The Conclusion of the BRICS+ Summit: What are the Informals for?

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Well the BRICS+ Summit is over. Some thoughts on the just concluded Summit as well as reactions to continuing Trump tariffs.

So the BRICS+ wrapped up earlier in the week. And it’s fair to ask – so what? But before we get to that, it’s impossible to avoid the all too apparent craziness of the Trump tariffs. It appears that Trump has chosen to resort to letters to various trading partners announcing new tariffs, failing significant advances in so many tariff negotiations. As pointed out by Ishaan Tharoor the foreign affairs columnist and anchor of Today’s WorldView at WAPO:

“President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs of between 25 percent and 40 percent on imports from 14 countries, including Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Bangladesh, unless they address his concerns over perceived bilateral trade imbalances.”

After the Rio de Janeiro Declaration became public on Sunday, Trump turned his ire on at least the BRICS+ members. As Trump wrote at Truth Social:

““Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy,””

Trump then repeated and widened his tariff threat the following day. As described by Anusha Rathi, Editorial Fellow at Foreign Policy:

“Trump on Tuesday also reiterated his threat to impose 10 percent tariffs on BRICS member nations, including Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and five other countries, accusing them of being “anti-American” and of trying to destroy the U.S. dollar. At the end of the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro over the weekend, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said the world doesn’t need an “emperor,” referring to Trump’s threat.””

Meanwhile, the Trump tariff demands roll on. As described at CNN by John Liu and Matt Egan:

“President Donald Trump said at least seven countries can expect tariff letters on Wednesday morning, as he ramped up pressure on nations to strike deals with the United States by saying his new August 1 deadline would not be extended.”

 

“The announcement came as Trump vowed to slap a 10% levy on imports from the BRICS group of emerging economies, revealed plans for a 50% tariff on copper imports and threatened a massive 200% import tax on pharmaceuticals, renewing uncertainty for the global economy and markets – which have already experienced months of volatility.”

 

““A minimum of seven” tariff notices will be sent out to American trade partners Wednesday morning, Trump said on Truth Social Tuesday, adding that “an additional number of countries” would receive letters in the afternoon. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC earlier on Tuesday that 15 to 20 letters are expected to be sent over the next two days.””

At least today, Trump writes on Truth Social platform it will all happen by August 1st:

“Trump said on Tuesday that there will be no further extension of the deadline. “All money will be due and payable starting AUGUST 1, 2025 – No extensions will be granted,” he posted on Truth Social. That marked a shift in tone from his comments the previous day that the August 1 date was “firm” but also “not 100% firm.””

But then as we have seen in the past a deadline is not necessarily a deadline to Donald Trump.

Turning to the BRICS+ Informal, What are we to make of the gathering and the role the members see for this Informal? Its origins are as early as the G20 leaders summit. And as we noted in the earlier Substack Post, “Finding Success for the BRICS+” we have seen a significant enlargement of the Informal with at least 10 members, maybe 11 – it is unclear whether Saudi Arabia accepts membership, and now additionally, 10 partners.

Commenting on the Kazan Summit hosted by Russia in 2024, Alexandra Sitenko at IPS recently wrote:

“Last year’s BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, was clearly aimed at demonstrating the growing political and economic influence of the group of states. This was evident, among other things, in the admission of new full members and the discussion about setting up alternative international payment and trading platforms.”

There was a view coming out of the Russian Kazan Summit, according to Christopher Sabitini at Chatham House, just prior to the BRICS+ that the leadership of BRICS+, namely China and Russia, that the significant expansion could serve to make it [the BRICS] anti-western:

“The risk was the body would be turned into an anti-American forum, doing the bidding of China and Russia. For many, the later 2024 BRICS summit in Kazan, hosted by Vladimir Putin, reinforced the perception that the bloc had become a platform to challenge the Western order – even as democratic Indonesia joined the group.”

Expectations for the Brazilian Summit were always somewhat guarded. Importantly, leaders from the two major powers, Russia and China had chosen to forego attendance this year in Brazil: Putin because of an outstanding international arrest warrant for Russian actions in the Ukraine conflict and China’s, Xi Jinping not so obviously though it was thought he’d met with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil twice in the recent past.

The general conclusion from the gathering and the joint Declaration is that Lula was able to stay away largely from geopolitical issues. As my colleague Oliver Stuenkel, an Associate Professor at the School of International Relations at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) in São Paulo, Brazil wrote in FP on the conclusion of the Summit:

“This year’s BRICS leaders’ summit was relatively subdued compared with recent meetings of the bloc, which underwent a rapid expansion and recently added several new members. But the event, held on Sunday and Monday in Rio de Janeiro, still managed to attract U.S. President Donald Trump’s ire.”

 

“In an attempt to avoid tariff threats from Trump, host Brazil emphasized issues such as economic development and climate rather than more contentious topics, such as the use of local currencies in intra-BRICS trade.””

 

“The 16,000-word summit declaration released on Sunday was in large part boilerplate. Just like previous BRICS documents, it contained a strong defense of multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. It detailed technical matters involving ties between people, bureaucracies, businesses, and civil society in BRICS member countries. The declaration also called for inclusive artificial intelligence governance that respects the regulatory needs and autonomy of the global south.”

 

“On Sunday night, however, Trump posted on Truth Social threatening an additional 10 percent tariff on any country “aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS.” The brief post did not clarify whether the threat extended only to the bloc’s members or whether its partner countries should also be on notice. The statement was particularly alarming for those BRICS countries and partners, such as China, India, and Indonesia, attempting to negotiate trade deals with Washington ahead of July 9, Trump’s initial deadline for imposing sweeping tariffs. (The White House announced on Monday that it would delay implementing those tariffs until Aug. 1 to give countries more time to negotiate.)”

Even in the face of such ‘trash talk’ from Trump, Brazil went out of its way to tamp down the tension as noted again, in the FP piece by Oliver Stuenkel. Such an effort was evident in a statement from Celso Amorim, a Brazilian diplomat who served previously as Minister of Foreign Affairs and also Minister of Defence:

“Amorim immediately sought to de-escalate: Trump’s “threats only show the need for an organization like the BRICS, which has the capacity to react, to meet and reach conclusions. … [BRICS] didn’t threaten the U.S. with anything.” A South African trade ministry spokesperson told Reuters that the country was not anti-American and remained interested in negotiating a trade deal with the United States.”

Back to Alexandra Sitenko at IPS, she concludes:

“The summit in Rio shows that the group is more economically relevant and politically present than ever before. As a platform for the Global South, BRICS could contribute to a rethink of global governance in the medium term. In this regard, the Rio summit was a step towards a multipolar, non-confrontational world order.”

At the Brics Brasil, Maiva D’Auria, suggested that members remained committed to development:

“At the Summit, BRICS member countries reaffirmed their commitment to multilateralism and to defending international law, including the purposes and principles enshrined in the UN Charter. The document also calls for the increased participation of developing countries, particularly those in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, in global decision-making processes and structures.”

It might be; but it might not be given the diversity of views held by this expanded membership. One thing I can say though is to the extent the BRICS and now the BRICS+ club was, and is, committed to development there is less than meets the eye. While Lula celebrated the tenth anniversary of the New Development Bank (NDB) with the presence of Dilma Rousseff, former Brazilian President, and currently the President of the NDB

Again from Brics Brasil, Mayara Souto writes:

“Lula underscored the significance of the New Development Bank (NDB) in the international debate on reforming global financial institutions, a thematic priority under the BRICS Finance track. He remarked that “our Bank is not merely a major institution serving emerging economies; it stands as evidence that a reformed financial architecture and a more equitable development model are possible.””

“NDB’s commitment to allocate 40% of its funding to sustainable development projects is aligned with the Climate Financing Declaration to be adopted at the BRICS Summit.”

The goals are of course praiseworthy and raising funds for climate change financing and global development are critical but the members probably can’t escape the need for ‘first mover action’ by the members and partners themselves to show real commitment in the face of the ‘Days of Trump’.

Image Credit: Brics Brasil

This Post first appeared at Alan’s Newsletter: https://globalsummitryproject.substack.com/p/the-conclusion-of-the-brics-summit

 

 

 

 

Finding Success for the BRICS+

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Just in time for the July 4th break here is the latest from Alan’s Newsletter. For my American friends – ‘A Good Fourth of July’

So the summits just seem to keep rolling along. Unlike the most recent summits, the G7 and NATO, the more immediate ones are without leaders and the most disruptive one of those – US President, Donald Trump.

Just concluded in Seville Spain is the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4). As noted by SDSN, The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) which operates under the auspices of the UN Secretary-General, and designed to mobilize a network to drive action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change this summit gathering is designed to:

“This landmark convening offers a critical opportunity for Member States to advance crucial reforms to the Global Financial Architecture (GFA), the system of public and private finance that channels the world’s savings into investment.”

