If Donald Trump represents the backlash against the liberalrules-based order, then we may now be seeing the backlash to the backlash. In a recent speech, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, spoke of just that. “They scream and shout not because they are winning, but because they know their time is running out,” he said, of those seeking to undermine international law and normalise the use of force. While the Trump administration and its allies seek to remake the world in their view, alternative visions of the international order are finally beginning to take shape.
The Canadian prime minister Mark Carney, in his now famous Davos speech in January, laid bare the vulnerabilities of what he described as a world in “rupture”. Middle powers must act together, he argued, because “if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu”. The way forward is not to abandon globalisation altogether but to remake it: preserving openness while upholding a rules-based order and avoiding over-reliance on a single country.
The French president Emmanuel Macron’s push for EU “strategic sovereignty” can be read as the European expression of the same instinct: openness, but with guardrails. A strategic form of liberalism that is hardened against a contested geopolitical environment.
But another response to Trumpism and the revival of nationalist great-power politics is also emerging. A who’s who of global progressives gathered in Barcelona last month to develop this response. Co-hosted by Sánchez and the Brazilian president, Lula da Silva, an array of centre-left leaders threaded the needle of a progressive internationalism fit for the 21st century.
This project starts with a different reading of the same backlash; recognition that while globalisation has generated growth, it has failed to deliver for large parts of the population, leaving wages stagnant, inequalities entrenched and entire regions feeling left behind. The Barcelona summit sought to fill a void, to provide the raison d’etre the centre-left has been searching for since the 2008 global financial crisis. Because in the years after the bailout of the financial sector, it became clear that championing untrammelled globalisation, third way-style, has not improved the lives of the working classes that are supposed to be the centre-left’s core constituency.
It has taken nearly two decades and a surge in support for the far right for the centre left to arrive at a response that matches this diagnosis. First, it seeks to redistribute the gains of globalisation. Calls to tax the billionaires, reform global finance and expand development investment take centre stage. Second, it aims to reshape the conditions under which globalisation operates. Strengthening multilateral institutions by reforming the UN, regulating the power of big tech and ensuring that globalisation operates within democratic and social constraints, are just as important as how its benefits are shared. Third, it reasserts peace as a central pillar of international cooperation. In a world increasingly defined by conflict, progressive internationalism places renewed emphasis on diplomacy, de-escalation and the primacy of international law, particularly as it relates to the governance of markets, digital platforms and political systems. If democracy and the rule of law erodes anywhere, it threatens stability everywhere.
With more than 40 countries from Europe, Africa and the Americas involved in the new movement, this progressive internationalism revives the logic of dialogue between the global north and south that characterised the cold-war era. But it is turbocharged by Sánchez’s charismatic leadership and a renewed progressive energy spilling over from the US, most notably by a new generation of politicians such as Zohran Mamdani. In this context, Sánchez emerges as a leader to rally around, even if he is backed by a fragile coalition government at home.
Like Willy Brandt and Olof Palme before him, Sánchez seeks to bridge divides between the global north and south and to translate the latter’s demands into terms western governments can act on. Brandt, a former German chancellor, and Palme, who served twice as Swedish premier, were leading figures in European social democracy. In the 1970s and 80s they were standard bearers of the movement for a fairer international order. The landmark Brandt Report in 1980 called for wealth transfers and structural reforms to support developing countries. Respected and admired by the left but seen as divisive by conservatives, Palme was a vocal advocate of a foreign policy that emphasised disarmament, solidarity with anti-colonial movements and dialogue over confrontation. Together, the pair helped legitimise “north-south dialogue” as a central pillar of progressive foreign policy.
The new progressive internationalism echoes this approach. But unlike their predecessors, Sánchez, Lula and others recognise that a combination of redistribution, peace and dialogue is not sufficient. Today’s task is also to reclaim and reassert democratic control over the economic, digital and geopolitical system that nationalists are challenging.
The renewed momentum behind these new progressive visions of the world is not accidental. It reflects a political landscape in which the transatlantic alignment of national-populist movements is beginning to fracture. Symbolic of this shift is the electoral defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, who was long seen as an intellectual reference point for the Trump administration and other rightwing leaders.
Progressive internationalism and strategic liberalism both offer a path to rebuild the rules-based order; the former focusing on its legitimacy, the latter on managing risk and preserving openness.
Yet the limits of this emerging unity on the centre-left are also visible. Many European leaders continue to run up against realpolitik constraints. Germany’s vice-chancellor, the SPD leader Lars Klingbeil, foregrounds Europe’s security challenges, arguing that a strong Germany is the precondition for a strong continent. Sánchez and others have been vocal on Gaza, quieter on Ukraine, but diverging perspectives shaped by geography, history and domestic politics make unity hard to find. For Keir Starmer, the challenge is no less consequential: to reposition Britain’s role in Europe between sovereignty and cooperation, and to define what a credible international role looks like after Brexit.
Some in this coalition want radical global transformation, others are incrementalists; crises loom larger in some places than others; some bet on America bouncing back, and others concentrate more on decoupling. Sustaining unity despite these differences will be vital as the counter-Trumpian movement gains pace.