We’ve heard much about the end of the west. At the proposed summit between Trump, Putin and Xi, those fears could crystallise

In the final two years of a US presidency, when Congress has been lost, approval ratings have sunk like a stone and their party has started to think about who’s coming next, the person occupying the Oval Office can feel their power draining away. Domestic legislation, particularly in an era where bipartisan cooperation is almost nonexistent, grinds to a halt. But as the days tick by until the end, and as presidents begin to think about their legacy, there is one part of the job where they still have power: the rest of the world.

In the final weeks of his presidency in 1992 George HW Bush sent 28,000 American troops to Somalia to help end a famine. For Bill Clinton, it was a quixotic attempt to bring peace to the Middle East by ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Barack Obama restored diplomatic ties with Cuba, making a historic visit to Havana, as well as a final, successful push on the Iran nuclear deal.

The US condemned the genocide and military rule there, but now that Trump craves its rare earths, that’s all changed. For democracy activists, that’s a disaster

Marco Rubio was once adamant that the US had to do everything in its power to end what he described as the “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya in Myanmar. In a 2017 letter he signed along with 20 other US senators, Rubio called for “strong multilateral sanctions against specific senior Burmese military officials associated with the gross human rights abuses”. Those responsible for the atrocities should be prosecuted, he argued.

In the years since, the Myanmar military’s crimes have only increased. What was then deemed ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya is now widely viewed, including by the US, as genocide. What little democracy existed in Myanmar was eradicated in 2021 when Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested and imprisoned and her party’s election victory overturned, and the military took full control.