Thought Leadership

Getting America Back in the Game: A Multilateral Perspective

Written by Jonathan T. Fried
Getting America Back in the Game: A Multilateral Perspective

The sober reality is that the Trump administration forcefully and explicitly undermined multilateral economic cooperation over the past four years. The world is now facing two immediate and era-defining challenges in 2021: the global pandemic and the global recession, alongside the need for multilateral cooperation on climate and the environment.  

Tackling these challenges will require constructive engagement of all the world’s largest economies. Nations that support multilateralism can help get America back to supporting, strengthening, and improving a fair rules-based trading system that provides good jobs along with raising living standards and prosperity for all.   Although on the current trajectory the answer to that question seems destined to rely on bilateralism which is not the right way to achieve the necessary global response.  There is a bigger, bolder, broader, more multilateral pathway to reinvigorated international economic cooperation. 

In a recent paper, I had the privilege of co-authoring with leading trade experts Richard Baldwin, Chad Brown, Anabel Gonzalez, Tetsuya Watanabe and André Sapir, where we pulled together a plan outline. The detailed paper included two pillars: 1) working together and 2) formulating initiatives as ‘trade tracks’ in the broad portfolio of foreign policy and climate policy initiatives.  You can read the full paper here.

Written by
Jonathan T. Fried

Jonathan T. Fried

Independant Consultant

Mr. Fried retired in August, 2020 following a distinguished diplomatic career for Canada that spanned law, economics, and trade, including as G20 Sherpa; Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the WTO; Ambassador to Japan; Executive Director for Canada, Ireland and the Caribbean at the IMF; Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister; Senior Assistant Deputy Minister for the Department of Finance and Canada's G7 and G20 Finance Deputy. He was formerly Canada’s Chief Negotiator on...