateralism in different domains — from trade to climate to WMD (weapons of mass destruction) — is now in tatters. This damage could be irreparable even after the Trump presidency.
In the most recent Trump diktat related to Gaza, the UN has been sidelined. India has been brought into the US tent in the management of global peace and security. Trump formally invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to participate in a new international body — the Board of Peace for Gaza. This augurs well for stabilising the troubled India-US bilateral that has been buffeted by harsh trade tariffs. However, the terms and conditions of joining a Trump-chaired global board will need to be carefully reviewed. For India, this could be a Catch-22 invite.
Many of President Trump’s actions over the last year have undermined the dignity of the POTUS’s office. The humiliation of some of the visiting dignitaries at the Oval Office, for instance. The President’s craving for the Nobel Prize has not gone down well with some of his supporters at home. The pattern of using insulting, often personal and gendered language to demean women media representatives is an ugly manifestation of the arrogance of power — and demeans the idea of America.
This behaviour echoes Trump’s first term and pre-presidency rhetoric but has intensified in frequency and visibility in late 2025, particularly in November and December, drawing widespread criticism for sexism, attempts to disparage or silence questioners, and erosion of basic press norms. For instance, during a press chat on Air Force One, Trump reportedly snapped at a Bloomberg reporter: “Quiet, piggy”, after she asked about the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Trump’s policies have often been described as inconsistent, fickle or mercurial. But at the core, it is unpredictable and inconsistent, and most of Trump’s interlocutors have had to deal with his double standards. Experts have interpreted this as his internalising of the “art of the deal” and resorting to brinkmanship and recklessness to stun the competitor/adversary and then prevail.
The most egregious instance of such double standards is in relation to the recent Iranian protests, where over 5,000 people are reported to have been killed. The public posture was that Trump was determined to protect the hapless Iranian citizens from their own regime. At the same time, the US President has remained totally indifferent to the mass killings in Palestine-Gaza and maintained a stoic silence on them.
Trump’s second year is unfolding against a backdrop of unprecedented geopolitical discord and global uncertainty. This is being compounded by a bitter and divisive domestic political ecosystem in the US. Familiar guardrails and protocols in both domains have been jettisoned. At the macro level, managing WMD norms remains an abiding challenge, and the New START Treaty between the US and Russia expires on February 5. It is the last remaining bilateral arms control agreement limiting the deployment of strategic nuclear forces between the two countries. Will Trump renew it?
Within the US, there is a worrying tendency to use force to deal with immigration related protests. Minnesota is a case in point. Hopefully, the word destructive will not find traction in the next annual assessment of the Trump-triggered detritus.
In an interview marking one year in office, Trump described the performance as, “I think we’ve done a great job. Maybe the best job ever in the first year.”
However delusional this self-assessment might seem, Trump is the POTUS, and the world will have to deal with that reality. For any elected leader, domestic political support is imperative for effective governance, and the forthcoming mid-term elections in the US will be a bellwether for the next three years of the Trump presidency. If the Democrats prevail, a sullen White House may well be the leitmotif.
For India, remaining engaged with the US calmly would be the most prudent course to steer in this era of turbo-charged Trump turbulence.
The writer is director, Society for Policy Studies
Europeans are also aware that the standoff could lead the United States to reduce or withdraw its support for Ukraine (AP Photo) 
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