Trump may be in political trouble. But Trump-style global populism isn’t

President Donald Trump might be in a political hole, but his brand of conservative populist nationalism is flourishing across the globe.

Rising star Flávio Bolsonaro’s shock win in the first round of Brazil’s presidential election Sunday bolstered Trump’s project of remaking the Western Hemisphere in his political image.

Populist right-wingers are also on the march in Europe, fueled by the same failures of foreign leaders to tackle the cost of living and deliver promised change that are haunting US Republicans as the midterm elections draw near.

The radical anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) is catapulting into a national force as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government flatlines. France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen is leading the polls ahead of next year’s presidential election.

These parties aren’t Trump clones, and some predate his MAGA movement. But his rise to power and endurance inspire them. And the administration loudly supports its nationalist brethren threatening to topple the centrist European leaders the president meets at international summits .

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Many far-right parties share the populist ethos that powered Trump’s stunning 2016 and 2024 campaigns, embracing protectionist economics and emulating his hostility to elites, globalization and mass immigration.

It would be ironic if right-wing populists peak elsewhere just as Trump’s star fades . But he makes an unlikely lame duck, and may copy other second-term presidents who aggressively tried to imprint their legacies on the world before leaving power.

The strength of conservative populism has conjured an existential moment for leaders like Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his new British counterpart Andy Burnham . Both are leading a fight-back by adopting rhetoric and programs designed to blunt the right and reinforce moderate, centrist government.

But Trump’s violent political shifts seem to be stirring a separate counter-reaction, especially in the United States, as the success of democratic socialists in some midterm primaries heralds a new wave of left-wing populism.

Bolsonaro is the eldest son of Trump buddy and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro , who was imprisoned after being convicted of plotting a coup against Brazil’s current leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after 2022 general elections.

Sergio Lima/AFP/Getty Images/File

Lula has only three weeks before a runoff election to mount a comeback that would stop the most populous Latin American democracy from careening to the right.

Trump will loom large over the second round after Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, Tim Kaine and Peter Welch wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio last month to accuse the administration of using tariffs and economic sanctions to interfere in Brazilian democracy.

Trump, meanwhile, marked Brazil’s Sunday election by casting doubt on America’s democracy, noting that 125 million people voted and results came out the same day, unlike in some US states. “Voting in America is CORRUPT !!!” he posted .

Bolsonaro Jr.’s surprising ascent follows that of Abelardo De La Espriella , a right-wing insurgent who won Colombia’s presidential election earlier this year. Conservative governments friendly to the White House now rule in Costa Rica, after the election of populist Laura Fernández Delgado, and in El Salvador, Chile and Honduras.

In Argentina, President Javier Milei, the Trump acolyte who gifted a chainsaw to Elon Musk at a conservative conference, benefited from a $20 billion currency swap offer Trump made conditional on voters supporting his party in legislative elections.

Trump is also stamping his influence on the region by propping up the leftist authoritarian Venezuelan regime while concluding oil-exporting deals that critics have styled as 21st-century imperialist plunder.

The populist tide may lift one of the right-wing nationalist movement’s most abiding figures in France next year after three previous failed presidential bids. Le Pen has in the past been thwarted by her country’s two-stage electoral system as voters coalesced around moderate rivals. But the collapse of establishment center-right and center-left parties means she may face left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon — whom she’s currently expected to beat — in a runoff.

Le Pen has remodeled her National Rally party, which evolved from the National Front of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. But she still advocates nationalist, anti-immigration, protectionist policies and antipathy to the EU. She’d be the most right-wing French president of the modern era and would shake the establishments in Paris and Brussels just as Trump did in Washington.

Jean-Francois Badias/AP

European centrists are even more alarmed by the AfD, since far-right parties court particular notoriety in Germany, which has spent 80 years processing the shame of Nazism.

The AfD is to the right of Le Pen and MAGA, and its critics accuse it of historical denialism, antisemitism and ethno-nationalism. But it’s now the second biggest single party in Germany’s federal legislature.

In 2025, Vice President JD Vance outraged Europeans by meeting the AfD leader Alice Weidel in Munich while warning that immigration was destroying Western civilization. Last month, Trump backed the AfD on social media after a landslide win in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, writing, “THEY ARE ON THE RISE, and not going to take it anymore!”

