Introduction
The second Trump administration has disrupted an already declining liberal international order. With repeated early references to former US President, William McKinley, Trump returned to power repeating the great power politics of the late 19th and early 20th century. So far this has come in the form of expansionist assertions towards its allies, Canada and Denmark, aggressive actions towards Venezuela, Cuba and Iran, and steep tariffs against all its trading partners that roiled the global economy the United States had helped to build.
Trump’s actions have generated shocks in the international order and prompted renewed interest in the position of Middle Powers and their role in the international order. The question the Changing World Order (CWD) and Global Summitry Project (GSP) ask here is:
Could Middle Powers play a role in the new geopolitical battleground, deflecting Trump’s wishful thinking of: land aggrandizement, negotiating down tariffs, and acting collectively to potentially advance global governance policies whether the US immediately participates or not?
To answer the questions surrounding Middle Power actions, this note proceeds with: delineating who the Middle Powers are; their behaviours in the contemporary world order; and the new strategies they are employing in light of Trump’s foreign policy. This examination concludes with the view that the current state of geopolitics is a possible moment for Middle Powers to be more independent and to assert greater agency and influence on global politics.
Who are the Middle Powers?
The delineation of Middle Powers remains contested. At CWD, the focus is on countries that fall in the middle of relative size (population, geography), weight (economic, military) and ambition in the international sphere (Elliot, 2024). This follows the definition of Middle Powers outlined by former Indonesian Ambassador to the United States, Dino Patti Djalal, which he terms as ‘SWA’ metrics (size, weight, ambition). This offers a more objective criteria, but still recognises that there are specific motivations that separate a middle power (lower case) from a self-identified Middle Power (upper case).
Former Australian Foreign Affairs Minister, Gareth Evans, suggests that the motivation behind Middle Powers is the belief in the utility of cooperation on global public goods. According to Ambassador Djalal, contemporary Middle Powers exert their influence on world politics through minilateral coalitions that shape regional architecture to respond to the immediate challenges in their neighbourhood. This stems from the fact that Middle Powers typically cannot impose their policy preferences on anyone globally, but still have some diplomatic resources, credibility, and motivation to impact global affairs in a way that smaller states are incapable of doing. As a result, Middle Powers dedicate most of their international efforts on promoting cooperation and coalition-building with other like-minded states on issues that no single power can act alone (Alexandroff 2024).
Based on Djalal’s definition, the current Middle Powers are: France, UK, and Russia (the ‘major powers’ of the 20th century who are would be better understood as ‘pivotal middle powers’), Mexico, Canada, Australia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, South Korea, Iran, Egypt, Turkiye, Brazil, India, South Africa, Vietnam, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Singapore, and New Zealand. The significance of the current Middle Powers is that many of them are located in the Global South, representing a shift of power in the international system.
Taking motivations into account offers greater analytical leverage for determining Middle Powers; however, it also complicates the picture. States that are deemed middle powers through the objective criteria above may hold ambitions that are not typically aligned with the notion of Middle Powers. For example, Turkiye meets the objective criteria of a middle power, but its ambitions are to be a great power. Conversely, Germany would be considered more of a great power, yet its emphasis on multilateralism is in a similar spirit to the cooperation-driven motivations of Middle Powers, as explained by Australia’s, Gareth Evans. Complicating the picture further is the case of Brazil, who adopts an ambivalent relationship to the idea of a Middle Power altogether.
While the boundaries of Middle Powers resist easy definition, there is nonetheless still an emerging form of Middle Power Diplomacy that unites the Middle Powers listed above. This diplomacy coalesces around the preference and focus on international cooperation as a means to achieve the state’s policy goals, and may offer the desire and means to tackle global governance challenges, such as the energy transition, green financing, financial institutional reform, debt management, as well as contributing to peace and security initiatives. This kind of diplomacy will further delineate which states are Middle Powers, but will still remain fluid and context specific.
Middle Power Diplomacy in the Contemporary Global Order
Middle Power Diplomacy has emerged most notably in the context of the decline of great powers and the rise of geopolitical rivalry by the leading powers. Although there may be a temptation to see the world as becoming more fragmented, Ambassador Djalal suggests that this new pluralism can be better understood as ‘[adding] more content to the world order’. This would improve the texture of world affairs as it creates more capacity to address the structural problems in world affairs when great or leading powers are lacking. Middle Powers can complicate binaries in global security and thus serve as mediators in Europe and the Middle East. They can champion climate financing and its necessary intersections with health in the Global South. They can govern technological change and embed social protections in international rulemaking. Finally, they can support trade as a stabilizing force in global affairs while ensuring it serves socially inclusive and environmental goals (World Economic Forum, 2024b). These forms of diplomacy embody the Alliance for Multilateralism view of Middle Powers, which are ‘goodwill powers’. These goodwill powers emphasise collective plurilateral action, where common goals are encouraged and competition is balanced (Alexandroff 2020).