As described by IISD, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), an independent think tank:

“There are four categories of public goods that must be addressed in Sevilla. First, the UN member states must adequately finance the UN system itself.”

“Second, UN member states must increase their official financing of the Sustainable Development Goals in the lead-up to 2030, including debt relief as needed to create the fiscal space to achieve the SDGs.”

 

“These countries have delayed critical increases in International Monetary Fund quotas and Special Drawing Rights allocations.”

 

“Third, UN member states must increase their financing of the global commons, including the biodiversity of the world’s tropical rainforests, the marine life of the oceans, and the protection of the atmosphere, freshwater, soils, coastlines, wetlands, and other ecosystems from transboundary pollution and global-scale degradation.”

 

“Fourth, UN member states must agree on critical reforms of the international financial markets to ensure that world saving flows to the countries with the highest investment returns and the highest growth prospects – which are the poorer countries in the world. This is not the case today.”

What these objectives tell us at a glance is that the ‘system’ is still operating with blinders on when it comes to multilateralism and the prospect of policy advances through multilateral institutions. Today’s ‘system’ is not your classic multilateral system given we are in the midst of Trump 2.0. Indeed, these days it is more likely that Trump will withdraw US funds altogether as opposed to meeting the all too evident funding crisis for various UN agencies including the UN itself.

Meanwhile, we are already closing in on the next leader-led summit, the BRICS+ set to take place in Brazil and led by its president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula, for July 6th-7th. The BRICS has a longstanding and high profile emerging around the same time as the leader-led G7 Summit. The BRICS was seen in some ways as the – not G7 – meaning not made up of western allied leaders. As described by Mariel Ferragamo in a Background note at CFR:

“Established in 2009, BRICS was founded on the premise that international institutions were overly dominated by Western powers and had ceased to serve developing countries. The bloc has sought to coordinate its members’ economic and diplomatic policies, found new financial institutions, and reduce dependence on the U.S. dollar.”

The original membership was made up of: Brazil, Russia, India, China, hence the BRIC to become by 2011 the BRICS adding as a full member South Africa. The BRICS remained static until 2024 but then enlarged with:

  • Egypt.
  • Ethiopia
  • Iran
  • UAE
  • Saudi Arabia, though it has not fully adopted membership;
  • and in 2025, Indonesia

Argentina was also invited to become a full member but according to the CFR Backgrounder, “President Javier Milei pledged to turn the country in a pro-West direction, saying that it would not “ally with communists.”

Meanwhile, the BRICS created an additional category – this ‘partners’. The partners now include:

  • Belarus
  • Bolivia
  • Cuba
  • Kazakhstan
  • Malaysia
  • Thailand
  • Uganda
  • Uzbekistan,
  • Nigeria and in June
  • Vietnam

Partner countries are invited to BRICS summits and other meetings, but their participation may be limited or contingent on consensus among full members.

There then are the current members and additionally the partners. But the question: what is the leadership role of the BRICS+? This remains unclear. As described by Feliciano Guimarães, international relations professor at the University of São Paulo (USP), and academic director at the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI) he argues, in Valor International, … “the expansion of BRICS demands more diplomatic skill from Brazil to ensure that defense and security disputes don’t derail the bloc’s cooperation and global governance reform agenda.”

“Mr. Guimarães added that negotiations would already have been difficult without the Iran-Israel war, but that doesn’t mean the summit is doomed: “Yes, it’s gotten harder, but it’s unlikely Brazil will fail. Everyone—including Iran’s government—has an interest in Brazil’s success at this summit. Exposing President Lula to failure would be a major setback for BRICS.””

The membership expansion of the BRICS has left questions over the role of the group as you can read from Feliciano’s examination. What leadership role is possible for this diverse enlarged group, especially with major powers such as China and Russia and indeed also India? Can the BRICS group play a role in shaping global order relations as might the other contending global leaders summit, the G20? If so, how? Can the BRICS+ play a stabilizing role, or is it more likely to play a disruptive role in a heightened and possibly more fractious geopolitical environment?

For Brazil the current host, and its leader Lula, the role has become more fraught. As pointed out by Christopher Sabitini in his article for Chatham House titled, “Brazil’s BRICS agenda may be hard to accomplish after the Iran–Israel war”:

“But the Iran–Israel war – and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – will likely create dangerous distractions to an effective summit outcome along the lines that Brazil had hoped when it assumed the bloc’s presidency.”

On top of these conflicts, Lula, himself has suffered from poor numbers and rising discontent in the country as opposed to his much greater popularity in previous leadership episodes. As the Economist sees it:

“Originally, being a member had offered Brazil a platform from which to exert global influence. Now it makes Brazil look increasingly hostile to the West. The more China transforms the BRICS into an instrument of its foreign policy, and the more Russia uses the BRICS to legitimise its war in Ukraine, the harder it will be for Brazil to keep saying it is non-aligned,” says Matias Spektor of the Fundação Getulio Vargas, a university in São Paulo.”

 

“Brazil’s role at the heart of an expanded and more authoritarian-dominated BRICS is part of Lula’s increasingly incoherent foreign policy. He has made no effort to forge ties with the United States since Donald Trump took office in January. There is no record of the two men ever meeting in person, making Brazil the largest economy whose leader has not shaken hands with America’s president. Instead Lula courts China. He has met Xi Jinping, China’s president, twice in the past year.”

So where does this leave the BRICS+? Again, according to Christopher Sabitini at Chatham House:

“The risk was the body would be turned into an anti-American forum, doing the bidding of China and Russia. For many, the later 2024 BRICS summit in Kazan, hosted by Vladimir Putin, reinforced the perception that the bloc had become a platform to challenge the Western order – even as democratic Indonesia joined the group.”

 

“Now comes the test: can a heterogenous BRICS+ grouping collectively and constructively promote Brazil’s brand of democratic multilateralism, respect for international law and measured reform of the international system? And can it serve as the fulcrum to facilitate the global rebalancing of economic, diplomatic, and normative power Brazil wants?”

 

“Much will hinge on whether the group can move beyond emptily opining on the Israel–US–Iran and Russia–Ukraine wars, to issues of more lasting, institutional consequence. Officially, Brazil is hoping to guide discussion toward concrete themes: the green energy transition, cooperation on vaccines, and expanding most-favoured nation status to all countries in the World Trade Organization.”

To add to Lula’s headaches, key leaders, namely Vladimir Putin, and far more surprisingly, Xi Jinping are not apparently going to attend the Summit. For Putin the international arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court is sufficient to keep him away. But the absence of Xi Jinping is more troubling as indeed this the first non-appearance at the BRICS for the Chinese leader. And Lula will have to deal with Iran and its determination to defend its position following the war with Israel and US bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites. As Christoper Sabitini suggests:

“Iran has announced that it will send a delegation, as will Russia. Their presence risks dragging the summit away from Brazil’s agenda towards issuing statements in defence of national sovereignty – a theme pointedly skirted before by BRICS member states when raised in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Nevertheless, Mihaela Papa, the director of research and principal research scientist at the MIT Center for International Studies, where she leads the BRICS Lab. and Walter Streeter of the Fletcher Forum see the BRICS+ this way:

“As the BRICS group prepares for its July 2025 summit in Brazil, a new map of global alignment is emerging—one driven not by military alliances or ideology, but by a push for new partnerships in pursuit of multilateralism, trade and development.”

 

“Now, with Washington further retreating from key international institutions and U.S. tariffs unsettling global markets, BRICS has moved into the global spotlight, positioning itself as the new champion of multilateralism.”

“From its outset, BRICS has stood on two pillars: the determination to chart an independent course and the drive to invest in new international institutions.”

 

“BRICS already committed to deeper financial cooperation at the bloc’s 2024 summit in Kazan, Russia, creating a cross-border settlement system and strengthening banking and financial markets infrastructure. The 2024 summit also tasked BRICS finance officials with considering and reporting on the use of local currencies, payment instruments and settlement platforms. These efforts, coupled with deeper engagement with BRICS+ countries and realignment of supply chains, further help reduce reliance on the dollar.”

Such a move away from the dollar has raised the ire of President Trump who has threatened serious tariffs if the BRICS threatens the US reserve currency position.

So what will constitute a measure of success for Brazil in its BRICS hosting? I asked my good colleague Gregory Chin at York University, and a close observer especially of the BRICS, New Development Bank – see his article in Global Policy, “Introduction – The evolution of New Development Bank (NDB): A decade plus in the making”. Now one aspect he mentioned will not occur: that is the attendance of leaders from key members Russia and China. But then he suggests:

“One substantive goal of the Brazilian authorities for their BRICS Presidency is to advance a shared intra-BRICS global climate agenda — the “BRICS Climate Leadership Agenda”, plus a “BRICS Leaders’ Framework Declaration on Climate Finance”. If a joint statement on each can emerge from the Rio Summit, and some actions ensue, it would constitute success for the summit.”

