A sweeping exit: How Donald Trump is dismantling global governance

Trump's withdrawal from key global bodies may weaken multilateralism, but it risks ceding international leadership to China rather than strengthening American sovereignty

American President Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that he thinks all forms of multilateral engagement necessarily reduce the United States’ (US’) sovereignty and directly conflict with his supposed “make America great again” agenda. This has led, this week, to his decision to exit dozens of international organisations, many of them within the United Nations (UN) system. While his administration in the past has withdrawn the US from such frameworks as the Paris Agreement on climate change, has held back international dues, including those to the UN, and has effectively hamstrung the World Trade Organization, this latest action goes even further. 

It should be noted, first, that the US has always been a relatively reluctant participant in several multilateral fora. There has been a deep anti-UN streak in populist politics in America, with baseless rumours of “black helicopters” carrying UN troops to attack hapless rural Americans, a staple of the conspiratorial world that has given rise to Mr Trump’s movement. Even otherwise, mainstream US politicians have been wary of joining such supranational organisations as the International Court of Justice, believing that this would be unconstitutional in the US or usurp its sovereign rights. From that perspective, Mr Trump is just taking an existing strand in US politics a step further. It should be noted that while President Joe Biden did re-enter the Paris Agreement, he stopped short of reversing his predecessor’s damage to the WTO, for example. 

Thus, this latest shakeup needs to be analysed as emanating from something more than just Mr Trump’s obvious disdain for foreigners. While there are on this list some organisations that might well be considered to be defunct or relatively pointless, others certainly are not. For example, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the fundamental building block for cooperation on climate action internationally. Complete withdrawal from that as well as from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which produces the summary report on the real effects of global warming as scientists see it, is a significant setback to global efforts to keep the average temperature rise below 2 degrees Centigrade. Some smaller organisations that work, for example, on female and child health, might find themselves completely without funding as a consequence of this decision by Mr Trump. A greater burden will fall on the European Union and other first-world nations to make up for the lost capacity and funding faced by these institutions. 

The deeper question is whether the US’ withdrawal will also affect the legitimacy of these organisations and the international system they represent. At the moment, this does not seem to be the case. Mr Trump might seek to reshape and restructure the international system to maintain US primacy more directly. But, so far, his actions have been purely destructive. They may undermine global governance, but they do not erode existing systems’ legitimacy. If he is a genuine radical then he will have to offer a compelling alternative narrative — with the funding and other commitment to match. This does not seem on offer. The obvious consequence, over time, is that China will step up to fill the role that the US has abdicated. In other words, Mr Trump is not restoring US sovereignty so much as giving away its primacy to its greatest strategic rival.