By Jeremy Kinsman

January 2, 2026

As the world reels from another chaotic year, humanity hopes for a less frenetic, less dangerous 2026 while, as ever, bracing for God’s laughter.

The negative change agent responsible for our insecurity is Donald Trump. Our hope lies in the fact that Americans now seem tired of the roller-coaster of shock driven by Trump, his tone of derision and vindictiveness, his relentless attempts to enlarge presidential authority beyond constitutional limits, personal power and even family profit.

Trump’s vow to “Make America Great Again” appealed to enough of a swath of Americans to get him elected a second time. But now, buyer’s remorse seems to be setting in as Trump’s unpopularity cruises at uncomfortable highs.

CNN data analyst Harry Enten cites a polling plunge in Trump’s net approval rating from +6 in January 2025 to -12 today. Among independent voters, who outnumber both registered Democrats and Republicans, the President’s approval rating of only -1 in January 2025 has sunk to -43 today.

Outside of his MAGA base, voters especially disapprove of his performance on his declared key policy thrusts, handling of the economy (-16, a drop from +9), and immigration (-6 from +9).

As to be expected, Trump posted December 29th on Truth Social that his “real” approval rating is +64, “and why not our Country is ‘hotter’ than ever before.” Actually, U.S. esteem in the world has dropped 12 points in one year per Ipsos, and according to my recent interview for Policy with global brand guru Simon Anholt, it is Canada that’s the hot country these days.

In the assessment of the Financial Times editorial board, 2025 may well be seen by historians “as the year that ended the multilateral vision.” Trump has certainly curtailed global forward movement on the critical challenges of climate change (“a hoax”) and on preserving open markets (“a rip-off”).

The unilateral U.S. tariffs on all and sundry at the core of Trump’s “America First” hyper-nationalist ideology have left old U.S. partners twisting, and some groveling for relief. Among the more clear-eyed, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz sees a “fundamental shift” in Euro-Atlantic relations.

As Russia beats the war drums, some major Europeans now even doubt U.S. commitment to NATO guarantees of European security. Like Mark Carney, Merz accepts that we have to take our future into our own hands.

The end of the era of Pax Americana and America’s slashing of foreign humanitarian and development aid reflect a retreat by this U.S. Administration from any international role that is not to America’s material gain. Trump shows no recognition that the welfare of others, as expressed by the spirit and purpose of the UN Millenium Development Goals, is in the national interest of the U.S.

We are now — per the term coined by International Rescue Committee President David Miliband in his 2019 Fulbright lecture — in the age of impunity. Trump’s single-minded team scorns any adherence to international law in assessing and moderating U.S. threats and even attacks on others, as on Iran, Nigeria, or Venezuela. His reckless intentions to possess the territory or resources of longstanding allies, such as Greenland, or even Canada, stagger belief.

End-of-year podcasts in the UK and elsewhere cite Mark Carney as an international political standout of 2025 for his handling of Canada’s bilateral situation, his calm demeanour and substantive presentation.

Meanwhile, the catastrophic war in Ukraine that Trump boasted repeatedly he would settle “in 24 hours” continues. While U.S. leverage to compel a negotiation to halt the conflict might even be decisive, Trump’s manifest bias toward Vladimir Putin undermines the possibility of a positive and just outcome.

Or, as my fellow Policy columnist Maria Popova put it this week in The Russia-Ukraine War Won’t End Without an Honest Broker: “The intractability stems, in part, from Russia’s intransigence and, in part, from the Trump administration’s failure to act as an honest broker or mediator, let alone an ally to a European democracy defending itself from unprovoked aggression.”

Trump’s view of right and wrong seems to hearken back to the age of imperialism, even to the adage of Thucydides, that “the strong will do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” In his bullying of President Zelensky in the Oval Office last February, insisting “you don’t have the cards,” he failed to perceive the strength of Zelensky’s “cards” — of the courage to survive, and to defend Ukrainian freedom.

But raging about Trump, like Lear against the stormy night, will be no more effective than trying to placate him by flattery. Democratic and other aligned leaders need to pay more attention to each other to develop a Plan B to salvage, reform, and operate without the U.S. a nimble plurilateral system to safeguard and advance the world’s most amenable issues.

We should turn the volume down on the White House daily propaganda show and leave it to the American people to cope with their own wayward governance. After a shell-shocked year of helplessness and anomie, American voters now seem increasingly focused on the November mid-term elections that will decide how Trump’s remaining two years could play out.

It would be healthier and more productive if we Canadians could turn to a Plan B in our self-interest, and to re-boot multilateral cooperation, working without the U.S. as necessary.

Various end-of-year podcasts in the UK and elsewhere cite Mark Carney as an international political standout of 2025 for his handling of Canada’s bilateral situation, his calm demeanour and substantive presentation. His form of pragmatic, humanistic, and mature leadership has revived the spirits of centrist Democrats abroad, who had long been pilloried by passionate extremes of right and left for seeming too cautious and bloodless.

In big-picture terms, Carney has been wise to hold back, awaiting renegotiation of the CUSMA. The Prime Minister’s reputation can help strengthen interdependence with other partners, enough to hedge against our chronic over-dependence on the U.S., which is now behaving like a rogue state. We could never substitute other countries for the U.S., nor would we want to, but we do “have the cards” to succeed in this world with others.

In geopolitical terms, the Orwellian notion of three “spheres of influence” — the U.S, to dominate our Western Hemisphere, China to dominate theirs, and somehow Russia to extend its territorial influence in Eurasia, with Europe an afterthought — is dangerous and deluded.

For one thing, Russia will be hard-pressed to manage on its own after the debacle of the Ukraine war that it will never win. Even Putinesque delusions of civilizational grandeur have a credibility limit. Russia’s economy is the size of Italy’s ($2.54T each), a bit more than Canada’s ($2.28T) less than the Germany, Japan, India, and the UK, and dwarfed by the big three — U.S. ($30T), the EU together ($20T), and China (also $20T).

In any case, the Global South speaks for much of humanity and does not intend to line up as members of Team China or Team USA. Canada’s road ahead should not divert to a nostalgic past but build up real development of Canadian natural and human resources. Canada should also encourage humanistic, cooperative international outcomes.

Sooner or later, the U.S. will realign within a concert of democratic nations, and with a restored reality of a North American community of shared interests.

Canada, also wearing the colours of Team World, will always be here for that.

Policy Contributing Writer Jeremy Kinsman served as Canada’s ambassador to Russia, high commissioner to the UK, ambassador to Italy and ambassador to the European Union. He also served as minister at the Canadian embassy in Washington. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Canadian International Council.