Well there then from my good colleague is a measure of BRICS+ Brazilian success. Let us see how it goes; and I will return to the BRICS+ after the Summit.

This Post first appeared at my Substack, Alan’s Newsletter

https://globalsummitryproject.substack.com/p/finding-success-for-the-brics

Image Credit: Ricardo Stuckert

NATO – the Continuing Course of ‘Trump-driven Summitry’

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So the ‘24 hour’ summit parade – or should I say the Trump performance spectacle – continues. We saw his 24 hour star performance at the G7 Summit at Kananaskis – kept in line by Canada’s new prime minister Mark Carney; and now we played the audience to the 24 hour NATO summit choreographed by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

And now to his ‘star performance’ in the Hague at the NATO Summit. The event as we found out was finely tuned by the Secretary-General Mark Rutte including ending it after just 1 day to avoid, I presume, having Trump loudly leave the gathering early. Now in no way do I want to be dismissive of Rutte’s really excellent framing for the meeting. The marshalling of support was clearly described by our friends at the NYTimes:

“Mr. Rutte is skilled at handling Mr. Trump and has no embarrassment about flattering him. In an unusually unctuous message that Mr. Trump released on Tuesday, Mr. Rutte praised him for making Europe “pay in a BIG way” on increased military spending and for his “decisive action in Iran, that was truly extraordinary, and something no one else dared to do.””

 

“To try to ensure a smooth summit, Mr. Rutte said: “Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe, and the world,” getting allies to commit to spending 5 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. “You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done,” Mr. Rutte added. NATO officials confirmed that the message, which Mr. Trump posted on social media, was authentic.”

The self congratulation was all about the commitment to raise defense spending demanded by Trump. And to be fair, objectively Trump’s insistence on greater defense spending efforts by NATO members was long overdue, especially in the light of continuing Russian actions against Ukraine and worries by Eastern European countries close to Russia. But even the agreement to move to 5 percent of GDP had a ‘sleight of hand’ at play as pointed to by the The Economist:

“The solution was two-fold. One trick was to stretch the timeline for meeting the target. Many states had pushed for 2032, with steady annual increases to get there. Others, though, under greater fiscal pressure—and not just Spain—pushed for 2035. In the end, regrettably, the laggards won, though allies are supposed to submit annual plans showing a “credible, incremental path” to the target, and will be subject to a bigger review in 2029.”

 

“The problem is that Russia is rebuilding its armed forces faster than previously thought. It had been assumed that it would take Russia seven years after any ceasefire in Ukraine to reconstitute its forces to the level needed for a confrontation with NATO. “The general assessment now should be five years,” one senior NATO official told The Economist. “Let’s not kid ourselves,” complains Dovile Sakaliene, Lithuania’s defence minister, suggesting that Russia could attack before the new spending turned up. “2035 is after the [next] war.””

Well kinda pandering but otherwise NATO leaders would likely have faced a growling and very unhappy Trump. The victim here, though, Ukraine. The Hague Summit Declaration is all of 5 paragraphs. And buried in paragraph 3 is the following:

“Allies reaffirm their enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine, whose security contributes to ours, and, to this end, will include direct contributions towards Ukraine’s defence and its defence industry when calculating Allies’ defence spending.”

So, no clear condemnation of Russian aggression, no heartfelt declaration of support and determination to provide weapons needed by Ukraine, no upping sanctions but rather a tie in to the overall agreed spending increase by all NATO nations – skip Spain – to 5 percent of GDP. Wow. Steven Erlanger, the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe, at the NYTimes underscored the muting of Ukrainian support:

“But it [the Declaration] makes no mention of NATO’s promise of eventual membership to Ukraine and Georgia, as previous summit communiqués have done. Past commitments, Mr. Rutte has explained with some exasperation, are considered settled and do not need to be repeated.”

So, Trump has succeeded in contorting – or at least reshaping – the Nato Summit to mirror and match his, Trump’s interests and quite frankly that is it. As pointed out in WPR:

“That solicitousness is in some ways understandable. During his first term, Trump made no effort to hide his disdain and even hostility toward the alliance, which he has portrayed as a way for wealthy European states to freeride on U.S. defense spending, with little to no benefit to Washington. Moreover, Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on his commitment to Article 5. And when it comes to the principal threat now facing the alliance’s European members—Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—Trump has adopted many of Moscow’s talking points, while curtailing U.S. support for Kyiv.”

And as for Article 5 – the collective security provision for the NATO members – the ‘heart’ of the alliance – with Trump at the helm I wouldn’t really want to put it to the test.

Indeed as the Economist somewhat startlingly described it relying on the words of Nato’s Mark Rutte:

“The tone was that of a parent congratulating a toddler. “Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe and the world,” wrote Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of NATO, in a text message to Donald Trump, America’s president. Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.””

So what is the state of alliance relations following this seeming Trump ‘love fest’. Here is how WPR described the current state of alliance relations:

“Neither Trump’s calls for increased European defense spending nor European calls for increased strategic autonomy were anything new. But the sense of being under threat from both the east, in the form of Russian revanchism, and the west, in the form of U.S. retrenchment, for a moment seemed to create an urgency that was unprecedented.”

In the end Trump seemed satisfied by it all. Why wouldn’t he be. But a rather more insightful view was expressed by the President of the Czech Republic and recorded in the NYTimes:

“The president of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, a former general, put it well last week when he summarized his outlook for the summit.

 

On the one hand, he said, expectations for the summit are high, especially for new targets for military spending, but the goals are also limited because of the U.S. administration’s “approach.””

Great fanfare; much Trump performance; but far less than meets the eye.

This Post first appeared at Alan’s Newsletter – https://globalsummitryproject.substack.com/p/nato-the-continuing-course-of-trump

Image Credit: France24

 

From EAF – ‘Trump’s disruption in Canada leaves the G7 at a crossroads”

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Sorry for the Post’s delay. The following is a Post prepared for the East Asia Forum (EAF) on the recently concluded G7 Summit hosted by Canada in Kananaskis. It appeared today at EAF Sunday June 22, 2025.

Trump’s disruption in Canada leaves the G7 at a crossroads

Still in Search of Middle Power Leadership

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In a world of continuing geopolitical tensions, myself and colleagues from CWD have been determined to probe into the role(s) of Middle Powers (MPs) and to describe Middle Power Diplomacy (MPD) all in the hopes of uncovering how MPs might assist in stabilizing international relations and the current global order.

Back in December I took my first crack at the subject with this Alan’s Newsletter Substack Post – ‘A Start on Middle Powers and Their Diplomacy’. Also, CWD, then ‘China-West Dialogue’ and now, perhaps, ‘Changing World Dialogue’ called on some of our expert compatriots to examine MPs and MPD in a variety of settings.

As I wrote then:

“So, where did we look? We in fact used the fall of 2024 to showcase a number of possible MPs and to examine the policies and political behaviors followed. At CWD we held the following Zoom sessions:

 

· Our lead off was on Japan with Mike Mochizuki (GWU) as the Lead Organizer;

· then Active Non-Alignment with Latin America, led by Jorge Heine (BU) and former Ambassador for Chile as the Lead Organizer;

· South Korea with Yul Sohn (Yonsei University) as the Lead Organizer;

· Turkey with Guven Sak (Tepav) as the Lead Organizer;

· Australia and New Zealand with Shiro Armstrong (ANU/EAF) as Lead Organizer assisted by our own Richard Carey (OECD Alumnus); and

· Indonesia and ASEAN with Maria Monica Wihardja (ISEAS) as the Lead Organizer.”

Why focus on these global order actors? Well, as I suggested at the time:

“Then we were interested in what influence, or potential influence these MPs expressed in the growing global order/disorder – growing tensions between the United States and China and the unremitting regional conflicts in the Middle East and Europe. Where, if anywhere, were MPs influencing international relations and enhancing, perhaps, international stability and advancing global governance actions especially in such critical areas as climate transition, climate finance, debt management, global financial regulation and more? These efforts, we anticipated, could stabilize global relations in the face of current damaging international actions and the sour relations held by the leading powers, China and the US. We were determined to look at MPs, especially with the return of a US Trump administration and the possible significant impact of Trump 2.0 on global order stability.”

