The US-China competition has officially expanded beyond trade and technology into the very heart of multilateral institutions. The global development news agency Devex last week published two US documents and Al Majalla also obtained and published a copy of one document, which laid out specific conditions for releasing billions of dollars it owes to the United Nations, including eight “quick-hit” reforms as a precondition to releasing the funds—chief of which are moves to counter China’s influence within the global body.
This is not conjecture; the documents explicitly state this. And what they show is a US no longer prepared to finance an international system that doesn’t reflect its strategic priorities and allows its adversaries a seat at the table. Here, funding is turned from a source of support and influence into an instrument of pressure.
The Trump administration has already withdrawn from over 60 international bodies—half of them affiliated with the UN system. And as a precondition for staying in NATO, it demanded that members step up their financial contributions. Apart from its weaponisation of funding, the US is also increasingly turning to hard power to achieve its geostrategic objectives, such as its seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and its naval blockade of Iranian ports.
Relevancy questioned
Amid this US turn to gunboat diplomacy, one could be forgiven for outright questioning the relevance of international institutions anymore. The United Nations appears to be incapable of containing conflicts—its key raison d'être—from the Ukraine war, which has now entered its fourth year, to Israel’s war on Gaza.
