As G-20 leaders gather next week in Rio de Janeiro, Donald Trump’s big win in the U.S. election has raised questions about the future of multilateralism. With his “America First” message, Trump is anything but a poster boy for the cause. And a new administration will take the helm against a backdrop of increasing paralysis at hallowed international organizations such as the United Nations and World Trade Organization. Multilateralism seems to be in big trouble.
But this distrust of multilateralism also comes in the context of decreasing unipolarity in the international system. Taken together, these factors may open the door to a revitalized G-20. It will take a new bargain between the United States and the global south to get there.
As G-20 leaders gather next week in Rio de Janeiro, Donald Trump’s big win in the U.S. election has raised questions about the future of multilateralism. With his “America First” message, Trump is anything but a poster boy for the cause. And a new administration will take the helm against a backdrop of increasing paralysis at hallowed international organizations such as the United Nations and World Trade Organization. Multilateralism seems to be in big trouble.
But this distrust of multilateralism also comes in the context of decreasing unipolarity in the international system. Taken together, these factors may open the door to a revitalized G-20. It will take a new bargain between the United States and the global south to get there.
The G-20 is a compact, informal body of only 19 countries (plus the European Union and the African Union) yet represents the three main sets of states in the international system: the global west (the United States and its core allies), what I have called the “global east” (Russia and China), and the global south (the vast, essentially unaligned region stretching from Latin America to Southeast Asia and the Pacific). With the global west and the global east in a state of systemic rivalry, the global south is the center of gravity where the potential for solutions, and some semblance of consensus, lies.
Unlike the global east, none of the global south states in the G-20 are adversaries of the United States. Indeed many, such as India and Indonesia, are close partners. However, the global south is increasingly dissatisfied with U.S. stewardship of the international system and its many failures, and this is reflected in its priorities at the G-20.
This is also the second G-20 in which the governing troika (India-Brazil-South Africa) is entirely from global south states. Thus, it represents a major opportunity for Washington to deepen its engagement with the global south.
What’s in it for the United States to engage with the global south? The slow but steady whittling away of unipolarity means that even a rightward turn in the United States cannot ignore other centers of power. The global south states in the G-20, none of which are U.S. rivals, are excellent candidates for such engagement leading up to the 2026 summit when Washington will be the host.
A few common themes resonate among the G-20’s global south states. At the 2023 New Delhi summit, India vigorously pushed issues such as reform of multilateral development banks (MDBs) and cooperated with the United States in producing a set of actionable recommendations. This year, Brazil has prioritized a progressive agenda of fighting hunger, poverty, and inequality; progressing sustainable development; and reforming global governance institutions. Among President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s goals is a global minimum wealth tax on billionaires, which earned a tepid endorsement from G-20 finance ministers over the summer.
There are reasons to be optimistic about the G-20 in the wake of Trump’s return to presidency. For one, divides on the Russia-Ukraine war under President Joe Biden (which almost torpedoed the 2022 Bali summit and took a major bridging effort by India at New Delhi in 2023) will be less of an issue with Trump’s more doveish approach toward Moscow.
The Biden team’s version of multilateralism focused on coordination and joint action with U.S. allies and partners, though its goals were often the exclusion of U.S. rivals. The Trump view is much more rooted in U.S. nationalism; consequently, it is less aligned with America’s traditional friends and more skeptical toward international institutions.
But Trump’s record on the G-20 during his first term was one of surprising engagement. He personally attended his first three G-20 summits in 2017, 2018, and 2019, using them to vigorously make the case for his policies. He announced a women’s empowerment fund and even engaged in climate conversations.
When COVID-19 struck in early 2020, Trump backed an emergency G-20 summit convened virtually that March. Even as he shocked multilateralists by halting funding for the World Health Organization and withdrawing the United States from the premier health body, Trump supported all 47 commitments made at the March summit and participated in the flurry of follow-up meetings to deal with the crisis’s multiple dimensions. The shameful fact remains that the United States hoarded COVID-19 vaccines well beyond its needs, but that was as much Biden’s doing as Trump’s.
Plus, the G-20’s very structure is more in tune with the nationalist style of America Firsters. The grouping’s informality means that binding international commitments are never on the agenda. The G-20 has no secretariat and no permanent staff. So the traditional distaste among American conservatives toward the U.N. (and international bureaucracies in general) does not rub off on the grouping. The United States always has its biggest allies—even if they may not necessarily like Trump—in the room. The G-20’s compactness means that Washington must negotiate with only a small number of powerful leaders, the type of stage on which Trump is comfortable. Finally, there are ample possibilities for serious bilateral engagements—an opportunity that Trump has utilized with gusto at previous summits.
The global south’s middle powers, too, are comfortable with the G-20. All decisions are by consensus, the great powers do not have a veto, and about half the members are global south states. The successive presidencies of Indonesia, India, Brazil, and, next year, South Africa have enabled the global south to articulate its agenda like never before at a time when it is asserting itself in multiple ways. In sum, there’s an opportunity here for the United States and the global south to engage in the G-20 format in productive ways. On what issues might they find common ground?
The 2008 financial crisis was the G-20’s shining moment, with major monetary coordination and the establishment of the Financial Action Task Force. Since then, the grouping has had a patchy record. For example, debt relief, while successfully bringing China and the Paris Club together in the Common Framework, has largely not delivered to needy states. Other initiatives are a work in progress.
Climate change is unlikely to be an area of cooperation with Trump on the scene, but global financial stability, reform of MDBs, digital public infrastructure (DPI), food security, and debt relief can still be major areas of work. On debt relief, since China is a creditor, the United States has an opportunity to align with the global south in ways that build Washington’s influence at a point when China’s and the global south’s interests might be diverging. Brazil and India have showcased their DPI offerings, which make payments and provision of services easier to citizenry. There is no reason for the United States not to support these efforts.
Trump prides himself on the art of the deal. The G-20 might not be a bad stage for him to take a bow.
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