US faces costly isolation as ‘world minus one' cooperation grows
After three months focused largely on tariffs and coercive trade deals (with unwelcome distractions from Ukraine, Gaza and
Jeffrey Epstein ), his administration is due to deliver the fruits of a
180-day State Department review of all multilateral organisations, conventions and treaties, and 'provide recommendations as to whether the United States should withdraw' from them.
Given Trump's allergy to multilateralism, there is little expectation of a balanced overview with nuanced recommendations.
The California-based Carnegie Foundation, for instance, expects the review to be 'a wrecking ball exercise with a predetermined outcome', bluntly pointing out its 'potential to upend decades of American global engagement' and 'lead to a US abrogation of thousands of treaties and a departure from hundreds of multilateral organisations'.
Most of these will have been of America's making – the product of eight decades of diplomatic investment.
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