This past weekend I was reminded of MP presence and action in a piece in the Toronto Star by a colleague from the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, Joseph Wong. These days Joe teaches at the Munk School but he also serves as Vice President International at the University. Just recently he wrote this piece titled, “Rise of the middle powers. Here’s how Canada can wean itself off of U.S. dependence”. Wong’s focus, not surprisingly, was on Canada and the role of MPs in shaping the global economy and strengthening democratic practices but Joe saw Canada’s actions in the face of Trump 2.0 as part of a larger MP picture to weaken the negative impact of major powers in the larger global order. As he wrote:

“As leaders of the G7 countries prepare to meet in Kananaskis next week, middle power nations, such as Canada, need to step up and take on leadership roles in restructuring the global economy, shoring up democratic practices internationally and investing in talent to boost productivity and innovation at home.”

 

“The simultaneous efforts by industrial economies to diversify their foreign economic relations have the potential to restructure the world economy. Each of these economies on its own may be a middle power, but together, they represent a sizable portion of the global economy.”

 

“Imagine if each of these middle powers reduced their trade dependence on the U.S.by just 10 per cent and made up that deficit by solidifying alternative trade partners and building up new and more resilient supply chains. Together they could collectively rewire the circuitry of the global economy for the long-term.”

So the Wong piece was a reminder of the potential influence of yes, MPs. And my on again off again MP focus was reignited. It is evident as this Post unfolds that MP action is on the minds of many of my colleagues as we see the aggressive policies of Trump 2.0. Mathias Jobelius, the Director of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s office in New York just recently wrote a piece that examined the undermining of the key multilateral institution the UN now entering its 80th year. Jobelius assessed the state of multilateralism in an IPS piece, titled: “Unfinished Business”. In that piece he raised the question of whether multilateralism could continue to exist in an emerging multipolar world. He answered in the positive and declared this:

“The answer is ‘Yes’. The basics are all in place. The overwhelming majority of countries would like a rules-based order and support the principles of the UN Charter, even if they resist its selective application.”

And how could this be achieved, Jobelius turned to MPs:

“This needs to be utilised — for example, by creating an alliance of medium-sized powers. If 20 large middle powers from all continents with a commitment to multilateralism were to join forces, they would carry enough weight to counter the big power politics and strengthen the multilateral order.”

Continuing the MP narrative, my colleague Bruce Jones from Brookings and a number of his compatriots, Ravi Agrawal, Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, Karin von Hippel, Lynn Kuok and Susana Malcorra identified the critical role for such MPs in a piece these authors, did for the World Economic Forum (WEF) White Paper compendium titled: “Shaping Cooperation in a Fragmenting World” that was published in January 2024. Their chapter, is titled, “Global Security “Cooperation” in an age of distrust and insecurity: Managing distrust and forging responses despite it necessitates new approaches that include establishing new partnership mechanisms”. In the piece they acknowledge the growing conflict in the international system:

“The international system has never been free of violence and inequity. Yet today, as violence is rising, order is eroding and the spectre of nuclear war is casting its menacing shadow, greater urgency – and creativity – is needed to reduce the risk of conflict.”

Part of their solution as offered in the piece includes the creation of a an institution that is built in part on MPs, what they describe as a “middle/major powers” grouping – an M-10 (or similar), as these authors call it. And what is that:

S“At this moment of intense need, a standing mechanism that links the western major and middle powers with the non-Western ones (Brazil, India, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, etc.) would create a diplomatic mechanism that could straddle the increasingly bifurcated worlds of the G7, Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad) and the expanded BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, plus newly admitted Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates).”

 

“The proposed grouping – a kind of “coalition of the capable” – would have the diplomatic flexibility and heft to raise the costs to the great powers for actions or behaviour that seriously undermined the multilateral order and the quiet diplomatic channels to help find de-escalatory off-ramps and similar mechanisms.”

 

“Within this, there should be a “middle powers mediation group” on issues like Russia/Ukraine. Unlike the various unilateral peace initiatives attempted to date, a middle-powers grouping with cross-regional representation would have the diplomatic weight, the range of perspectives and the combined geopolitical clout to change the terms of debate around viable pathways to war termination and a stable peace.”

So, MPs could as they see it buttress the impaired multilateral system. Good and sensible ideas but yet we do not see such initiatives at least in this moment of the global order. Unfortunately, in fact, there are MP initiatives that have not ‘taken off’ as I found out. Let me just mention one that seemed significantly promising: the ‘Alliance for Multilateralism’. I was quite taken with this initiative and focused on it in my chapter in Lim Wonhyuk’s edited volume for Brooking’s, Unfinished Transformation: Domestic Politics and International Relations since the Covid-19 Pandemic”. at that time with my chapter, “The Possibilities for “Effective Multilateralism” in the Coming Global Order”. The initiative seemed to me as a major MP effort. As I then described it in the chapter:

(P. 124)* “What may be helpful, in fact, is a designation recently proposed by the cur­rent French foreign minister, Jean­ Yves Le Drain, along with the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas. In 2019, these foreign ministers launched the new “Alliance for Multilateralism,” tied to the United Nations. The leaders and the participants in this alliance are not referred to as middle powers, but the host and cohost countries and the participants are all designated as “goodwill pow­ers.” This designation emphasizes the collective action purpose of this contemporary multilateralism. There is no reference to “middle powers,” or powers generally, which, as I have just pointed out, is rather misleading in any case. Thus, “goodwill powers” may be a useful term. We will come back to the idea of goodwill powers as we explore “effective multilateralism” in the final section.”

 

(P. 127) “Let us return for a moment to the Alliance for Multilateralism. It appears as yet to be another instance of effective multilateral effort in the contempo­rary global order. As pointed out above, this initiative was launched by the foreign ministers of France and Germany. Its initial meeting was on April 2, 2019, in New York during the German UN Security Council Presidency. It was followed by a meeting on September 26, held during the High-Level Week at the UN General Assembly. The meeting was called by Germany and France and was cohosted by Canada, Mexico, Chile, Singapore, and Ghana. Forty­ eight countries participated in this September gathering.”

 

(P. 128) “The goals, as declared by the Alliance, are:

· to protect and preserve international norms, agreements and institu­tions that are under pressure or in peril;

· to pursue a more proactive agenda in policy areas that lack effective gov­ernance and where new challenges require collective action; and

· to advance reforms, without compromising on key principles and values, in order to make multilateral institutions and the global political and economic order more inclusive and effective in delivering tangible results to citizens around the world.

The Alliance also makes a point of identifying its outreach to nonstate actors as stakeholders and partners for the challenges the Alliance faces. The Alliance has held four meetings since its creation. These gatherings sought to promote, among other things:

· improved governance for the digital world. The Alliance bolstered support for the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace;

· implementation of international humanitarian law to protect the work of humanitarian workers and space for humanitarian action and support for the fight against impunity, at the opening of the session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on February 24, 2020; and

· support for the central role of the World Health Organization in the man­agement of COVID­19.”

The Alliance for Multilateralism seemed like a dramatic instance of real world MP action and MPD. But it appears as though the network did not survive its initiation.

I suspect, and others seem to suspect as well that the Informals – the G7, the G20 and the BRICS+ – might provide the environment for possible MP action. And indeed just as I was finishing off this Post – sorry for this rather unusually lengthy Post – I was met with a piece that does exactly that. So my good colleague John Ikenberry from Princeton and some of his colleagues, Victor Cha, from CSIS and Georgetown University and John Hamre from CSIS just published in Foreign Affairs, “How Global Governance Can Survive With the Right Reforms, the G-7 Can Sustain the Rules-Based Order.” There they see the prospect for global governance action from the G7:

“The body that develops solutions to today’s global problems must becomposed of governments that trust each other, share similar values,possess significant economic and political power, and have a trackrecord of working together. This is where the G-7 comes in.”

 

“But the G-7 can aim for meaningful action that sustains global order. By coordinating their economic, development, security, energy, and technology policies, its members can impose sanctions to deter conflict, set rules and norms to keep pace with technological innovation, punish predatory economic behavior, support democratic governance, combat disinformation, and help the developing world with food security and labor standards.”

The problem, however, as I see it in their focus on the G7 is that their hope for such action requires altering the current membership and the ways that it currently operates. As they say:

“Before they can play this role, however, the G-7 must be overhauled.”

It seems to me that effective action by MPs or MPs plus some major powers possibly can only occur on an informal basis otherwise we are back to, dare I say it, UN reform. Realistically, changes of the sort proposed by John and his colleagues are unfortunately unlikely to happen. Still a focus on the Informals with the G7 occuring on June 15-17th in Canada, the BRICS+ Summit scheduled for July 6-7th in Rio de Janeiro and G20 Summit in Johannesburg on November 22-23rd, all are worth watching closely for signs of MP and possibly beyond MP collective action. We will certainly be watching and reporting.

