The Covid-19 economic recession, anxiety from the out-of-control pandemic, and a growing cost of living—these global factors, along with other regional-specific crises, sparked the beginning of a right-wing shift in global politics. The shift to right-wing ideology, which began in 2020, continued to grow globally, with multitudes of nations—such as France, Canada, and Germany—leaning right in elections up until mid-2025. So what exactly happened to end the momentum of the right-wing movement? Surprisingly enough, most signs point to America’s very own far-right president: Donald Trump.
Between late-2024 and early-2025, when Trump’s campaign was at an all time high, conservative political fervor was steadily increasing. In France, the National Rally Party—the right-wing party of France, run by Marine Le Pen—won the greatest number of votes for the EU parliament election. In Germany, the right-leaning party, unofficially named the Union Parties, won the 2025 German Federal Elections; Germany’s far-right party, the alternative for Germany, came in second place. In Canada, Conservative Party’s Pierre Poilievre was the predicted winner for the upcoming 2025 elections, with many expecting a landslide victory. Evidently, the political landscape of the globe, especially in European nations, remained dominated by right-leaning policies.
Then, when Trump won the presidential election of the United States in 2024, his victory augmented the political fervor of the right, enabling a greater influx of conservative beliefs worldwide. However, the political landscape once again shifted when Trump truly began his presidency.
The first sign that Trump’s trainwreck of a presidency would impede, and even reverse, the political conservative shift was his disrespectful meeting with Zelensky, the leader of Ukraine, in the Oval Office. Occurring on February 28, 2025, the meeting between Zelensky and Trump was initially intended to finalize a deal surrounding minerals—the deal, according to the Trump Administration, was part of a broader attempt to gain peace between Russia and Ukraine. However, the meeting took a turn for the worst when Trump and Vance chastised Zelensky for not wearing a suit and tie to the meeting—instead of seriously considering the Russian-Ukrainian War, along with its possible global impacts, Vance and Trump wasted the meeting by ridiculing and insulting Zelensky’s clothing. This disastrous meeting was the first indicator to other nations that perhaps a conservative government was not the best decision.
The decision of Trump which ultimately sparked a left-leaning political shift was his bright idea to implement “reciprocal tariffs” on almost every nation which participated in trade with the United States. Not only did the tariffs exacerbate the still-recovering economy of the United States, but the so-called “reciprocal tariffs” were not even correctly calculated, with the equation used by the Trump Administration functionally subtracting the total imports of the United States from the total exports, and then dividing that number by total imports (funnily enough, the Trump Administration also decided to add two constants to the equation—constants which canceled each other out, and therefore only served to make the equation look more sophisticated than it was). The implementation of these tariffs—which negatively impacted the economy of the United States to a great extent, leading to a stock market crash, an extreme shrinkage of value of 401(k)s, and an increase in prices—has encouraged a left-leaning shift, due to people worldwide wanting to avoid a similar economic crash within their own nations.
The effects of Trump’s actions become even more evident once the recent Australian and Canadian elections are considered. In Australia, before Trump’s tariffs took effect, right-wing candidate Peter Dutton, who modeled much of his policies and political decisions after Trump and MAGA, was expected to win the 2025 elections by a large margin. Then, after Trump implemented his tariffs, when the elections occurred the left-wing candidate, Anthony Albanese, managed to secure the win—an extremely shocking event after the predicted win of Peter Dutton. In Canada, the Conservative Party’s Pierre Poilievre was expected to win the upcoming 2025 election. Then, similarly to Australia, the suffering economy of the United States (thanks to Trump’s tariffs) once again led to a political shift, allowing the Liberal Party’s Mark Carney to secure the win in Canada.
Clearly, in the few months Trump has been president, he has managed to change the political landscape of the globe from right-leaning to an increasingly left-leaning shift. Trump has managed to impede and even reverse the conservative movement which has been growing for the last five years within a couple of months. If this trend continues, it’s plausible the conservative shift will be almost entirely eradicated by the end of Trump’s presidency. Ironically, Trump has become the global advocate for the left-wing—albeit unintentionally.