I am writing this opinion piece not as a distant observer of global politics, but as someone trying to make sense of a world that feels increasingly divided at the very moment when it is more interconnected than ever. In early 2026, the Trump administration announced an indefinite pause on immigrant visa processing for citizens of 75 countries, justifying the decision by claiming these migrants would pose a “financial burden” on Americans. At first glance, this appears to be an administrative immigration policy. But when I step back, I see something much larger: a deliberate ideological move away from globalization and toward a hardened, exclusionary nationalism. It is not simply a border policy; it is a statement about how the United States sees itself in relation to the rest of humanity. For decades, globalization has defined the modern era. Nation-states have grown economically interdependent, digital networks connect societies instantly, supply chains span continents, and human mobility – for work, education, refuge, and family reunification – has become a defining feature of modern life. Artificial, man-made political borders have not disappeared, but their rigidity has softened in practice. Meanwhile, global challenges such as climate change, pandemics, trade wars, and armed conflicts demand cooperative and shared solutions. Yet under Trump’s renewed presidency, the United States appears to be reversing course: shifting from cooperation to withdrawal, from openness to closure, from shared responsibility to self-interested isolation.The immigrant visa pause captures this reversal clearly. The State Department’s decision halts legal migration routes for hundreds of thousands of people from targeted countries indefinitely. The justification – that these immigrants may rely on public assistance – revives the old “public charge” narrative, portraying migrants as economic threats rather than contributors. Economists have warned that such restrictions reduce labor supply, harm productivity, and slow long-term economic growth in the United States itself. Yet economic evidence seems secondary to political symbolism. Immigration here becomes a tool to reinforce an “us vs. them” conception of national identity – a cornerstone of Trump’s nationalist ideology.
When I consider the human consequences of this policy, its implications become even more unsettling. Family members who have spent years waiting for reunification appointments — spouses, children, and parents — now face indefinite separation, particularly in countries such as Nigeria, Pakistan, Brazil, Iran, and Somalia, all among the 75 nations whose immigrant visa processing has been suspended. Students from Bangladesh, Haiti, and Afghanistan who had secured admission to U.S. universities see carefully planned futures abruptly derailed. Skilled professionals from Colombia, Egypt, and Nepal, trained in fields ranging from healthcare to engineering, find themselves shut out of employment-based migration pathways even as American employers report persistent labor shortages. This disruption is not marginal in scale. In 2025 alone, visa revocations exceeded 100,000, affecting students and specialized workers already legally present in the United States. These are not abstract figures; they represent individual lives suspended by political decree.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms the right to leave one’s country in search of better conditions. While states retain authority over their borders, the blanket suspension of legal migration for entire national groups runs contrary to the spirit of that principle. It suggests that birthplace alone determines whose aspirations are legitimate. This immigration freeze does not occur in isolation. Only days earlier, President Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum directing the withdrawal of the United States from 66 international organizations, arguing that they no longer serve American interests. Among them are institutions dedicated to climate cooperation, humanitarian relief, global health coordination, and human rights monitoring. This decision reflects more than administrative restructuring; it marks a decisive retreat from multilateral engagement and a rejection of the premise that global challenges require collective governance.
Retreat, Rhetoric, and Rising Global Risk
In an interconnected world, isolation is a political posture rather than a practical reality. Carbon emissions do not recognize national boundaries. Viruses travel across continents in hours. Financial disruptions reverberate through global markets in seconds. International institutions such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) exist precisely because no single nation can address planetary crises alone. By withdrawing from these forums, the United States forfeits influence in shaping global norms while simultaneously weakening the cooperative frameworks needed to confront shared threats. In doing so, it undercuts the very national interest such policies claim to defend.What emerges from these policies is not globalization, but polarization. Interdependence is replaced by hardened national compartments. Collaborative problem-solving gives way to zero-sum competition. Trump’s governing worldview frames international relations as a pursuit of transactional advantage, where engagement is worthwhile only if America unilaterally benefits. What emerges is not cooperative leadership, but an assertion of hierarchy without partnership.
Mainstream Nationalism vs. Regional Nationalism
Some of Trump’s rhetoric illustrates this worldview with unusual clarity. His repeated remarks about making Canada a “51st state,” acquiring Greenland, or asserting control over foreign territories – whether framed as negotiation tactics or deliberate provocation – reflect an underlying assumption that power entitles dominance. Placed alongside the withdrawal from international institutions, the contradiction becomes stark: a rejection of cooperative global governance paired with gestures of expansionist ambition. This is not classical colonialism, but a contemporary strain of imperial nationalism – an ideology that seeks authority without reciprocal responsibility or accountability.Such rhetoric carries consequences beyond domestic political theater. To allies, it signals unpredictability. To adversaries, it suggests strategic openings. To authoritarian leaders, it offers rhetorical cover to weaken international law and dismiss human rights oversight. When a state that once championed multilateral institutions retreats from them, disengagement becomes normalized. Other governments may follow, gradually eroding the shared norms designed to restrain aggression and protect civilian populations.