If there has been doubt regarding the possibility of effective multilateralism driven by non-leading powers, the ‘shocks’ generated by Trump 2.0 may well serve to encourage further action by Middle Powers. These shocks pertain to the non-fulfilment of the acceptance – or expectation – that leading powers, most often the U.S., will move to constructively organize global governance or security priorities. In contrast to the long-standing expectations of the U.S. being the insurer of public goods and collective interests, the second Trump administration has brought neo-mercantilism. This neo-mercantilism – ‘forms of trade protectionism and activist economic policy’ intended to ‘promote state wealth and power’ (Helleiner 2023) – refers to the broader turn in the 2020s to various national industrial policies and growing free trade scepticism in the world, but particularly the U.S.
Middle Power responses to this neo-mercantilism have trended towards ‘hedging’ in the foreign policy. Laïdi and Tiberghien (2026) explain that hedging is taken up by Middle Powers as a strategy to enhance their ‘strategic autonomy’. The CWD builds on this idea by developing this strategic autonomy in terms of diversifying and multi-aligning among Middle Powers to reduce their risk and vulnerability. This can be seen in the behaviour of Japan, South Korea, and especially ASEAN members, who balance trade relations with China while relying on U.S. security promises. Hedging is also increasingly being reflected in the foreign policy circles of states who prefer a non-aligned foreign policy, such as Brazil, South Africa, and India.
Strategies of Middle Powers: hedging and plurilateral coalitions
Hedging may well continue to be the dominant strategy taken up by Middle Powers to reduce their dependence on: the U.S. under the second Trump administration, and China’s Xi Jinping. The objective for implementing hedging is to maintain sovereignty autonomy generally by Middle Powers. This can be seen in Canada and Germany’s greater deficit spending and investment in green and defence sectors (Sahay and Mackenzie 2025). Elsewhere, India has deepened ties with the US, Australia and Japan over maritime and transnational security in ‘The Quad’, even as it has deepened its trade ties with China. Many ASEAN states have balanced their ties to the US and China in the form of securing US support on security matters while engaging with Chinese investments for developmental needs. Middle Powers avoid complete alignment with any of the major powers. But Middle Powers will also innovate beyond hedging, which is a defensive risk-management strategy.
Middle Powers have in fact a second proactive strategy. This is most evident in Canada’s position. In late 2025, Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney unveiled a policy of ‘variable geometry’ as an additional strategy for Middle Powers. This policy approach is characterised by ‘dynamic, overlapping, pragmatic coalitions, built around shared interests, and occasionally shared values, rather than shared institutions’. It is rooted in the need for mechanisms that can adjust to the changing environment and geopolitical challenges.
Prime Minister Carney pointed to the “coalition of the willing” as a prominent example of variable geometry, whereby an ad hoc group of nations had come together to support Ukraine. With NATO and the UN unable to provide post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv, the coalition of the willing had rapidly assembled and prepared for boots-on-the-ground support, which Carney argues would have been impossible in larger multinational forums.
Carney has also highlighted Canada’s role in creating a critical mineral strategic alliance, and the Security Action for Europe (SAFE), an EU financial instrument encouraging member states to invest in defence. Prime Minister Carney has further articulated more ambitious directions for Middle Power Diplomacy, which marks the most direct statements of the vision of Middle Powers in world politics. On climate, Ottawa envisions a policy architecture that is scaffolded by EU trade rules, Indian and Chinese technology standards, and Brazilian nature solutions. On global trade, Prime Minister Carney is proposing a ‘mosaic of partial agreements’ rather than a revival of the WTO. These agreements would be grounded in shared labour, environmental, trade and data standards.
Articulating and practicing these strategies will be more difficult for some Middle Powers who, through path dependencies, will find it difficult to exercise their agency by hedging or participating in plurilateral groupings. Middle Powers in the Global North that have been stalwart allies with the US are considering de-risking their trade relationship with the U.S. by increasing ties with China and other Indo-Pacific states, but face various pressures from Washington, including that pertaining to U.S.-facing security commitments and ideologically-driven group memberships. Conversely, Middle Powers in the Global South that have had important trade ties with China, such as Vietnam and Cambodia, are balancing these relations by maintaining some security guarantees with Washington.
While various path dependencies suggest great powers still maintain a hold on Middle Powers, the agency of the latter is growing. Europe has moved towards developing its own defence capacity, Japan is building up influence in the Indo-Pacific, and India is pushing to have a say in the great power order. Elsewhere, other Middle Powers like Pakistan have adopted an ‘accomplice’ role, whereby the Middle Power may not align ideologically with liberal norms, but secure strategic capabilities and shared interests with the great powers (Ghori and Ping 2025). This enables accomplice Middle Powers to secure relations in strategic niches without ideological baggage.
