FOR MORE than three decades, since the end of the Cold War in 1991, the United States has set the rules of the world, from trade agreements to climate targets. On Wednesday America’s president, Donald Trump, began tearing up that rulebook. He announced that the United States would pull out of 66 international organisations. At the top of the list is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the treaty that coordinates global action on warming.
Alongside it are the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, which produces scientific reports on climate risks); the International Union for Conservation of Nature (which monitors endangered species and ecosystems); and various bodies that support development, democracy and human rights, such as the UN Population Fund (which promotes reproductive health) and the International Trade Centre (which helps countries trade). The withdrawal is a far bigger step back from the world stage than anything he did in his first term.
The roll-call reads like a who’s who of the liberal international order. The White House says it is saving money: billions poured in, almost nothing gained and the occasional rebuke from Geneva or Bonn. To Mr Trump’s supporters, it is the logic of “America First” writ large: why pay bureaucrats who lecture you? Yet the calculus is trickier than it looks. Saving a few billion now could cost far more in influence later. Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, calls it a colossal own goal. Walk away from the table and the game does not pause: someone else writes the rules. Enter Beijing. Already the largest emitter and a leader in green technology, China will find the absence of American oversight a clear advantage for its industrial and strategic ambitions.
The withdrawal is selective. The World Trade Organization (which oversees global trade disputes) and the OECD (which advises on economic policy) remain untouched. Even a president who once called the WTO toothless appears to know some nets are too dangerous to cut. The real impact will depend on the messy business of budget cycles. Should Washington block funding during UN allocations, some agencies could grind to a halt. Global trust, fragile as spun sugar, is easy to break and slow to rebuild. Other powers will be only too happy to pick up the tools the United States leaves behind.
For a country that once prided itself on leading, this is a signal that the United States is prepared to sit out the negotiations that shape the world it still dominates, leaving friends and rivals alike to rethink just how much weight an American signature carries. ■