I cannot separate these developments from the global crises unfolding in parallel. The Russia-Ukraine war continues to test international unity. Protest movements in Iran press against authoritarian rule. The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza remains unresolved. Venezuela endures institutional breakdown. Meanwhile, India and China are rapidly reshaping global economic and geopolitical power. In such a volatile landscape, multilateral frameworks are not diplomatic ornaments; they are stabilizing mechanisms. Abandoning them amplifies uncertainty, mistrust, and strategic risk. If the United States withdraws from cooperative platforms while advancing aggressive nationalist rhetoric, it encourages a world organized around competing blocs rather than shared rules. History suggests that when international coordination frays, arms races intensify, conflicts calcify, and miscalculations grow more dangerous. I do not suggest this path guarantees global war – but it undeniably deepens global insecurity.
Nationalism against an Interconnected World
Trump’s immigration freeze does not exist in isolation from broader geopolitical shifts; it interacts with them in ways that reshape global stability. When legal migration channels close, irregular migration tends to rise. When humanitarian pathways disappear, desperation deepens. When wealthy nations fortify themselves against human movement, resentment accumulates beyond their borders. These dynamics do not produce security; they produce volatility. Exclusion does not deliver peace; it sharpens polarization. The suspension of immigrant visa processing across 75 countries and the record number of visa revocations in 2025 are not simply domestic policy adjustments – they are signals sent outward to a world already navigating instability.Supporters of Trump’s approach argue that sovereign nations must place their citizens first. I do not dismiss the legitimacy of national responsibility. States do have obligations to protect their people’s welfare and security. But sovereignty detached from solidarity becomes self-containment. National interest without global responsibility becomes short-sighted. In an interconnected world, cooperation is not an act of generosity; it is a condition of mutual survival. Pandemics, climate disruption, financial contagion, and armed conflict do not recognize border walls or travel bans. They demand shared management, whether nations prefer it or not.
Even on economic grounds, the nationalist rationale struggles under scrutiny.Immigrants historically contribute more in taxes than they consume in public benefits, demonstrate high rates of entrepreneurship, and help sustain aging labor markets. Restricting legal migration therefore undercuts the economic vitality such policies claim to protect. At the same time, withdrawing from international institutions reduces U.S. influence over global trade standards, security frameworks, and environmental agreements that directly shape American prosperity. In practice, these measures weaken the very national strength they promise to defend. The contradiction is difficult to ignore: policies marketed as protection instead risk diminishing long-term resilience.The moral cost may be heavier still. Policies that treat human mobility as threat rather than aspiration narrow compassion and erode empathy. They reduce human worth to economic arithmetic. They replace openness with suspicion. When I reflect on the ideals that once defined American leadership – openness, pluralism, opportunity – I see a painful departure from that vision.
This brings me back to my central question: Is this still globalization, or have we entered an age of polarization? Globalization was never without fault. It created uneven development, cultural anxieties, and exploitative labor structures. Yet it also expanded communication, cooperation, and shared understanding. Its failures required correction – fairer trade, stronger labor protections, better governance – not retreat into isolation. Trump’s agenda does not seek to repair globalization; it seeks to discard it in favor of hardened nationalism. In doing so, it risks accelerating fragmentation precisely when coordination is most needed. The human right to movement, the duty to protect refugees, the necessity of climate cooperation, and the maintenance of international peace all rely on functioning global institutions. Weakening those structures may yield short-term political reward, but it trades long-term stability for momentary assertion. As these changes unfold, the deeper danger appears not only in policy, but in mindset. When fear displaces trust, when walls replace bridges, when exclusion replaces inclusion, global society regresses – even as technology, markets, and climate realities continue binding human futures together.
Which Path will we Take?
These policy shifts – the freezing of legal migration, the retreat from international institutions, and the reassertion of transactional nationalism – are often defended as pragmatic governance. Yet taken together, they signal something deeper than administrative change. They reveal a reorientation of how the United States understands its place in the world.As I watch these developments unfold, I find the deeper danger lies not only in policy change, but in mindset change. When fear displaces trust, when walls replace bridges, when exclusion replaces inclusion, something essential in our shared humanity recedes. The networked world we have built cannot simply be reversed; attempting to deny interdependence only creates tension between political ideology and lived reality. I do not see Trump’s nation-centric turn as a display of strength. I see it as retreat – from shared responsibility, from moral leadership, and from recognition of the interconnected world that defines the twenty-first century. Powerful nations do not become safer by closing themselves off. They become more uncertain, more brittle, and more suspicious of the world beyond their borders.We are living at a crossroads. One direction leads toward cooperative global problem-solving – imperfect, difficult, yet anchored in hope. The other leads toward competitive nationalism – emotionally gratifying for somebut historically associated with division and conflict. Trump’s immigration and institutional withdrawal policies point clearly toward the latter. The unresolved question is whether the United States, and the wider world, are prepared to bear the consequences of that choice. I write with the hope that the future can still bend toward shared humanity rather than hardened division. In a world bound together by technology, economic exchange, and a shared climate, our destinies remain linked whether we acknowledge it or not.
The author is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
