Trump Isn’t Actually Abandoning the U.N. System
Key takeaways
- To celebrate America’s 250th birthday, our entire site is completely unlocked this week only.
- President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is that his hostility to the multilateral system is absolute and irreversible.
- Consider Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s approach to Gavi, the global vaccine alliance that Washington withdrew funding from last year.
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One of the dominant narratives about U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is that his hostility to the multilateral system is absolute and irreversible. Yet while Trump has indeed recoiled from international institutions with disdain, even relish, his administration’s actions don’t always match his words.
Consider Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s approach to Gavi, the global vaccine alliance that Washington withdrew funding from last year. In early June, Rubio appeared to sideline Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an avowed vaccine skeptic, by announcing that Washington would reengage with Gavi. The decision came amid a swelling Ebola outbreak in Africa and followed a letter sent to Rubio by a bipartisan group of senators, warning that $600 million in congressionally appropriated Gavi funding was sitting unused.