Trump has long projected leadership over global populism. He claimed in 2016, for instance, that he “called” Britain’s vote to leave the EU, which was a harbinger of his own populist surge to the presidency a few months later.

But he’s not had things all his own way. Far-right MAGA hero and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán fell from power this year despite Trump’s efforts to save him. And the president’s friendship with another conservative populist, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni , soured over the Iran war and his claim that she “begged” him for a selfie.

Carney reacted to Trump’s demands for Canada to become the 51st state by emerging as an informal leader of the Western democracies in a role vacated by Trump. In January, he warned that at “a time of rising populism and ethnic nationalism, Canada can show how diversity can be a strength, not a weakness.”

Burnham used his speech at the Labour Party annual conference last week to address the resentment arising from economic blight that feeds right-wing populism. He blamed the “British Right” dating back to Margaret Thatcher’s governments of the 1980s for pushing deregulation, de-industrialization and privatization.

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

But if Burnham fails, Trump’s populist pal and Reform leader Nigel Farage is waiting to pounce.

Burnham sounds a little like former President Joe Biden, who tried to drain the well of Trumpism in decaying post-industrial areas with vast infrastructure and social spending bills.

But Biden long underestimated the size of the task. He said back in 2012 that he expected the “fever” of radical conservatism to break and later forecast a GOP “epiphany” after Trump left office in 2020.

Trump-style populism may wax and wane, but its resilience suggests it’s now a permanent feature in global democracies, whatever the political fates have in store for its patron.

尽管唐纳德·特朗普总统可能陷入了政治困境，但他所倡导的保守民粹主义民族主义却在全球范围内蓬勃发展。

巴西总统选举第一轮投票中，冉冉升起的政治新星弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗意外获胜，这巩固了特朗普按照自己的政治形象重塑西半球的计划。

在欧洲，民粹主义右翼分子也在崛起，其根源在于外国领导人未能解决生活成本问题，也未能兑现承诺的变革，而这些问题正困扰着美国共和党人，尤其是在中期选举临近之际。

随着德国总理弗里德里希·默茨政府的执政陷入僵局，激进的反移民政党德国另类选择党（AfD）正迅速崛起为一股全国性力量。法国极右翼领导人玛丽娜·勒庞在明年总统大选前的民调中领先。

这些政党并非特朗普的翻版，有些甚至早于他的“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）运动。但他的崛起和持久的影响力激励着他们。而特朗普政府则高调支持其民族主义同僚，这些同僚威胁要推翻总统在国际峰会上会见的那些欧洲中间派领导人。

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

许多极右翼政党都秉持着推动特朗普在 2016 年和 2024 年大选中取得惊人胜利的民粹主义精神，拥护保护主义经济政策，并效仿他对精英阶层、全球化和大规模移民的敌意。

如果右翼民粹主义在其他地方达到顶峰，而特朗普的影响力却在此时逐渐消退，那将极具讽刺意味。但他不太可能成为跛脚鸭总统，而且他可能会效仿其他连任总统的做法，在卸任前积极地试图在世界上留下自己的政治遗产。

保守民粹主义的强势崛起，给加拿大总理马克·卡尼和英国新任总理安迪·伯纳姆等领导人带来了生死攸关的时刻。两人都在发起反击，采取旨在削弱右翼势力、巩固温和中间派政府的言论和政策。

但特朗普的暴力政治转变似乎正在引发另一种反作用，尤其是在美国，因为民主社会主义者在一些中期选举初选中​​的成功预示着新一波左翼民粹主义的到来。

博索纳罗是特朗普好友、巴西前总统雅伊尔·博索纳罗的长子。雅伊尔·博索纳罗因策划在 2022 年大选后推翻巴西现任总统路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦而被定罪并入狱。

Sergio Lima/AFP/Getty Images/档案照片

距离决选仅剩三周时间，卢拉必须奋起直追，阻止拉丁美洲人口最多的民主国家向右翼倾斜。

上个月，民主党参议员珍妮·沙欣、蒂姆·凯恩和彼得·韦尔奇致信国务卿马可·卢比奥，指责特朗普政府利用关税和经济制裁干涉巴西民主，特朗普将在第二轮选举中扮演重要角色。

与此同时，特朗普借巴西周日大选之际，对美国的民主制度提出质疑。他指出，巴西有1.25亿人投票，而且结果当天就出来了，这与美国一些州的情况截然不同。“美国的投票制度腐败透顶！！！”他发帖说道。

