Withdrawal symptoms: US is ceding global leadership where it matters most

Two executive orders signed by United States President Donald Trump soon after taking office offer potent examples of the sole superpower’s repudiation of leadership in critical global challenges: Climate change and health. The first is withdrawal from the 2015 Paris agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The second is to leave the World Health Organization (WHO). Both decisions represent expressions of Mr Trump’s “America First” agenda. It is an open question whether these withdrawals would benefit the US; they will certainly impact the rest of the world, especially the developing world, which accounts for 83 per cent of the global population.

 

Consider the withdrawal from the Paris agreement. The last time Mr Trump did so as 45th President, and the action was unsuccessful because the agreement at that time required a four-year timeframe from the time a country invoked the withdrawal mechanism. By then, Joe Biden was elected to office and rejoined the accord. Also, 30 states of the US and several municipal governments continued to implement programmes to reduce greenhouse-gas emission and had committed themselves to upholding the agreement. This time, however, the withdrawal mechanism allows a one-year timeframe. The “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements” executive order adds bite to this move by limiting the US’ contribution towards other countries’ mitigation and adaptation agreements. Mr Trump also scrapped the US International Climate Finance Plan, established under Mr Biden to channel funds through multilateral and bilateral institutions to help developing countries’ climate challenges.

 

The pre-emptive withdrawal of marquee investment banks from similar green funds ahead of Mr Trump’s inauguration suggested these funds, grossly inadequate to meet developing-country needs in any case, would dry up soon. The Unleashing American Energy, which disbands all research on the impact of greenhouse-gas emission, and the 47th President’s decision to refocus on fossil fuels put a question mark on the US’ target of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to 61-66 per cent below 2005 levels by 2035. With global temperatures hitting record highs, the negation of climate-change action by the world’s second-largest emitter with a deep historical responsibility for the greenhouse-gas stock in the atmosphere sends a profoundly negative signal on the gravity of the crisis.

 

The damaging impact of the withdrawal from the WHO will be felt sooner, with the Trump administration signalling that the US will suspend paying its member’s dues, which it considered onerous and unfair. The US was the WHO’s largest funder, so this decision immediately puts at risk funding for a host of critical global research programmes for diseases and vaccine development, including smallpox, Covid, flu and emerging diseases of pandemic proportions. Via the WHO, the US also supports programmes for clean water, food, and vaccines to children in poor nations. The withdrawal could also impact the US as well by excluding it from global information databases on diseases, including new influenza strains. Though criticism that the WHO requires reform is valid, withdrawal is not the answer. It is possible that China will step into the breach again, as it did with a $30 million pledge when Mr Trump stopped funding the WHO during the pandemic. It is an open question whether the world’s most powerful democracy ceding moral leadership to the world’s most powerful authoritarian regime is in the world’s best interests.