The following interview, conducted by Daniela Chiaretti and Roberto Lameirinhas with the President of the Board of the Humanitas360 Institute, Ambassador Rubens Ricupero, was originally published in the Valor Econômico newspaper on January 20th.
“Donald Trump is the greatest threat that American democracy has faced since the American Civil War in 1865. His ideas represent everything that is anti-Enlightenment, anti-progress, anti-science, and anti-climate change. He is a regression of values.”
The above statements are from Rubens Ricupero, former Minister of Finance and the Environment, who for ten years directed the United Nations’ trade and development arm, UNCTAD, and is one of Brazil’s most prominent diplomats. “I don’t know if people realize that we are living in a time of destruction of the world we live in,” he fears. “The situation is very serious and dangerous.”
Approaching his 89th birthday – 68 of which have been spent working in international relations – Ricupero says the world he knew is ending. In this interview with Valor , he explains why he believes we are returning to a pre-war world. He says that Latin America is irrelevant, Europe is weakened and disunited, and that China is the one that now provides stability to the global scenario. The US congressional elections in November will be important in signaling what the last three years of the Trump administration will be like. Below are excerpts from the interview:
Valor: How do you see the current moment in the world, one year after the first day of the Trump administration?
Rubens Ricupero: I don’t know if people realize that we are living through a time of destruction of the world we have lived in for 80 years. The current American government represents the negation of the world created by the United States under Franklin Roosevelt- with the values of the New Deal, human rights, the fight against unemployment, and the welfare state. We are witnessing a systematic regression of all the ideas that marked the advancement of humanity’s moral consciousness over 80 years. These were ideas we considered irreversible. We thought we would move forward from there, but now we are going backward.
Valor: Have you ever experienced a moment like this?
Ricupero: I’ve never seen anything like it in my entire life. I’m about to turn 89. I was born in 1937, before the Second World War. Since I started working in international relations, I’ve never seen anything like this. I entered the Rio Branco Institute in 1958; one of my examiners was Guimarães Rosa. The world I knew is ending. It hasn’t ended entirely only because Trump hasn’t left the Security Council, because he has power there.
Valor: Is it a systematic action?
Ricupero: Yes. On January 7th, he signed the decision to withdraw from 66 international organizations, 31 of which are linked to the UN. We are witnessing the systematic destruction of the world. It’s not just the return of conflicts; it’s the annulment of the multilateral system that was created to prevent conflicts. The UN Charter is being gradually destroyed.
Valor: Can you explain?
Ricupero: At the end of World War II, the idea behind the creation of the UN was to replace unilateral security, which each country guaranteed with its own forces, with collective security. The concept of collective security is as follows: conflicts would be resolved by an international entity as a kind of judicial power, and the Security Council would have the final say. According to the UN Charter, the use of force is illegal except in legitimate self-defense or by decision of the Security Council.
Today there are 40 conflicts in the world, and conflicts in violation of the UN Charter. We returned to the world before 1914. Now he has the idea of replacing the multilateral system with the will of a single person, the president of the United States.
Value: Are you referring to the Peace Council, the body that Trump intends to create?
Ricupero: This council, if it were to come into effect, would be a huge complication. I imagine that many of the countries he invited, except those that play his game, will hesitate. I doubt that Brazil can join, especially because of this scheme of paying US$1 billion to become permanent. It’s really an attempt, as the ancient said, to create a universal empire. He wants to dictate rules for everyone. We are faced with a situation where the multilateral system is being sidelined and actions are unilateral. It’ a new, serious and dangerous situation.
Valor: With multilateral institutions as fractured as they are today, what can prevent this process from being halted before it reaches the level the world experienced in the 1930s and 40s?
Ricupero: I see the only hope in the fact that we have the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons – the great factor that prevented a Third World War was, above all, the destructive power of nuclear weapons. The destructive power of nuclear weapons is so great that it is a matter of self-preservation. Everyone knows that a nuclear war will have no winners or losers, everyone will be a loser.
Secondly, I would say that the UN provided what did not exist before the 1914 war and had ceased to exist before the 1939 war: a forum. Although this forum does not have the capacity to resolve conflicts – because when there is disagreement among the permanent members of the Security Council, the UN is paralyzed – it allows something that did not exist before 1914: that countries gain time and can talk. That is the great advantage of the UN: countries talk, something that did not exist before 1914, and before 1939 it was useless, because Hitler was deliberate, he wanted to provoke a war.
Valor: Is there any parallel between what we are seeing today?