The Post appeared originally at Alan’s Newsletter – https://globalsummitryproject.substack.com/p/still-in-search-of-middle-power-leadership

*The page numbers are used here as there is no digital version of the Lim Wonhyuk volume, as I mentioned in an earlier Substack Post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leadership, or Possibly Plurilateral Collective Action? Hmmmm

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We’ve been raising over recent Posts, well at least one, the evident diminishing of multilateralism in today’s global order – with consequences of course. We’ve raised the concern that many, if not most of the formal multilateral institutions starting with the UN and the IFIs and the many specialized agencies have struggled to advance global governance policies. I have been contemplating this since my Substack colleague Peter Singer wrote a Post (‘UN leadership: relentlessly focused on results?’) followed up with another Post, ‘How Should Bill Gates Spend $200 Billion?’ Especially with the former Post, Peter targeted UN leadership – especially in light of upcoming leadership changes including a new Secretary General. In his Substack, ‘Global Health Insights’, he wrote:

“A key lever is leadership. Over the next three years, (at least) three major UN bodies will select (or elect) new leaders: the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2025, the UN Secretariat in 2026, and the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2027. The future of the UN may well hinge on whether these new leaders possess one crucial characteristic: a relentless focus on results.”

 

“Each of these organizations plays a vital role in advancing the UN’s mission, from tackling global poverty (UNDP) to global health (WHO), to peace and security and coordination of the UN system (UN). Yet despite their importance, the UN system has often struggled to deliver timely, measurable outcomes—an issue exacerbated by dwindling trust and funding. With Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) badly lagging and support for the UN increasingly under threat, the need for results-focused leadership is more urgent than ever.”

 

“The UN desperately needs leaders who are singularly focused on delivering measurable results. Without results, there is no trust; without trust, there is no funding. Results must be the cornerstone of any leadership candidacy.”

Now Peter has been much closer to some of these multilateral institutions than I have so I suspect he has seen leadership up close. But I still worry that national commitment to advance collective action remains the heart of the current global governance problem.

I was struck by this example, recently. This is the effort to conclude a Plastics Treaty. A multilateral agreement on such a Treaty was to have been concluded at Busan Korea last year. It wasn’t. So let’s take a look. Patrick Schroeder is now at Chatham House in the UK, and before that a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex and even earlier he was based in Beijing, where he worked extensively on development cooperation programmes for the European Union and climate change initiatives with the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) on the question of the Treaty. As Schroder pointed out in his piece at Chatham House, late in 2024 titled, “The failed Busan negotiations show good science and flexibility are needed to secure a plastics treaty”:

“The Intergovernmental Negotiations Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC) had a clear mandate from the United Nations Environment Assembly in 2022 to conclude the negotiations by the end of 2024. However, the lengthy and complex process was marked by intense debates and competing national interests.”

The problem as he pointed out:

“In the final phase, two major country blocs emerged. A larger group of over 100 nations supported a comprehensive approach to end plastic pollution.”

This larger group sought to:

“… include limiting upstream production of plastic polymer feedstocks and harmful chemicals used in plastics, while not restricting the treaty’s scope to the sustainable design of products and waste management.”

But there was a smaller group:

“A smaller but influential bloc, consisting of fossil-fuel producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, resisted efforts to include measures regulating upstream production. This division created significant tension and stalled progress.”

 

“Production caps have been identified by scientists as a key mechanism to reduce plastic pollution. Modeling by the University of California Berkeley shows that a cap on global virgin plastic production at 2020 levels would yield a reduction of mismanaged plastic waste in 2050 from 121 to 72 Mt.”

The result according to Schroeder:

“A deadlock over the proposed Article 6 on production caps or reduction of primary plastics production has left the negotiations at an impasse that threatens meaningful progress.”

 

“The lack of willingness to compromise on both sides and inability to find common ground poses a significant risk to the effectiveness of the negotiations. Without a pathway to reconcile differing priorities, the risk increases of a fragmented agreement or outright failure.”

 

“Such rigidity not only delays progress but also erodes the spirit of collaboration necessary to tackle global challenges such as plastic pollution, setting a dangerous precedent for future negotiations on critical environmental issues.”

And now look at the continuing reporting of multilateral results for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). As IISD reports for the annual High Level Panel Forum (HLPF) due this coming July:

“Titled, ‘Progress Towards the Sustainable Development Goals,’ the May 2025 report uses inputs from more than 50 international and regional organizations to assess progress made since 2015 against the global SDG indicator framework. It finds that the world is on track to meet or is making “moderate” progress on 35% of the 137 SDG targets with available data. It also shows that progress on 47% of the targets is insufficient, and 18% of the targets have regressed from the 2015 baseline. The report “reaffirms the imperative to intensify efforts to reverse these trends” in the five years that remain until the 2030 deadline.”

 

“To “reverse alarming trends and consolidate hard-won gains,” the report calls for urgent action around six “collectively agreed-upon” transitions to drive transformative change: food systems; energy access and affordability; digital connectivity; education; jobs and social protection; and climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.”

 

“Highlighting sustainable development as a core pillar of multilateral cooperation, as reaffirmed by the Political Declaration of the 2023 SDG Summit and the 2024 Pact for the Future, the report underscores that “[s]ustained multilateral engagement is essential to keep the SDGs within reach.”

Is UN leadership the central issue – possibly, but the central focus does seem to me to lie with collective national action. And it may be that something less than full multilateral collective action may be a start to the answer. Thus a subset of the full multilateral group, a plurilateral group of members, could gather and agree amongst themselves on agreed percentage cuts to imports for these plurilateral members. Begin the process and aid in the transition away from plastics. And as for the SDGs, a plurilateral group of members could announce enhanced targets for the group of six “collectively agreed-upon” transitions. These are just two collective action moves. I am sure there are significant others and I would additionally suggest bringing on board as many of the G20 members – we know the Trump US will not – but others may act collectively and possibly initiate and commence action by significant subset of this key Informal.

Consensus needs to be set aside for the moment. For now in this fractured global order creative plurilateral effort is, I think, a key to moving collective global governance action. Action is required, and I anticipate, build on itself. It starts though with forward action even if we start with plurilateralism.

This orinally appeared as a Post at Alan’s Newsletter – https://globalsummitryproject.substack.com/p/leadership-or-possibly-plurilateral

 

Faltering Multilateralism: Today, Let’s Start with Trade

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It would be hard to make this stuff up. When I was deep into trade policy issues in the late 80s and early 90’s before China’s accession to the WTO, I could not have imagined a President using these trade policies to enact such broad-based tariffs. And it seems like that is how the CIT – the Court of International Trade, sees Trump tariff efforts as well.

Now I was going to dive into a just recently released book by Brookings edited by my longstanding colleague, Lim Wonhyuk from South Korea (Korea) titled: “Unfinished Transformation: Domestic Politics and International Relations Since the Covid-19 Pandemic”. Wonhyuk is the editor and I have a chapter in the volume – “The possibilities for “Effective Multilateralism” in the Coming Global Order. There are a variety of pieces in the book from some rather notable folk including: Kent Calder, David Lampton, Zia Qureshi, Norman Ornstein and my good colleague, Homi Kharas. And I will return to the just released book though unfortunately there does not appear to be a current digital version at this time. But I cannot let this CIT decision pass without comment.

Yes, so, the CIT ruled just last evening (Wednesday) and according to the NYTimes and Tony Romm and Ana Swanson, this was the conclusion reached:

“The U.S. Court of International Trade said the president had overstepped his authority in imposing his “reciprocal” tariffs globally, as well as levies on Canada and Mexico.”

What the Court has declared as illegal then are the “worldwide and retaliatory tariffs,” in other words, the 10 percent tariffs on all trading partners and also the reciprocal tariffs that President Trump paused for 90 days in order to negotiate trade deals with a host of trade partners. What remains in place for the moment are tariffs on specific products, such as those that were placed on steel, aluminum and automobiles. As pointed out in the NYTimes piece:

“The ruling, by the U.S. Court of International Trade, delivered an early yet significant setback to Mr. Trump, undercutting his primary leverage as he looks to pressure other nations into striking trade deals more beneficial to the United States.”

Paul Krugman in his Substack today pointed out what many trade types had been thinking all along:

“The thing is, it has been obvious all along that Trump’s use of the 1977 International Economic Emergency Powers Act to justify Smoot-Hawley level tariffs was a massive abuse of power. I mean, since when are 4 percent unemployment and 2.5 percent inflation an emergency justifying the reversal of 90 years of policy? But I guess I just assumed that things like that didn’t matter anymore.”

How did it reach this point? Well, this is how the NYTimes reporters described it:

“But Mr. Trump adopted a novel interpretation of its powers as he announced, and then suspended, high levies on scores of countries in April. He also used the law to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico in return for what he said was their role in sending fentanyl to the United States.”

 

“On Wednesday, the Court of International Trade, the primary federal legal body overseeing such matters, found that Mr. Trump’s tariffs “exceed any authority granted” to the president by the emergency powers law. Ruling in separate cases brought by states and businesses, a bipartisan panel of three judges essentially declared many, but not all, of Mr. Trump’s tariffs to have been issued illegally.”

