A dangerous new international order is unfolding

A torrent of abrupt US policy reversals, resets and revisions since Donald Trump returned to the White House last month has left America's friends and enemies struggling to keep up.

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Trump's desire both to upend and dominate the established international order, and in particular his undermining of the postwar transatlantic alliance, is feeding talk of a watershed moment akin to 1989, when the fall of the Berlin Wall signalled an end to the cold war.

His behaviour has strengthened a consensus, current among western politicians, diplomats and analysts, that the world is reaching a turning point, that the UN-led, rules-based, multilateralist system is crumbling, and that a new era of great power imperialism fuelled by authoritarianism, hyper-nationalism and left- and rightwing populism is unfolding.

Trump's "America first" approach - self-interested, transactional, overtly commercial and untroubled by principled considerations of justice, international law and human rights - reflects and entrenches this changed world. When his ill-informed, consistently wrong-headed instincts collide with the harsh realities of specific international issues, problems predictably arise. Gaza is a case in point. Trump imperiously ordered the freeing of all Israeli hostages, and was ignored. Then he set an arbitrary deadline, which jeopardised the fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire. He also proposed a US takeover of Gaza and the mass expulsion of Palestinians - an illegal, unworkable idea supported only by the Israeli far right. His noisy posturing makes things worse. All key issues remain unresolved.