Inward turn: on the U.S.’s impending plunge into isolationism Politics & News

The Donald Trump administration has sparked fresh concern on the global stage after it announced through a presidential memorandum that the U.S. would be withdrawing from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as 65 other international organisations and platforms, describing these as “contrary to the interests of the United States”. Having already pulled out of the Paris climate agreement in his first term, Mr. Trump has now doubled down on plans to end all U.S. commitments to fight climate change by reversing his predecessor Joe Biden’s actions. Washington has made plans for a quick exit mostly from UN-related agencies and advisory panels whose mandate relates to climate and renewable energy, gender equality, minority rights, rule of law and other areas that the Trump administration considers to be supporting diversity and ‘woke’ initiatives.

There is a serious question of real-world impact and damage to the existing order that is engendered by the U.S.’s impending plunge into pure isolationism. The administration’s wholesale rejection, in early 2025, of decades of prior institutional commitments to and engagement with the World Health Organization has already led to setbacks to projects across the developing world that focus on maternal and infant mortality, disease surveillance, and halting the advance of tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS — all heavily dependent on external funding. In the climate change, human rights, labour standards and rule of law contexts, the key financing channels and impactful leadership momentum have historically been associated with U.S. institutions. The inevitable vacuum that the Trump White House’s action will produce could actually cede that space to power players such as China and Russia, whose incentives to support a level playing field in coordinated international policies with a strong global footprint may not be aligned with the rest of the democratic world. The world has already been witness, under both Trump administrations, to the deleterious, destabilising consequences of Washington weaponising trade tariffs as means to achieving political goals. Now this small-frame view of national self-interest trumping good governance principles for the global commons may become the modus operandi for the remainder of the 21st century. The very idea of the nation state may face unprecedented challenges as inward orientation in policymaking will build an ever stronger base for rising ethno-nationalism and racist hatred of the “other”. History has shown that this gives free rein to the worst qualities of human nature, with disastrous socio-political consequences.