 

“It was not clear precisely when and how the tariff collections would grind to a halt. The ruling gave the executive branch up to 10 days to complete the bureaucratic process of ending them. The Trump administration immediately filed its plans to appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.”

At least for the moment the signature policy of this second Trump administration appears ‘cooked’. It will be interesting to see what Trump does next for it seems unlikely that Trump will give up on his most preferred policy – tariffs.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

This Post appeared originally at my Substack, Alan’s Newsletter: https://globalsummitryproject.substack.com/p/faltering-multilateralism-today-lets

 

Multilateralism: It is Just Largely Talk Now

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While you will see that the main focus of this Substack is on multilateralism, and its current failure, I couldn’t let Trump’s disrespect for the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa pass without some comment. Once again in the Oval Office, as described in the NYTimes,  Trump let his lack of understanding, his lack of facts rule the day. It showed the absolute worst of Trump. The American people should be ashamed that a leader is willing to so distort US relations with potentially friendly leaders:

“In an astonishing confrontation in the Oval Office on Wednesday, President Trump lectured President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa with false claims about a genocide against white Afrikaner farmers, even dimming the lights to show what he said was video evidence of their persecution.”

 

“The meeting had been expected to be tense, given that Mr. Trump has suspended all aid to the country and created an exception to his refugee ban for Afrikaners, fast-tracking their path to citizenship even as he keeps thousands of other people out.”

 

“But the meeting quickly became a stark demonstration of Mr. Trump’s belief that the world has aligned against white people, and that Black people and minorities have received preferential treatment. In the case of South Africa, that belief has ballooned into claims of genocide.”

One last point, a good point it appears, though still somewhat uncertain, Trump will attend, apparently,  the G20 Summit gathering in November in South Africa. As reported in the NYTimes: 

“South Africa presented a framework for a trade deal, the president said, and the two sides agreed to hold further discussions to iron out the specifics of an agreement. He said that Mr. Trump indicated that he would attend the Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg in November, despite suggestions by his administration that the United States might skip it.” 

 So now back to today’s main subject, multilateralism. Back in December 2024 in a Substack Post here at Alan’s Newsletter, “Focusing on the Future – Where are we on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and some other things?” I leaned on Homi Kharas, my good colleague at Brookings to give me some hope that states, many states, were turning to focus on the sustainable development goals (SDGs). And Homi and some of his colleagues did. As I wrote at the time: 

“Even more pointedly, Homi suggested that a vein of optimism was called for. The reason: technology could provide the necessary fillip to efforts to achieve the SDGs. Under the header, “ Technology is finally delivering on its promise to make major economic production and consumption structures more sustainable””  

While that may be the case for some it is clearly not the case for the second Trump administration. As Dashveenjit Kaurashveenjit Kaur wrote rather depressingly this last March in Sustainability News: 

“The US has officially rejected the UN Sustainable Development Goals, citing sovereignty concerns and claiming a mandate from voters to prioritise American interests over global frameworks.” 

 

“When world leaders gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York in September 2015, they created what many called a “blueprint for a better future” – the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Then-president Obama pledged American commitment to the ambitious 15-year roadmap designed to transform our world by 2030.” 

 

“This week, and the United States has executed a stunning, although not unexpected about-face: the Trump administration has declared it now “rejects and denounces” these very same global objectives, becoming what appears to be the first nation to abandon the framework since its unanimous adoption.” 

 

“The consequential announcement arrived not through a high-profile press conference or presidential statement. Still, it nested in diplomatic remarks delivered by Edward Heartney, Minister Counselor to ECOSOC at the US Mission to the United Nations.” 

 

““Put simply, globalist endeavours like Agenda 2030 and the SDGs lost at the ballot box,” Heartney stated in the prepared remarks. “Therefore, the United States rejects and denounces the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals, and it will no longer reaffirm them as a matter of course.”” 

Now maybe this declaration from a mid-level bureaucrat can ultimately be swept away if the Trump administration changes its mind – as we’ve seen it wouldn’t be the first occasion for sure, still the statement is rather chilling and appears to meaningfully undermine the multilateral effort that to this point not very successfully, notwithstanding two recent UN summits that focused wholly or in part on on the SDGs. 

This episode is just a small part of the growing acknowledgement that the heart of multilateralism, the UN and its many specialized agencies are failing. Many of us concerned with global stability and order focus a fair amount on the numerous multilateral efforts. But there does seem to be a certain amount of denial going on. 

Now, in this context of faltering multilateralism, I was attracted by the recent piece penned by my colleague, Peter Singer. Peter among other things writes the Substack Global Health Insights.   Now Peter was special adviser to the director general of the World Health Organization from 2017 to 2023. He  is today emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and a former chief executive of Grand Challenges Canada. Peter understands the faltering UN effort. As he posted recently at his Substack, in a piece titled, “UN leadership: relentlessly focused on results?”: 

“Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has recently taken to tweeting, “The mission of the UN is more urgent than ever.” This is certainly true, but not in its current version — replete with process and plans. There is, of course, a reform initiative, called UN80; however, it seems more focused on managerial efficiency and restructuring than results. The UN needs a new mission: Get Stuff Done.” 

With the current round of new leadership appointments,  Peter turns to leadership, and its central importance: 

“Yet despite their importance, the UN system has often struggled to deliver timely, measurable outcomes—an issue exacerbated by dwindling trust and funding. With Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) badly lagging and support for the UN increasingly under threat, the need for results-focused leadership [emphasis added] is more urgent than ever.” 

 

“The UN desperately needs leaders who are singularly focused on delivering measurable results. Without results, there is no trust; without trust, there is no funding. Results must be the cornerstone of any leadership candidacy.” 

If leadership is key, then, Peter points to critical upcoming opportunities for the UN system and what is necessary for the incoming leadership: 

“A key lever is leadership. Over the next three years, (at least) three major UN bodies will select (or elect) new leaders: the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2025, the UN Secretariat in 2026, and the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2027. The future of the UN may well hinge on whether these new leaders possess one crucial characteristic: a relentless focus on results.” 

 

“Results must be the cornerstone of any leadership candidacy.”

 

“This results focus is fully compatible with other perspectives that will drive these elections, such as gender and regional representation.” 

 

“Having had experience with a UN agency election and tried (and not fully succeeded) to help transform a UN agency into one that prioritizes results above all, I witnessed firsthand the barriers that make implementing a results-focused strategy difficult.” 

So as Peter portrays it what is necessary for successful multilateralism is leadership dedicated to results that can be shown. Only with this will trust be built and with trust, according to Peter, funding will be forthcoming. With that in hand, he then targets the current effort to choose new leadership:

“This is the acid test. Leaders who have a proven track record of achieving tangible outcomes are more likely to replicate that success at the UN. The UN is awash with process. But there is a gap between planning and execution.” … 

 

“In addition to personal examples, candidates should be able to provide compelling analysis and tangible solutions for improving measurable results at the agency they wish to lead.” … 

 

“From my experience, two elements are essential to fast-tracking progress: innovation and data.” … 

 

“Effective governance is even more important than management. Leaders must work with governing bodies to improve the results focus of the organization. UN governance tends to focus more on planning and process than on execution and results.” … 

 

“Changing the culture of an organization is key to making results-focused strategy, management, or governance sustainable. UN organizations tend to be highly hierarchical, which means leadership has an outsized impact on culture.” … 

 

“As member states, civil society, and donors engage in these critical leadership selections, they must champion candidates who are relentlessly focused on results. The future of the UN depends on it.”

And with that Peter concludes: 

“Nevertheless, imagine a UN system where, in five years, every agency is led by someone relentlessly focussed on results and on getting things done. It would be a very different—and far more effective and sustainable —UN than the one we see today.” 

The ‘pitch’ for critical leadership is sensible and important especially in the context of upcoming leadership searches and appointments. But I remain hesitant to accept that this will ‘turn this ship around’.   It seems to me that in the end the critical element remains national effort and the determination for members to forge collective policy whether health policy, climate change whatever. As Gordon La Forge. 2025 in his piece,  “The U.N. Is Still the Best Forum to Tackle AI Governance”. Reminds us in his recent piece in WPR:

“The late Richard Holbrooke once quipped that blaming the U.N. for international dysfunction is like faulting Madison Square Garden when the Knicks lose. Put another way, the U.N. continues to struggle with what could be called the 193-body problem: Nation-states are the world’s dominant form of political organization, but they are neither well-equipped to solve planetary challenges nor designed to defend the best interests of humanity as a whole, which often conflict with national imperatives.” 

