Even as Israeli bombs fell on Lebanon, most of the world breathed a sigh of relief upon learning that Pakistan had brokered a ceasefire between the United States and Iran, with the goal of reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
However, the pardon was not the product of sudden restraint by US President Donald Trump. Behind the scenes, U.S. officials pressured Pakistan to negotiate a deal that would allow Trump to back down from his threats to destroy the “entire civilization” of Iran if it did not relent. The ceasefire, in other words, came about not because the world’s most powerful military imposed order, but because it was forced to contain a crisis of its own making.
Although the Pakistan-brokered ceasefire is precarious and Iran remains in control of the Strait of Hormuz—which Trump now plans to block after negotiations stalled—this dynamic points to deeper change. As the era of American hegemony draws to a close, the contours of what could come—with countries from the Global South exercising leadership to shape an emerging world order—are beginning to appear.
The war against Iran reveals the unsustainability of a global order based on ultimatums and military power. Although the fragility of the system has become unmistakable under Trump, this moment has been a long time in the making. Trump’s extrajudicial killings of suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean, for example, reflect the practices of his predecessors, who perfected drone warfare as a central instrument of American power. Likewise, hostility toward China, isolation of Cuba, unconditional support for Israel, and a tough stance on Iran were pillars of the foreign policy of both Democratic and Republican administrations.
American unilateralism has undoubtedly intensified in the last year. Trump’s tariffs and severe cuts in foreign aid, his threats against Greenland, the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and the illegal and ill-conceived war against Iran, the aftershocks of which have been felt throughout the global economy, are evidence of this escalation.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz poses what the International Energy Agency has described as the “largest threat to global energy security in history,” but the economic consequences will likely be uneven. A close historical parallel is the oil shock that followed the embargo of the 1970s, which transformed wars in the region as threats to energy flows and helped plunge many developing countries into the debt crises that defined the 1980s.
However, the Hormuz crisis is better reminiscent of Egypt’s closure of the Suez Canal in 1956, which followed a joint British, French and Israeli invasion aimed at seizing the waterway and ousting President Gamal Abdel Nasser. The failure of that intervention exposed the terminal decline of European imperial power and contributed to the rise of the Non-Aligned Movement in the early 1960s.
Iran’s decision to follow in Nasser’s footsteps could create momentum for a similar realignment. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has led to fuel rationing, rising food prices and increased borrowing costs around the world. In the race for limited supplies of fuel and fertilizer, the economies of the Global South will inevitably be outbid by their wealthier counterparts.
However, these uneven effects have also revealed who has geopolitical influence, and it is not the G7. At last month’s meeting of the group’s foreign ministers there were slight signs of criticism of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. However, the official statement simply called for a “cessation of attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure”, without acknowledging the responsibility of the United States in the attack on an Iranian school that caused more than 100 deaths. He also cited discussions about how to mitigate “global economic shocks” but offered no meaningful solutions.
Under pressure from the Trump administration, the United Kingdom called on more than 40 countries to pressure Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Neither the United States nor Israel attended, and key mediators such as Pakistan, Egypt and China were notably absent. One of the few concrete policies the group proposed was new sanctions against Iran, evidencing a failure to recognize how years of “maximum pressure” have contributed to the current crisis. More surprisingly, the strategic implications of Iran’s move were not taken into account, including the likelihood that it would seek to maintain selective control of the strait even after a ceasefire.
What was needed was something like the Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, which allowed grain shipments to leave Ukrainian ports despite Russia’s ongoing war of aggression. It was a practical rather than political agreement, based on inspections, continuous monitoring of vessels and coordination between Russia and Ukraine. By stabilizing global food prices, he demonstrated that cooperation between adversaries is possible when the costs of disruption become too high.
Replicating the Black Sea model in the Strait of Hormuz would require leadership less constrained by Western hostility toward Iran, as underscored by the fact that Iran has never completely closed the waterway to vessels from non-hostile countries. The Trump administration recognized this, which may explain why it privately encouraged Pakistan to mediate a ceasefire even as it publicly threatened Iran with civilizational destruction.
Pakistan was well positioned to play that role. Despite the close ties between the architect of the ceasefire, Army Chief Asim Munir, and Trump — and Pakistan’s defense pact with Saudi Arabia — the country immediately condemned the attacks between the United States and Israel. As divisions emerged among Gulf states, some pushing for escalation and others urging restraint, Pakistan was able to serve as a bridge between them. He also brought China on board, persuaded the United States to curb Israeli airstrikes against Iran and moderated Saudi Arabia’s reaction to an Iranian attack that threatened to derail weeks of parallel channel diplomacy, just hours before Trump’s ultimatum laden with potential war crimes.
Still, the fog of war remains dangerously thick. Fragile ceasefire already showing cracks as Israel devastates Lebanon. Hundreds of ships remain stranded in the Strait of Hormuz, while oil prices and financial markets fluctuate with each contradictory statement from Trump.
The international response has been relatively moderate, despite the immense economic consequences. Wary of an administration willing to use economic coercion to advance its agenda, many—but not all—governments have restrained their criticism, not only by condemning the war as a violation of international law, but also by pointing to the US-Israeli attack rather than Iranian retaliation as the cause of the crisis.
And yet the fact is that the United States had to rely on the Global South to contain the consequences of its own irresponsibility. While ceasefires were previously negotiated in European capitals, Islamabad hosted the largest face-to-face talks between Iran and the United States since 1979. States may still hesitate to confront a declining and vengeful hegemon, but the ceasefire offers a glimpse of a different future: one in which countries in the Global South have both the political will and the means to confront crises on their own terms.
Pedro Abramovay, vice president of Programs at Open Society Foundations, is former Brazilian Secretary of Justice and co-author (with Gabriela Lotta) of Democracy on a tightrope: politics and bureaucracy in Brazil (Central European University Press, 2025).