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by\u00a0Jen Kirby<\/a><\/strong> February 18, 2026 (Prospect.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Rep.](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prospect.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Kirby-Munich-021826.jpg?fit=1200%2C869&ssl=1\")
MUNICH \u2013 The Friday nightcap session<\/a> at the Munich Security Conference focused on \u201cseismic shifts\u201d in U.S. foreign policy, and it featured a bit of an odd grouping: Matthew Whitaker, the current United States ambassador to NATO; Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan; and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive Democratic congresswoman from New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The panelists sat in a circle at the center of the room, surrounded on both sides by the audience, all wearing lanyards around their neck, some sipping wine, and many reaching upward to take photos. The tilt of their iPhones gave away who they were all here to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This event was one of a few in Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s foreign-policy coming-out party in Germany where she, along with other Democrats who are not-so-subtly seeking national office in the future, sought to lay out a vision for American power after Donald Trump, in a world that the U.S. president has radically remade<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Munich, U.S. Secretary of State Marcio Rubio proposed a \u201cnew Western century,\u201d built around a manufactured claim of shared Christian and white heritage, propped up by an elementary-school understanding of world history. Democrats rejected that<\/a>, but the challenge for the party, including the maybe 2028 candidates, is the same one faced by all leaders in Munich: There\u2019s a rough consensus that the world is transitioning to a new order, but no one really has any idea what the world is moving toward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a rough consensus that the world is transitioning to a new order, but no one really has any idea what the world is moving toward.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This transformation\u2014or rupture<\/a>\u2014has tended to sanitize an old order that has had its many critics, on both the left and the right. Of late, the eulogy has mostly focused on an idealized American reliability and predictability, and a commitment to alliances and cooperation in rules-based international order. The unequal application of those rules that has allowed for costly military intervention and economic exploitation does not get quite as much airtime. There is also a fear, including in Europe, that what replaces it might be even more destruction. It helps explain why some Democrats clung to it, some more forcefully critiqued it, and some fell in between, acknowledging the damage done by Trump 2.0, but maybe not quite ready to let go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Across those camps, many politicians still found themselves using different versions of the \u201cr\u201d word: rebuild<\/a>, redeem<\/a>, recover<\/a>, reassure<\/a>, remind them it\u2019s not all Trump<\/a>. This reflexive desire to convince allies and partners that Trump will be gone, and that repair of the old order is possible, does not serve as quite the same salve to allies that it was ten years ago\u2014less reassurance, more manifestation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI hope if there is nothing else I communicate today: Donald Trump is temporary. He\u2019ll be gone in three years,\u201d California Gov. Gavin Newsom said<\/a> on a panel on climate change, as he was also advocating for leaders to continue to see California as a \u201cstable and reliable\u201d partner in countering Trump\u2019s damaging environmental policies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other Democrats pushed back on specific Trump policy. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) lambasted the administration\u2019s Gaza reconstruction plan, which he tied to the president\u2019s corruption<\/a>. Another governor, Whitmer, criticized Trump\u2019s tariffs. \u201cThe damage that has been done from alienating allies through tariffs, I think is going to take a long time to recover from, and that will continue to vex us as a nation,\u201d she said during that foreign-policy panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On that same panel, Ocasio-Cortez elaborated on more of her foreign-policy thinking, which was, again, the draw of the event. \u201cWe have an opportunity to explore what a world would look like if we upheld democracy, human rights, trade that actually centers working-class people instead of accruing overwhelmingly the benefits of trade to the wealthiest,\u201d Ocasio-Cortez said, in response to a question on the new world order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is part of a \u201cforeign policy for the working class,\u201d which Ocasio-Cortez later discussed alongside Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO). The two described the policy as one of American military restraint, where strategic alliances would benefit the interests of the working class, rather than corporations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat we know is that isolating ourselves from the world will deliver disastrous consequences at home and abroad,\u201d Crow said. \u201cOur foreign policy is being turned into an extortion ring for Big Oil, for the Trump family, for elites. They\u2019re bullying our partners and allies \u2026 We want to be a force for good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In some ways, this has echoes of the Biden administration\u2019s \u201cforeign policy for the middle class<\/a>,\u201d which sought to address domestic economic concerns in global policy. Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, who is also advising Ocasio-Cortez, said the Biden approach recognized the problem, but mostly shaped the message to make the same old policy sound more appealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow do we better sell continuing American global military hegemony to the American people, rather than hearing that Americans just aren\u2019t that into global military hegemony,\u201d Duss said. \u201cI think that is what progressives have brought: Americans are just not that into global military hegemony because it\u2019s destructive, it\u2019s wasteful. It increases inequality, it steals money from the working class, and it funnels it upwards to a tiny, unaccountable elite.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ocasio-Cortez also described this kind of foreign policy<\/a> as a way to address income inequality and push back against the authoritarian, populist right around the globe\u2014a kind of foil to the transnational MAGA movement Rubio described.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A deeper reckoning is required among the Democratic Party about what U.S. foreign policy needs to be to serve Americans at home and allies abroad.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Yet even she couldn\u2019t escape the reassurance instinct. \u201cI know that the Democratic Party is here for our allies,\u201d she told the crowd Friday. \u201cWe are shocked at the president\u2019s destruction of our relationship with our European allies, his threatening over Greenland is not a joke. It is not funny. It threatens the very trust and relationships that allow peace to persist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI believe what I can say is that unequivocally, the vast majority of the American people do not want to see these relationships frayed, and they are committed to our partnerships and our relationships and our allies,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That does not seem like a promise the U.S. can really make, or at least it\u2019s one that doesn\u2019t mean all that much as Europe tries to untangle itself from the United States. This isn\u2019t Trump\u2019s first term, where President Joe Biden saying \u201cAmerica is back<\/a>\u201d was enough to somewhat soothe U.S. allies who also wanted to believe MAGA was an aberration. In Trump\u2019s second term, those illusions are gone, especially in Europe, which has been taking it on the chin<\/a> since Vice President JD Vance<\/a> went to the podium at Munich last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That requires a deeper reckoning among the Democratic Party about what U.S. foreign policy needs to be to serve Americans at home and allies abroad. It\u2019s worth noting that Ocasio-Cortez got a lot of attention at Munich because she always gets a lot of attention, and this was a new stage for her. That was particularly true when she stumbled, including a long pause and tortured response to a question on Taiwan<\/a>, which tended to overshadow both the substantive breaks and points of agreement with the past that characterized her approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was the largest U.S. delegation to the security conference ever, and the weekend is a mix of competing panels and press conferences and missed connections, which means it offers far from exhaustive, or definitive, answers about how Democrats are imagining a post-Trump world. What Munich made clear is that many really are trying to figure this out in real time, with some doing it more quietly than others<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were real glimmers in Munich of what the U.S. could build toward after Trump, but much of it is still based on a familiar framework, which positions the U.S. as mostly a global power, with allies and partners, retaining its influence and leverage and authority. But beyond what this new world order might bring, no one knows what kind of America we will be in a year\u2014or three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The president clearly prefers graft and plunder to full-scale wars. But he\u2019s also easily tricked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n by Nathan Thompson<\/a><\/strong>February 12, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why would tourists come to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics when Trump is transforming the entire country into a xenophobic danger zone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n by Whitney Curry Wimbish<\/a><\/strong>February 11, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Corporate interests dominate the organization planning the reconstruction of Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n by\u00a0Ellen Ioanes<\/a><\/strong> February 9, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n You’ve just read one of the stories we published this week because readers like you made it possible.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Prospect <\/em>doesn’t answer to advertisers or billionaire owners. We answer to you. That’s not a slogan\u2014it’s how we’re funded, and it’s why we can report without fear or favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Independent, reader-supported journalism is rare. We’d like to keep it going. If you believe this kind of reporting should exist and remain free to read we hope you’ll consider chipping in. Every contribution, however modest, makes a real difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Support independent journalism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n With gratitude,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mitch Grummon<\/strong> Jen Kirby is a freelance foreign-policy journalist, currently based in Rome. More by Jen Kirby<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A party tries to figure it out in real time, on the world stage in Munich. by\u00a0Jen Kirby February 18, 2026 (Prospect.org) MUNICH \u2013 The Friday nightcap session at the Munich Security Conference focused on \u201cseismic shifts\u201d in U.S. foreign policy, and it featured a bit of an odd grouping: Matthew Whitaker,… Continue reading \n
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