But the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg this week is symbolic in a much darker way. It stands for the looming death of a simple but powerful idea: that the world is safer when nations work together rather than against one another.

Multilateral cooperation is on life support; bilateral negotiations will dominate the summit instead. And the lessons of history are being ignored. The selfish, combative, nationalist impulses that have presaged the worst atrocities and conflicts in history are gaining steam.

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Worst of all, the United States is tolerating a global authoritarian tide as it turns its back on worldwide leadership and democracy.

Nearly two decades ago, the G-20 showcased the successes of globalization. China was on the rise, riding an economic wave that lifted hundreds of millions of people out of crippling poverty. A new acronym was coined, BRICS, to highlight the global optimism vested in the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The U.S. economy was growing at a supercharged rate of 4.7 percent in 1999, the year the G-20 was founded.

Across the globe, democracy was spreading at a breakneck pace. Soviet-sponsored authoritarian regimes crumbled. In Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, dictatorships were becoming scarce. The rules-based order of the post-Cold War world was paying serious democratic dividends.

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Today, democracy is retreating across the globe while authoritarians are on the march — and no global institution shows this better than the G-20. Turkey, under its strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, showed democratic promise in the early days of the group, but it is now well on its way toward dictatorship. China and Russia have grown steadily more authoritarian. Brazil and South Africa are both facing crises of legitimacy unleashed by the corruption of their ruling elites. Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government in India is allowing a revival of the sectarian tensions that have always been the worst enemy of his country’s democracy. Poland and Hungary, both parts of the European Union (another member of the G-20), are backsliding on their once-exemplary commitment to liberal values.

Nationalism is resurgent. Protectionism threatens decades of hard-fought efforts to avoid the tailspins induced by trade wars. And “America first” is unleashing a cascade of go-it-alone foreign policy shifts, as countries turn selfish and inward with the nodding approval of Washington.

This is an enormous gift to Russia and China — wrapped by Donald Trump. A divided West means a resurgent East. The United States built the liberal world order after the end of World War II. It reinforced it after the end of the Cold War. For nearly three decades, America has been the world’s sole superpower. But Trump is now willingly ceding that position as he searches for quick “wins” he can sell at home — no matter the long-term costs.

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Former president Barack Obama deserves some blame, too, of course. He was rightly criticized for withdrawing the United States from the world stage, punting North Korea to China and Syria to Russia. “Strategic patience” often meant not doing much at all. Allies grew increasingly uneasy.

Even if Obama didn’t do enough to support the global order with the United States at its helm, Trump has unmoored it. He has uncritically acted like a cheerleader for ruthless regimes without raising human rights concerns or pushing democratic reforms; even if he chooses to speak like a rights defender at this weekend’s summit, few will take him seriously. In March, he got the G-20 to dilute its traditional anti-protectionist stance, raising the specter that divisive tariffs or even trade wars may loom.

His actions have created enormous anger in Western Europe. Confidence in the United States is plummeting in the countries that the United States most needs in order to lead effectively. More people now trust Russian President Vladimir Putin to do the “right thing” than Trump. That’s a catastrophe for a U.S.-led order that prizes democracy.

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In his speech in Poland on Thursday, Trump didn’t even mention democracy (Ronald Reagan is rolling in his grave). But Trump did warn that the future of the West is at stake. He’s absolutely right. He just doesn’t acknowledge that he is the cause. Trump has cast the West’s future as a cohesive bloc in doubt, splintering Western alliances and prompting long-standing allies to openly question whether they can let America lead if its leader is Trump.

Misguided optimists hope that a “temporary absence of American leadership” will prompt other Western powers to fill the vacuum. They won’t. Angela Merkel has often been referred to as the new leader of the free world. But Germany’s economy and military might pale next to the United States. More importantly, Germany is not interested in taking on the burdens of global leadership. Without a liberal democracy to take its place, America’s retreat from the world will be a windfall to despots from Moscow to Manila.