小博索纳罗的意外崛起紧随阿韦拉多·德拉埃斯普里利亚之后，后者是一位右翼激进分子，在今年早些时候赢得了哥伦比亚总统大选。在民粹主义者劳拉·费尔南德斯·德尔加多当选后，与白宫关系密切的保守派政府目前在哥斯达黎加、萨尔瓦多、智利和洪都拉斯执政。

在阿根廷，曾向埃隆·马斯克赠送电锯的特朗普追随者、总统哈维尔·米莱，从特朗普提出的 200 亿美元货币互换提议中受益。该提议的条件是选民在立法选举中支持他的政党。

特朗普还通过扶持委内瑞拉左翼威权政权，同时达成石油出口协议，来巩固其在该地区的影响力。批评人士称这些协议是 21 世纪的帝国主义掠夺。

在三次竞选总统均告失败后，民粹主义浪潮明年或许会再次将法国右翼民族主义运动中最坚定的代表人物之一推上总统宝座。勒庞过去曾因法国的两轮选举制度而屡屡受挫，选民往往倾向于支持温和派的竞争对手。但随着中右翼和中左翼建制派政党的瓦解，她可能将在第二轮投票中面对左翼民粹主义候选人让-吕克·梅朗雄——目前普遍认为她会击败梅朗雄。

勒庞对她的国民联盟党进行了重组，该党由她父亲让-玛丽·勒庞的国民阵线发展而来。但她仍然倡导民族主义、反移民、保护主义政策，并敌视欧盟。她将成为现代史上最右翼的法国总统，并像特朗普撼动华盛顿的建制派一样，撼动巴黎和布鲁塞尔的现有体制。

Jean-Francois Badias/美联社

欧洲中间派人士对德国选择党（AfD）更加感到担忧，因为极右翼政党在德国尤其臭名昭著，而德国花了 80 年时间才摆脱纳粹主义的耻辱。

德国选择党（AfD）的政治立场比勒庞和“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）运动更右，批评者指责其否认历史、反犹主义和民族主义。但如今，它已成为德国联邦议会第二大党。

2025年，副总统约翰·万斯在慕尼黑会见了德国另类选择党（AfD）领导人爱丽丝·魏德尔，并警告称移民正在摧毁西方文明，此举激怒了欧洲人。上个月，在德国另类选择党于萨克森-安哈尔特州取得压倒性胜利后，特朗普在社交媒体上声援该党，写道：“他们正在崛起，我们再也无法忍受了！”

特朗普长期以来一直标榜自己是全球民粹主义的领导者。例如，他在2016年声称，是他“预言”了英国脱欧公投，而这预示着几个月后他凭借民粹主义浪潮当选总统。

但他并非事事顺遂。极右翼“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）运动的英雄人物、匈牙利总理维克托·欧尔班今年下台，尽管特朗普曾试图挽救他。此外，总统与另一位保守派民粹主义者、意大利总理乔治娅·梅洛尼的友谊也因伊朗战争以及他声称梅洛尼“恳求”他合影而破裂。

针对特朗普要求加拿大成为美国第51个州的呼声，卡尼迅速崛起，成为西方民主国家非正式的领导者，填补了特朗普离任后的空缺。今年1月，他警告说，在“民粹主义和民族主义抬头之际，加拿大可以展现多元化如何成为一种优势，而不是劣势。”

伯纳姆上周在工党年会上发表讲话，谈到了经济衰退引发的民怨，这种民怨助长了右翼民粹主义。他指责自上世纪80年代撒切尔夫人执政以来的“英国右翼”推动了放松管制、去工业化和私有化。

克里斯托弗·弗隆/盖蒂图片社

但如果伯纳姆失败了，特朗普的民粹主义盟友、改革党领袖奈杰尔·法拉奇正伺机而动。

伯纳姆的言论听起来有点像前总统乔·拜登，他曾试图通过庞大的基础设施和社会支出法案，来消除衰败的后工业地区中特朗普主义的影响。

但拜登长期以来低估了这项任务的艰巨性。早在2012年，他就曾表示，他预计激进保守主义的“狂热”将会消退，后来又预测，在特朗普2020年卸任后，共和党将会迎来“顿悟”。

特朗普式的民粹主义可能会兴衰更替，但其韧性表明，无论其支持者的政治命运如何，它现在都已成为全球民主国家的永久特征。