Trust a number of countries without a leader offering people hope (12)
I believe the answer is:
expectations
'leader offering people hope' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'trust a number of countries without a' is the wordplay.
'trust' becomes 'expect' (synonyms).
'a number of countries' becomes 'tions' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'without' indicates putting letters inside ('without' can be similar in meaning to 'outside').
'expect'+'tions'='expecttions'
'expecttions' going around 'a' is 'EXPECTATIONS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for expectations that I've seen before include "See 9" , "Realistic hopes" , "Hopes for the future" .)