These strategies of Middle Powers, taken together, complicate east-west and China-West relations, which creates an opportunity for progress to be made in areas where leading and great powers are less capable of acting unilaterally or less willing to act because of great power tensions. Although Middle Power groupings remain yet limited, their stated ambitions – which explicitly rebuke involvement in great power rivalries – offer potentially promising directions for alternatives to the current multilateralism mired by great power politics and rivalry. Examples here include the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which could facilitate green free trade agreements, the EU’s deepening trade with China, India, Mexico, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, and New Zealand, and the 2025 meeting between China, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the Gulf Cooperation Council. These instances add to the more established groupings driven by Middle Powers, such as the G20 and BRICS+, which has recently seen states like Brazil and South Africa taking a more assertive stance in driving cooperation on the global stage. Ultimately, these instances underline the most important contributions that Middle Powers can make, demonstrating, by their example, ‘the feasibility of both multipolarity and diverse development paths in the global order’ (Rodrik 2024).
To establish a robust Middle Power Diplomacy, states will have to fend off the more cynical voices in policy circles, who argue that the weakening US hegemony has returned the international order to power politics. In this case, Middle Powers will be more tempted to take advantage of this autonomy to pursue their own status. However, in much the same way that critics argue that Middle Power Diplomacy is not a given, the same can be said about the assumption of a resort to nationalist power politics.
What is ultimately the most important takeaway is that the current geopolitical moment is an important one for Middle Powers. Shocks like Trump’s tariffs open possible pathways to the hedging and the plurilateral association of Middle Powers achieving something more coherent and collaborative. If autonomy and or coalitions are important drivers of international politics, the attraction of Middle Power Diplomacy is it will allow regional powers to become more relevant on the international stage and in doing so complicate great power binaries (Cooper and Dal, 2016). This is not a foregone conclusion, but there are opportunities perhaps. If Middle Powers can prove the utility of the model to stabilize and manage the system, it may confer benefits on the actors capable of achieving it (Cooper, 2016).
If this Middle Power Diplomacy further materializes and expands, it would mark a new period of such action. Cooper helpfully outlines three previous periods. The first era, according to Cooper, occurred after the Second World War and is associated with multilateral policymaking in the United Nation system of institutions. Traditional Middle Power states like Canada and Australia played a prominent role in this period as peacekeepers and mediators working through these institutions. The second era was more concerned with niche issues and greater involvement of civil society in areas like the campaigns on anti-personnel landmines, child soldiers and small arms and initiatives centred on the International Criminal Court. It can be linked to the unipolar moment following the Cold War. The third period – and most recent – was based primarily in the informal institution of the G20. In contrast to a focus on the BRICS, however, Cooper pays special heed to MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, South Korea, and Australia), as emerging Middle Powers whose concerns have drifted toward the global in the midst of growing number of regional crises in the 2010s. While Cooper argued at the time that MIKTA needed to add additional powers, he presented this trend as a ‘thickening’ of Middle Power identity. MIKTAs emergence, however, remains an open question.
Roughly a decade after Cooper’s historical analysis, the development of a thick Middle Power identity internationally remains uneven and is by no means assured. The continued relevance of hedging and plurilateral action in Middle Power Diplomacy, however, seems to indicate the means to further Middle Power identity formation. As states continue to navigate a more geopolitically rivalrous international system, shared strategies could provide a bridge to a more ambitious Middle Power Diplomacy and greater Middle Power collaboration. The continuing collaboration could advance, potentially, critical global governance actions on climate, debt, global financing and more.
Conclusion
This research reviewed the recent evolving paths Middle Powers are taking in the face of growing great power pressures, especially with the impact of Trump 2.0 policies. After assessing Middle Power definitions and actions, it suggests that Middle Powers experience varying degrees of agency to manoeuvre the ‘trade shock’ and the geopolitical pressures generated by the second Trump administration. Middle Power actions have resulted in somewhat more independent defence and economic policy strategies in addition to trade diversification and growing interest in plurilateral cooperation on global public goods like the energy transition, global development and more.
The joke in Beijing foreign policy circles is that Trump’s actions are the great nation builder of China (Kelter, 2023). This view seems to apply to Middle Powers as well. The second Trump administration actions appear to be motivating Middle Powers to be more independent, to hedge, and to form plurilateral coalitions of the willing, as suggested by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. These actions present a less zero-sum vision of global order in pursuit of global public goods than the louder ‘sabre-rattling’ of leading powers would suggest.