It may require ‘coalitions of the willing’ to press ahead with new leadership on advancing critical and necessary policy. We cannot let the 193-body problem of the UN, or the ‘big boys’ problem, US, China and Russia to torpedo critical policy efforts. It is time to end just the talk. Using a plurilateral approach to push forward is critical though possibly incomplete. More on that soon. 

Credit Image: UN Dispatch

This Post first appeared at Alan’s Newsletter: https://substack.com/home/post/p-164155148

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A Tribute to Joseph S. Nye Jr. and Multilateralism Threatened: The G20 in South Africa

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He passed on May 6th. He was a longstanding leader in international relations. So at 88 Joseph Nye, Joe to most in the international relations community, passed away.

Joe was notable for many things, but possibly most notably his leadership at Harvard and his determination to move from academia to policy making and back. Probably best known for his creation and application of ‘soft power’, especially with respect the United States, he represented the best of international relations thought and application. His career was close to singular. As described in the NYTimes by Trip Gabriel:

“Sometimes considered the dean of American political science, Mr. Nye led the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and held senior jobs in the Carter and Clinton administrations.”

He was appointed deputy under secretary of state from 1977 to 1979. He returned to office with President Clinton serving in 1993 as chair of the National Intelligence Council. In 1994, he was appointed assistant secretary for international security affairs at the Pentagon.

On the academic side Joe joined the Harvard faculty in 1964, and he became dean of the Kennedy School of Government from 1995 to 2004.

Joe was probably best known for the concept he proposed and advanced throughout much of his career – ‘soft power’. As Trip Gabriel pointed out:

“Mr. Nye developed the concept of soft power in the late 1980s to explain how America’s ability to get other nations to do what it wanted rested on more than the power of its military or economy; it also derived from American values.”

“Soft power tools include diplomacy, economic assistance and trustworthy information, such as that provided in Voice of America broadcasts. He laid out his thinking in a 2004 book, “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics.””

““Joe’s seminal book on soft power is one of the very few books by a political scientist on international relations that had an impact on the real world beyond academia,” Derek Shearer, a professor of diplomacy at Occidental College in Los Angeles, said in an email.”

Joe also promoted – it is somewhat unclear who first described it, ‘smart power’. Smart power is identified as the combination of hard power and soft power strategies. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, smart power is an “an approach that underscores the necessity of a strong military, but also invests heavily in alliances, partnerships, and institutions of all levels to expand one’s influence and establish legitimacy of one’s action.”

Joe promoted, in other words, critical strategic diplomacy and policy making. I must say I was quite lucky to enjoy his thinking and analysis. I was invited a variety of times by my mentor Richard Rosecarnce to the The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard where later in his career he ‘hung his hat’. The Belfer Center is the hub of Harvard Kennedy School’s research, teaching, and training in international security and diplomacy, environment and natural resource issues, and science and technology policy. Rosecrance would include me in various US-China and US-Middle East gatherings. Joe Nye was almost always present and I was thoroughly impressed by his insights and his very congenial involvement in all the discussions we held. He will be sadly missed but one of his final thoughts on President Trump is worth repeating:

““I’m afraid President Trump doesn’t understand soft power,” Mr. Nye told CNN in an interview days before his death. “Think back on the Cold War — American nuclear deterrence and American troops in Europe were crucial. But when the Berlin Wall went down, it didn’t go down under a barrage of artillery. It went down under hammers and bulldozers wielded by people whose minds had been changed by the Voice of America and the BBC.””

I would also refer to the insight on Nye from colleagues at the The Wire China, Haitong Du, Margaret Siu, Brian Wong, Chengkai Xie, and Duo Yi:

“Nye’s influence was not merely conceptual; it was lived — and is lived. He reshaped how we study power, and how we reckon with the responsibility it entails. He also taught us that values endure beyond individual leaders, and can transcend institutions. He reminded us, time and time again, that the world needs morally sound and resonant universal tenets for effective global leadership.”

“He cautioned us — gently, firmly — against over-reliance on historical analogy. Determinism and fatalism, he warned, are no guides to the future. Truth is more complex than polarisation. And through it all, Nye showed that strategic thinking demands not just expertise, but prudent judgement of knowing when to act, when to hold back, and what principles must endure.”

And finally an opening statement from the PS and its editors:

“Just a few decades ago, the world understood power in one way: as the ability to secure one’s desired outcomes using coercion, intimidation, or payoffs. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., changed all that in the late 1980s, when he introduced the idea of “soft power” to describe the use of attraction to advance one’s interests and, later, when he devised the concept of “smart power” (which combines soft power with traditional “hard” power).”

Now I had planned to turn to the rather sad state of the UN as it approaches Year80. A focus on fading multilateralism. But I was called off that for the moment because of a serious back and forth between the Trump administration and the government of South Africa led by President Cyril Ramaphosa. Now South Africa holds the presidency of the G20 in this current year and President Trump has attacked the South African government for supposedly expropriating without compensation land from South African Afrikaners. Just this week Politico reported that the United States admitted a number of white South Africans to the United States:

“A group of 49 Afrikaners claiming to face discrimination and economic hardship in their home country arrived to the U.S. on Monday morning after being awarded an expedited pathway into the country by the Trump administration under a new program established earlier this year.”

As I noted in a previous Post here at Alan’s Newsletter, the Trump administration has ‘penalized’ South Africa with both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declining to attend the first G20 ministerial gatherings for foreign ministers and for finance ministers.

But it seems that is not where it has ended and there continue to be hints that Trump might not attend the Summit. As reported by Jeff Stein and John Hiudson at WAPO:

“The White House National Security Council has ordered U.S. agencies and departments to suspend work with the Group of 20 conference set to be hosted by South Africa this year, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a government decision not yet made public.”

“The move follows President Donald Trump’s public threats to boycott the summit over claims that White South Africans are having their land taken away by the government under a new expropriation law.”

“How could we be expected to go to South Africa for the very important G-20 Meeting when Land Confiscation and Genocide is the primary topic of conversation?” Trump wrote on Truth Social in April. “They are taking the land of white Farmers, and then killing them and their families.”

While South Africa and its President, Cyril Ramaphosa, have rebutted Trump and his allegations, it would seem that the South African President has decided to try and ‘clear the air’ and set relations on a ‘better track’ – possibly getting Trump to agree to attend the Summit in November. As reported in AlJazeera:

“South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will meet United States President Donald Trump at the White House next week in an attempt to “reset” ties between the two countries, Pretoria has said.”

“The president’s visit to the US provides a platform, hopefully, to reset the strategic relationship between the two countries,” it added, saying the trip will take place from Monday to Thursday and the two leaders will meet on Wednesday.”

“The White House had no immediate comment on the meeting, which would be Trump’s first with the leader of an African nation since he returned to office in January.”

If we are right, Ramaphosa’s trip to the US is designed to secure assurances of Trump’s G20 South Africa Summit attendance and US involvement in the myriad of Ministerial gatherings, Working Group efforts and Task Force ones for the annual G20 Summit. If so, and his efforts succeed, a strong sigh of relief will be expressed I suspect by all G20 members. Success of US attendance will also help to secure US hosting for the 2026 G20 Summit. A further sigh of relief I anticipate.

Image Credit: Munk Debates

Is there Order? The Growing Confusion

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As we’ve already pointed out in a previous Substack Post from Alan’s Newsletter, focusing on Trump’s dramatic tariffs, reveals a growing global order confusion. Do we have a continuing ‘great power competition’ – the United States, Russia and China, key great powers butting heads whether in Ukraine, or Gaza or Taiwan and the South China Seas? Or, do we see with Trump 2.0 the emergence of a ‘great power collusion’? The ‘Big Boys’ establishing and maintaining ‘spheres of interest’. Or, just possibly are we enveloped currently in an international system where great power actions do little to constrain disorder. Indeed, their actions only add to the confusion and disorder in a highly conflict prone international system. The problem of course is that analysts are biased toward seeing some form of order where in fact it is just as likely none exists.

In this earlier Post on global order we quoted Stacie Goddard who has raised the contending competition versus collusion order dynamic:

“Now look it won’t stop analysts – both those determined to extract a logic and those likely not to, to keep examining the Trump policy action. Indeed I was attracted to the piece prepared by Stacie Goddard in Foreign Affairs (FA), “The Rise and Fall of Great-Power Competition: Trump’s New Spheres of Influence”. Now Goddard in the piece tackled the view that Trump’s strategic actions were driven by great power competition – a view adopted by many realist thinkers who see this as Trump’s logic focusing on US ‘interests’ in contrast to other administrations that have focused on ‘values’ and ‘collective global governance action’. As Goddard writes:

 

“But in the mid-2010s, a new consensus took hold. The era of cooperation was over, and U.S. strategy had to focus on Washington’s contests with its major rivals, China and Russia. The main priority of American foreign policy was clear: stay ahead of them.”

