The Munich Security Conference organisers said in their report ahead of the summit on Friday that US President Donald Trump’s proposal to “seize territory” means that the United States is no longer “an anchor of stability, but a threat to be guarded against,” according to the British newspaper “The Guardian”.

The report takes as its theme the shift from a US-led post-Cold War unipolar era to a multipolar world dominated by no single ideological point of view, as the backdrop to this year's Munich conference.

Since his inauguration, the US president has proposed acquiring US territories in Greenland and Panama, and suggested that Canada be the 51st US state. Signals from Washington increasingly suggest that the US no longer wants to be the guardian of the liberal international order, but it is unclear which other countries would be willing and able to provide much-needed global public goods.

The report’s authors point out that the United States’ withdrawal from its global leadership role has implications that go beyond issues of war and peace: “Without global leadership of the kind the United States has provided over the past several decades, it is difficult to imagine the international community providing global public goods such as freedom of navigation or addressing even some of the many grave threats facing humanity.”

The authors also say that the president’s efforts to assert a new form of American primacy will be undermined by the trend toward “multipolarity.” Their report includes survey data showing that this trend toward multipolarity is likely to be welcomed as a force for good in countries such as Brazil, India, South Africa, and China.

The Munich conference, which opens on Friday, is seen as the most important forum for discussions among decision-makers in international security policy. It will include the first meetings between Trump’s delegation, led by US Vice President J.D. Vance, and European political and military figures since Trump’s inauguration in January.

Ukrainian file

Vance will be accompanied by US Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg. They are likely to be asked by the Europeans about future US leadership and their proposed terms for a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg has denied reports that he plans to unveil a completed peace plan at the conference.

European leaders are expected to press Vance to do more to weaken Russian President Vladimir Putin before any negotiations, and will ask whether the US – either through Nato or independently – is prepared to provide much-needed support to a European-led stabilisation force inside Ukraine after a ceasefire, according to the Guardian.

The conference coincides with Trump's threat to impose unspecified "reciprocal tariffs" on the European Union.