John M. | Red Phoenix correspondent | Colorado–

In a brazen display of arrogance, President Trump signed a presidential memorandum, directing the United States to withdraw from 66 international organizations (31 UN entities and 35 non-UN groups) effectively abandoning multilateral frameworks on climate, population health, labor, migration, and more. This move strips away even the limited veneer of “global cooperation” to pursue naked unilateralism in service of U.S. monopoly capital.

The targeted bodies include the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — the cornerstone of the Paris Agreement and international climate diplomacy since 1992 — as well as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), UN Women, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and forums on renewable energy, conservation, and cultural cooperation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed the purge as necessary to counter entities “captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own,” while the White House fact sheet justifies it as restoring “American sovereignty,” ending taxpayer funding for “globalist agendas,” “radical climate policies,” and “ideological programs” that supposedly waste resources and threaten national interests.

This isn’t mere isolationism but a calculated escalation of imperialism. Imperial Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933 following the Lytton Report and the condemnation of their annexation of Manchuria. Nazi Germany withdrew in November 1933 (following the Enabling Act from March 1993 that further consolidated Hitler’s personal power) and Fascist Italy withdrew from the League in 1937 following the Abyssinia Crisis of 1935.

The contemporary American bourgeoisie in its militarist and chauvinist belligerence is no different. In an effort to de-legitimatize international oversight and bolster nationalist fervor, American imperialist motives come to stand above all else, even world opinion. The U.S. bourgeoisie, facing intensifying contradictions at home and abroad, is shedding the veneer of “international cooperation” to pursue naked unilateralism. These organizations, while often co-opted by capital to legitimize exploitation (think IMF loans that indebt developing nations, or UN peacekeeping that props up neocolonial outposts), occasionally serve as arenas where oppressed peoples can challenge imperial dominance. They also serve as crucial limits on the most rabidly anti people manifestations of capitalism, especially as oversights on climate change, conservation, and crucial research. 

By withdrawing, Trump’s administration is stripping away even those limited tools, allowing U.S. corporations freer rein to plunder without oversight.

This builds on Trump’s first-term playbook, where he defunded the UN Population Fund over baseless claims of “coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in China” and pulled out of the Paris Agreement, dismissing climate change as a “hoax.” Now, with selective UN funding—paying only for operations that advance U.S. interests, like competing with China in tech and maritime sectors—the White House is weaponizing its financial clout. As Daniel Forti of the International Crisis Group put it,”I think what we’re seeing is the crystallization of the U.S. approach to multilateralism, which is ‘my way or the highway.'”

Critics within the liberal establishment, like former White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy, lament the loss of U.S. influence over “trillions of dollars in investments.” But let’s be clear: that “influence” has historically meant steering global policies toward fossil fuel giants and agribusiness conglomerates, worsening the very crises these bodies purport to solve. Stanford’s Rob Jackson warns that U.S. withdrawal gives other nations “excuse to delay their own actions,” yet the real scandal is how imperialism has already doomed meaningful climate action. The U.S., as the world’s top historical emitter, bears primary responsibility for the floods, droughts, and wildfires ravaging working people worldwide. Another visible potentiality is U.S. withdrawal serving as an example to other imperialist and nationalist governments to do the same; and be their own “judge and jury” in regards to their domestic and international policies.

The UN itself insists the U.S. has a “legal obligation” to fund these agencies post-withdrawal, but such appeals ring hollow in a system where international law bends to the will of the dominant capitalist powers. Trump’s actions will force UN staffing cuts and program reductions, disproportionately affecting aid to Palestinian refugees via UNRWA (already targeted in his first term) and migration support amid escalating border militarization.

This retreat exposes the fragility of bourgeois internationalism. It’s not about sovereignty for the American people, most of whom suffer from skyrocketing inequality and climate fallout, but about safeguarding the sovereignty of capital. 

As Lenin observed in “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism,” the monopolistic stage drives superpowers to carve up the world through force and finance. Trump’s pivot toward rivalry with China, while abandoning collective frameworks, signals a desperate bid to maintain U.S. primacy amid deepening reorganization of the world capitalist order.

The international working-class movement must seize this moment to build genuine anti-imperialist alliances, free from the shackles of U.S. bourgeois-led institutions. This also includes the American working class which desperately needs a labor movement. One that actually defends workers interests and does not sell them out for company money for a few union bureaucrats. 

From Gaza’s resistance to industrial struggles in the heart of empire, the fight against this reactionary offensive demands internationalist solidarity — not the hollow multilateralism of the elite, but a popular front against class exploitation and national and racial-ethnic oppression.

Categories: Economy, Government, U.S. News