“Useless, ineffective, or harmful”: that is how Donald Trump described many international organizations when he announced in January 2026 that the United States was withdrawing from 66 of them. The United States is thus leaving a system it helped create, leading to a weakening of these organizations’ finances.
Nevertheless, the system must be renewed. It has become too large, too slow, producing soft law, and addressing overlapping issues without much coherence in its mandates… Reforms are underway, and this is an opportunity to revitalize international cooperation without abandoning the United Nations, which serves as its foundation. In this episode of IDDRI’s podcasts, Céline Kauffmann, Program Director at IDDRI, provides insights on this new era for multilateralism.
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