Ricupero: I don’t dare make a prediction because Trump has only completed one year in office; he still has three years ahead. What is serious at the moment is that the United States was a bastion. They didn’t oppose the invasion of Ukraine by force, but they didn’t imitate Russia’s behavior. Now the US is a destabilizing force. Of the three major nuclear powers, the only one that has had an unassailable behavior so far is China. China has been a stabilizing factor. The US destabilizes the world, Russia destabilizes Europe. Only China, in its area of influence, perhaps because it doesn’t need to and not out of virtue, hasn’t invaded anyone. But this is a dangerous world. This is the world that led to the First and Second World Wars.
Ricupero: Bad. I see Latin America as a continent that is almost irrelevant in international relations, only slightly better than Africa, but not by much. It’s a continent that doesn’t count, it has no strength, it doesn’t carry weight. The countries lack a unity of purpose, and the ideological differences are serious.
Value: And Brazil?
Ricupero: Brazil lacks leadership capacity. Not because of Lula, not because of foreign policy, it’s the circumstances. Whoever the president was, it would be the same. It’s such a divided continent that no country can claim to lead. A leader is someone who shows the way, who has followers. Who follows Brazil? Nobody. Just like nobody follows Mexico, Peru, or Argentina.
The world before Trump, the world of multilateralism, albeit weakened, is the world of powerless countries, which are the majority, 150to 160 nations. Now, out of 193, those with nuclear weapons and who are truly important are the United States, China, and Russia.
Multilateralism, increasingly in decline, is the only space for a country like Brazil. Since we lack military power, the only thing that counts for us is so-called “soft power,” the power of dialogue, of international organizations. An episode like the kidnapping of Maduro: Brazil protested, the statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is impeccable. Trump didn’t even acknowledge receipt. But what can be done? Attack the United States? No, right?
Valor: We have seen the American president act based on his simplistic vision of how the world should be governed by himself. Is there any hope of breaking out of this cycle? He is the man with the greatest military power on the planet of all time, he threatens everyone and encounters no resistance in any forum, at any level.
Ricupero: It’s an unprecedented situation. In a recent interview with the New York Times, Trump said he doesn’t recognize anything, neither international organizations nor international law. That the only limit to his actions is his own morality. But he is still exercising ascertain prudence, because his electorate, the Maga, made it clear that they voted for him to end the wars in which Americans were involved, not to start a new one.
Let’s see what happens in November. Trump expects to be impeached. There’s almost no doubt that the Democrats will win the House election and will open an impeachment process that won’t pass because it needs a two-thirds majority. These upcoming elections will be important in signaling what his last three years will be like.
Valor: And Europe?
Ricupero: Europe unfortunately is an entity that lacks unity in both foreign and defense policy. They achieved a common market, incomplete, but a great feat. But their worldview is very different. Countries like Poland are aligned with the United States, while France is more critical. Europe lacks unity. The situation is somewhat better than that of Latin America and Africa, but not by much. Because it lacks power. This Greenland case will be a critical test.
Valor: Does Trump have an energy strategy, focusing on oil in Venezuela and minerals in Greenland?
Ricupero: I think the basic thing, his basic motivation, really, is power, because of his personality. The American Psychiatric Association published in the last election that he had characteristics of mental illness. He’s a megalomaniac, a visible egocentric. It’s a very dangerous situation, because it’s the first time we have a superpower like the United States governed by an unbalanced person. Now, Trump has a boastful side, he shouts more than he bites. That doesn’t mean he won’t bite tomorrow.
Valor: What about this new crisis, with Greenland at the epicenter?
Ricupero: He’s unbelievable. He sent a message to the Prime Minister of Norway saying that because he wasn’t given the Nobel Peace Prize, he doesn’t feel obligated to think about peace and wants Greenland. Greenland doesn’t even belong to Norway; it belongs to Denmark. It sounds like a child saying, “Oh, if you don’t give me this, I won’t play anymore.”
The United States no longer plays by the rules. And the worst part is that they are the world’s greatest power. I see this as a very dangerous situation because Trump is a psychologically unbalanced personality. His reactions are irrational and he has no brakes. Perhaps in November, with the congressional elections, the situation will change. But until then, nothing can stop him.
As I said, and I repeat, people don’t realize it, he is the anti-Roosevelt. It’s the end of the world, of the world’s values. Roosevelt represented everything that was progressive at the time. Trump represents anti-climate change, anti-equality between women and men, anti-affirmative action for racial equality. He is the embodiment of all anti-values. Everything that for 80 years we considered the course of the evolution of humanity’s moral consciousness is being called into question by this man.
Valor: Is American democracy itself at risk today?
Ricupero: He is the greatest threat that American democracy has faced since the American Civil War in 1865. His ideas represent everything that is anti-Enlightenment, anti-progress, and anti-science.
