The world’s populist leaders are already taking cues from Donald Trump’s second term

Make Europe Great Again. Slash foreign aid. And rid the world of paper straws, just like in America.

If U.S. President Donald Trump’s election victory was, in his words, huge, his impact back in the White House has been both chaotic and vast. He has vowed to bring glamour to the Gaza Strip, peace to Ukraine and trading partners to their knees.

His edicts are also echoing in places as disparate as the Canadian Arctic, Italy and Argentina, where populist politicians are following in Trump’s policy footsteps and casting themselves in his anti-establishment mould.

Only one of the most recent examples came when Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre touched down in Iqaluit last Monday to unveil what he had dubbed the “Canada First” defence policy.

It includes a pledge to build an Arctic base in the Nunavut capital and pay for it by “dramatically” cutting foreign aid, “much of which goes to dictators, terrorists and global bureaucracies.”

If the slogan and justification for a foreign aid cut sounds familiar, it’s because the Trump administration said it first.

First, there was a freeze of international assistance the day he took office and rolled out his “America First” priorities.

His government has since been busy dismantling USAID, a department created in 1961 to fight extreme poverty and promote democracy abroad, on the grounds that “it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight.”

Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Trump can take umbrage in that even as Poilievre criticizes U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports and the president’s pitch to trade our country’s sovereignty for American statehood.

But Trump has plenty more political admirers around the globe. There’s European Union bad boy Viktor Orban of Hungary, Javier Milei of Argentina, former prime minister Liz Truss of Britain and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, to name just a few.

Some are troubled to see Trump pardon 1,500 people convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol, seek revenge in the criminal cases against him by firing federal agents and prosecutors, or bar access to media organizations who refuse to fall into line with his edicts.

But hardliners around the globe are also going further, using revelations about the recipients of American aid to target media and non-governmental organizations and to silence critics.

In Slovakia, Prime Minister Robert Fico wrote a letter to Elon Musk, the tech baron cutting costs across the U.S. government, to find out which groups got American money to, in his words, “deform the political system and favour certain political parties.”

In Hungary, the Office for the Protection of Sovereignty, a body created to fight foreign influence, is also on the case.

In a statement this week, the office said that Hungarian groups have received at least US$20 million from USAID since 2020 with the mandate to “promote progressive ideology-driven policy goals such as supporting illegal immigration, spreading LGBTQ propaganda and promoting the idea of an open society.”

Orban himself has called for “sanctions” and “legal consequences” for groups who took USAID funding.

The Hungarian revenge plot is all the more troubling because Orban, who has been prime minister since 2010 (following a first term in power from 1998 to 2002), controls the legislative and judicial branches of government, said Bálint Magyar, a former Hungarian Education Minister senior researcher with Central European University’s Democracy Institute.

“What we have now in Hungary is an autocracy … since Orban has a monopoly on political power,” he said. “That’s still not the situation in the U.S.”

Argentinian President Javier Milei, like Orban, is admired by the American right for championing traditional conservative causes and standing up to progressive forces, giving rise to a strong synergy and mutual admiration with Trump.

The Buenos Aires economist is known for his bushy sideburns and the catchphrase, “Long live freedom, dammit.”

In a speech at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence just days after last November’s election, Milei called for an “alliance of free nations” to combat what he described as the “enemies of freedom” around the world who use propaganda and censorship to stay in power.

That alliance is already marching in lockstep.

After Trump unveiled executive orders to ban transgender women from competing in women’s sports and preventing minors from accessing gender-affirming medical treatment, Milei followed suit.

His decision to deny access to surgical or hormonal treatment for transgender children on the grounds that they were too young to make such a consequential medical decision was condemned as one that would “endanger the life and dignity of trans people,” according to ILGA World, an association that fights against lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex discrimination.

But right-wingers around the world see instead a gust of fresh air sweeping through the stuffy world of politics, pushing out red tape and regulations, challenging politically correct ideologies and restoring what they argue is a long-overdue dose of common sense.

