The United States has led the multilateral system for 80 years. While its engagement should not diminish, it is time for the United States to advance bold reforms to overcome the dysfunction in central parts of the multilateral system. The multilateral system, and the contributions the United States makes to it, must make America stronger, safer, and more prosperous. In a world marked by intensifying global challenges, such as migration, transnational crime, or artificial intelligence, the current multilateral regime is neither appropriately responsive nor sufficiently aligned with U.S. interests. However, this report argues that multilateralism done right can be a potent force multiplier for U.S. interests worldwide. This report proposes several recommendations under each pillar of the current U.S. Administration’s foreign policies—strength, safety, and prosperity. Under each pillar, the report outlines how ambitious reform of multilateral institutions and their purposeful employment supplementing U.S. foreign policy goals can deliver value, save money, and advance U.S. interests.
Multilateral institutions can make the United States stronger. By retaining the pen in the UN, and not letting competitors such as China rewrite the rules of international engagement, the United States can solidify its global leadership, advance norms and governance standards in line with U.S. interests and conducive to U.S. businesses, for instance in the artificial intelligence domain, and lastly, build strategic coalitions with rising middle powers. The United States can enhance its safety by drawing on multilateral institutions. Select partners can assist the United States in curbing migration and reducing transnational crime in the Western Hemisphere. Multilateral institutions can also effectively supplement the pursuit of other national security and safety objectives, such as nuclear non-proliferation, reducing international instability and unpredictability, as well as global pandemic preparedness and response.
Finally, multilateral institutions hold opportunities to make the United States more prosperous and ensure U.S. economic pre-eminence. Working through international organizations, the United States can facilitate private sector activities and offer avenues for new markets, for example in the realm of agriculture. Furthermore, these institutions are instrumental in upholding the global economic rules which protect U.S. businesses and facilitate the global economic exchange which has made the United States into the greatest economy in history.
Reformed multilateral institutions can act as force multipliers for U.S. policy objectives, and ensure for the American people strength, safety, and prosperity for decades to come.