The changing face of multilateralism
On top of slashing its aid budgets and cutting contributions to the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization, and the global vaccine alliance, Gavi, alongside shuttering USAID, the Trump Administration could hardly have been clearer: it sees no value or purpose in multilateralism. The isolationism of “America First” has been spelled out in technicolor by US officials.
Since January, administration officials have walked out of a UN tax convention, boycotted the UN’s once-a-decade Financing for Development (FfD) summit, and refused to send senior officials to any G20 summits hosted by South Africa. That’s even though South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to formally hand over the G20 presidency to President Trump in November—a meeting we can only assume will still take place.
Combined with aid cuts from other Western nations, including most European countries, this has prompted talk of the end of multilateralism.
There is no question that the Trump Administration’s aid cuts are having a serious impact.
Humanitarian agencies operating in refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda, home to tens of thousands fleeing civil war in Sudan, say they are working with only about a third of their 2024 budgets and will soon run out of money. The UN, meanwhile, is making major job cuts, with plans to reduce its total headcount by 20% as part of a sweeping internal reform largely driven by budget constraints.
But the end of multilateralism?
Not quite. What we are seeing, in many cases, is the changing face of international cooperation.
Other countries are stepping up to lead. At the UN FfD summit in Seville on June 30, Spain and Brazil launched a new platform for countries committed to improving taxation of high-net-worth individuals, including a proposed 2% tax on billionaires.
That effort builds on a campaign launched during Brazil’s G20 presidency last year—one that was opposed by the Biden Administration.
In New York, the US walkout from the UN tax convention did not trigger a mass exodus. In fact, most other wealthy countries—Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the European Union—remain deeply skeptical of the convention’s mandate yet chose not to follow the US lead.
That same UN tax convention, which began work this year, is taking up the issue of taxing high-net-worth individuals. Its mandate includes commitments to tackle tax evasion and avoidance, promote global environmental taxes, address corporate tax loopholes, improve transparency, and curb illicit financial flows.
In the G20, President Ramaphosa recently appointed Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz to lead a new expert taskforce. Its focus will be on global wealth inequality and its impact on growth, poverty, and the future of multilateralism. This will no doubt irritate the White House.
Elsewhere, Small Island Developing States (SIDS), members of the Africa Group, Pakistan, and Brazil have called for a new UN Framework Convention on Debt aimed at closing gaps in the current debt system and exploring options for debt sustainability.
That proposal, like others, has been rejected by Western powers and the US. But in many ways, it mirrors the very debate over global tax policy that led to the creation of the UN tax convention earlier this year.
What is becoming clear is that developing and middle-income countries are realizing the power of strategic campaigning. They are winning votes in the UN General Assembly and pushing back against the idea that wealthy nations have the final say.
American isolationism is undoubtedly a loss for the international community.
It is true that a global wealth tax, corporate tax rules, or climate policies will be less effective without US backing. But in UN forums, and institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the US absence does not mean policymaking comes to a halt.
Instead, what we are seeing is a shift. Other countries are stepping up and showing greater ambition in multilateral institutions and shaping new global power dynamics.