This is the sentiment expressed by Patriots for Europe, the main opposition party in a European Parliament they decry as weak, ineffective and stifled by bureaucrats. The party dispatched a delegation to Washington for Trump’s inauguration and released a celebratory social media video (one that felt a bit forced, given that the politicians mostly spoke in their stilted second language, English).

Trump enthusiasm also infused the party’s recent summit in Madrid, the slogan for which was: “Make Europe Great Again.”

In Britain, that translates into a tongue-twister: Make Great Britain Great Again.

This, at least, is the drumbeat of Liz Truss, the former U.K. Conservative MP best known as the shortest-serving prime minister in the country’s history.

She is still licking her wounds from a political drubbing that saw her forced out of the job in just 50 days. She is now loudly singing Trump’s policy praises, seeing in them vindication for measures she never got a chance to implement herself.

Among her social media stalking horses is the “Deep State,” the need to defund Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, stop migrants from entering the U.K. and reverse her country’s ban on plastic straws, (à la Trump).

Some of it comes off as petty and conspiratorial, sure, but the larger goal of Trump’s international band of brothers and sisters is actually quite sweeping and structural.

And if taken to its logical conclusion, it risks undermining some of the key global bodies created over the last 80 or so years to keep the world healthier, wealthier and free from war.

On Trump’s first day in office, he withdrew from the World Health Organization. Two weeks later, Argentina’s Milei — who has likened the WHO’s recommended quarantine restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic to a crime against humanity — followed suit. Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, also introduced legislation to have his country do the same.

Orban is also considering a Hungarian pullout from the WHO. And after Trump sanctioned employees and officials with the International Criminal Court over war crimes charges targeting Israel, Hungary is reportedly considering withdrawing from The Hague-based court.

Experts say such threats and isolation ultimately make the entire world more vulnerable — not stronger.

In an interview with the podcast “Public Health on Call,” Dr. Judd Walson, an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist with Johns Hopkins University, said any problems with the WHO that were exposed during the pandemic are outweighed by the benefits of membership.

Those included access to global data on how to best treat rare and sensitive cases as well as ensuring access to information in countries that are adversarial or otherwise inaccessible to American officials.

“Do we really want a system in which whether or not we like you and you like us determines our ability to collaborate on something of global importance like a potential pandemic?” Walson asked.

And Kenneth Roth, the former head of Human Rights Watch, cautioned that Trump’s sanctions against the ICC could result in charges of intimidating or retaliating against agents of the court. In such a case, 125 ICC member states would have a legal obligation to arrest him.

“Trump should ask (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, who had to skip the August 2023 BRICS summit in Johannesburg for the same reason, what it feels like to be a global pariah,” he wrote in the Guardian.

In Canada’s case, the stakes of drawing down on our financial aid and overseas involvement, as Poilievre has pledged, are much less than America’s disengagement from the world.

The country’s total foreign aid spending was $16 billion in 2022-23. The largest single recipient was Ukraine, which received $5.4 billion. Lower amounts totalling more than $4 billion go to African countries, including Nigeria, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

Previously, Poilievre has said that he would cut Canada’s contribution to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which funds roads, railways, sanitation and energy projects in developing Asian countries. He would also end Canadian funding to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees — something the Trump administration announced on Feb. 4.

A Conservative spokesperson did not respond to follow-up questions asking if Poilievre would cut funds for other organizations or maintain aid levels for Ukraine.

But in his Iqaluit speech, the Tory leader stood against an icy Arctic backdrop and gave his rationale for having less Canada out in the world.

“We’ve got enough problems at home. We’ve got our own backyard to protect,” Poilievre said. “We can’t be sending billions of dollars to other places, often if much of it is wasted and stolen and swallowed up by bureaucracies that act against our interest.”

Where in the world have we heard that before? It’s a Trump-inspired tune being sung in a growing international chorus.

Correction - Feb. 19, 2025

This article was updated to note that Bálint Magyar is a senior researcher with Central European University’s Democracy Institute.