 

“Some hailed this consensus on great-power competition; others lamented it. But as Russia amped up its aggression in Ukraine, China made clear its designs on Taiwan, and the two autocratic powers deepened their ties and collaborated more closely with other U.S. rivals, few predicted that Washington would abandon competition as its guiding light. As Trump returned to the White House in 2025,many analysts expected continuity: a “Trump-Biden-Trump foreign policy,” as the title of an essay in Foreign Affairs described it.”

 

“Then came the first two months of Trump’s second term. With astonishing speed, Trump has shattered the consensus he helped create. Rather than compete with China and Russia, Trump now wants to work with them, seeking deals that, during his first term, would have seemed antithetical to U.S. interests.”

 

“These interpretations might have been persuasive in January. But it should now be clear that Trump’s vision of the world is not one of great-power competition but of great-power collusion: a “concert” system akin to the one that shaped Europe during the nineteenth century.”

“In Trump’s vision of a new concert, Russia and China must be treated as kindred spirits in quelling rampant disorder and worrisome social change. The United States will continue to compete with its peers, especially with China on issues of trade, but not at the expense of aiding the forces that Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, have called “enemies within”: illegal immigrants, Islamist terrorists, “woke” progressives, European-style socialists, and sexual minorities.”

But to determine the dynamic of the current international system, notwithstanding these classic global order structures just described by Goddard, there is the continuing, indeed possibly the rising mayhem in the international system. Switch for a moment to South Asia where we have just seen India’s ‘retaliation’ for an attack on Indian tourists in Kashmir. As reported in the NYTimes:

“India said early Wednesday that it had conducted several airstrikes on Pakistan, hailing a victory in the name of vengeance for the terrorist attack that killed 26 civilians in Kashmir last month.”

 

“The Indian government said its forces had struck nine sites in Pakistan and on Pakistan’s side of the disputed Kashmir region, in what it described as retaliation for a terrorist attack that killed 26 civilians in Kashmir.”

“But in recent years, particularly after both built deterrence through nuclear weapons in the 1990s, their military confrontations had been limited to largely along their border regions. While India in recent years has struck Pakistan-administered Kashmir and areas close to it during periods of rising tensions, the attack on Wednesday included strikes on Punjab, in mainland Pakistan, for the first time in more than half a century.” …

 

““The terrorist attack was one of the worst against Indian civilians in decades, and India was quick to suggest that Pakistan, its neighbor and archenemy, had been involved. The two countries have fought several wars over Kashmir, a region that they have split but that each claims in whole.””

The dilemma in this conflict between the two South Asian rivals is the absence of strong efforts to tamp down the conflict:

“Still, a major factor in the de-escalation of past India-Pakistan crises was international pressure brought to bear on both sides. And with Washington distracted and few other mutually trusted “honest brokers” available, that means it could be up to the two parties themselves to find an off-ramp.”

To say the least, that is troubling and seems to signal, not surprisingly, that a global order framing is at best a stretch in the current global environment. Nathan Gardels of the Berggruen Institute underlines the contingencies that haunt the current order in a recent Noema piece:

“In short, history is open in all directions. There is no through line you can draw that will tell us where it will all go and where it will end up. There are a multitude of possibilities and arrays of conditions everywhere, all at once, that will only have looked inevitable in retrospect.”

 

“Coherence and equilibrium are “the momentary exception” in the random swirl of disequilibrium that is the rule.”

“This understanding of the indeterminate direction of history not only departs from the modern paradigm of historical progression rooted in Judeo-Christian eschatology, or theology of destiny, but embraces its opposite in the “principle of reverse movement.” History can go forward, backward or sideways.”

Yup, forward, backward or even sideways. There might be order but in the face of a quixotic Trump administration and pugilistic Putin regime we may be stretching the notion of ‘order’ framing. Meanwhile, efforts by the EU and many member states to gather their collective will to take on their own defense – build policies that generate ‘sovereign autonomy’ with significantly less reliance on the US starting with Ukraine but building an independent European deterrence has become a subject. Richard Youngs, a senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, based at Carnegie Europe has described this potential turning point. In a CEIP article he describes this ‘moment of truth:

“Writers, analysts, think tankers, journalists, and commentators seem to agree. A standard narrative has emerged that Europe faces a “moment of truth” and that “innovative formulas” are needed to advance European interests. Some insist that the crisis moment “has reignited a dormant sense of European purpose” or that “a different kind of Europe” is emerging in 2025. Others feel that Trump has already unleashed a new era of deeper European cooperation. A common view is that as the EU moves to “transform the way we protect ourselves, “this will “force a radical rethinking . . . of the nature of the EU.” In other words, deeper integration across the board will be needed to sustain Europe’s military buildup. The Economist believes that a “radical rethinking of how European nations confederate” may be emerging.”

Richard Samans, who is a Nonresident Senior Fellow – Global Economy and Development, Center for Sustainable Development at Brookings in a piece titled, “Rebalancing the world economy: Right idea but wrong approach”, suggests that Europe can/should act with the US and China to fix what he sees as an unbalanced global economy:

“The Trump administration’s norm-busting actions are a wake-up call that the contradictions and tensions in the system are unsustainable, extending well beyond trade rules. A Plaza/Louvre Accord or Bretton Woods-like moment appears to be approaching one way or the other, most likely during this or the next U.S. administration and quite possibly later this year.”

 

“Yes, Europe currently has its hands full developing a new defense strategy and helping to reach a responsible and durable resolution of the Russia-Ukraine war. But its defense-related fiscal spending plans give it a strategic, first-mover advantage in an international macroeconomic coordination negotiation aimed at reducing economic imbalances. In particular, Germany’s long overdue relaxation of its debt brake has given Europe crucial new table stakes, reversing decades of history in which Germany’s fiscal posture prevented Europe from playing a leadership role in such settings.”

Europe seems to be a key actor, and more critically, Germany’s stepping up to a key organizing role in Europe is vital. Yet that is exactly what appears to be the problem. Yes, changing the debt brake and encouraging the new German coalition of CDU/CSU -SPD to take a more dramatic European leaders’ role is front and centre in Europe but the emergence of Friedrich Merz as the coalition’s new Chancellor posted an uninvited warning sign. As described in WPR:

“Instead, it became a nailbiter, in large part because the investiture vote is a secret ballot, allowing members of Merz’ coalition to vote against him or abstain in protest. And indeed, they did, with Merz falling six votes short of the 316 needed in the first vote despite his CDU-SPD coalition holding 328 seats. And in the second round, he still only reached 325 votes. Of course, because of the nature of the ballot, it remains unclear if the dissension to his leadership is coming from his own CDU—which is known to have rival factions—or from members of the SPD.”

 

“Regardless, it suggests that Merz’s coalition, already one of the slimmest majorities seen in postwar Germany, is even more fragile than previously assumed. That gives him less room to maneuver in implementing his party’s agenda, and considering that Merz had already shown signs of abrasiveness as a leader, the dissension bodes poorly for future votes. It also hands the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, even more ammunition to throw at his leadership and the country’s mainstream parties.”

 

“More broadly, the turmoil today came after months in which Merz had signaled he was prepared to return Germany to its historically strong leadership position in Europe, even scheduling trips to Paris and Warsaw for tomorrow before even securing the chancellorship. At a time of heightened global uncertainty and a power vacuum in EU affairs, Merz’s proactive and muscular moves to reestablish German influence even prior to taking office had been more than welcomed in Brussels and other European capitals. The events of today, though, suggest that those expectations may have been too high and the enthusiasm premature—not the first time that has been the case for Berlin in recent years”

Still Merz seemed to have gathered himself and set off for meetings with European colleagues. As described by by Roger Cohen in the NYTimes:

“Taking office as Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz headed straight for Paris on Wednesday to meet with Mr. Macron. The two leaders are united in seeking what Mr. Merz has called “independence” and what Mr. Macron calls “strategic autonomy” from Washington, a dramatic shift. Writing in the French daily Le Figaro, they said they “will never accept an imposed peace and will continue to support Ukraine against Russian aggression.””

Still the path forward for Europe and others is not clear. Roger Cohen makes that clear:

“But Europe is scarcely united, whatever the resolve in Paris and Berlin. The nationalist, anti-immigrant, anti-climate-science, anti-transgender wave that swept Mr. Trump into office last year is also potent across a continent where it has empowered Viktor Orban in Hungary and Giorgia Meloni in Italy, among others.”

With Trump 2.0 in play the global order dynamics are confused and incomplete. Europe still needs to show its unity and purpose if strategic autonomy is to become a thing. For now, the global order dynamic may just be wishful thinking.

Image Credit” DW News

This Post first appeared at my Substack as a Post there –

Is there Order? The Growing Confusion – https://globalsummitryproject.substack.com/p/is-there-order-the-growing-confusion