U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio toned down the Trump administration¡¯s criticisms of its European allies at the recent Munich Security Conference where he proclaimed, ¡°We do not seek to separate but to reinvigorate an old friendship.¡±
Yet, while Rubio didn¡¯t mention NATO, the World Trade Organization (WTO) or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), his statement that the U.S. and its allies have ¡°increasingly outsourced our sovereignty to international institutions¡± made clear the current administration¡¯s continued distrust, if not disdain, for multilateral organizations.
Nevertheless, U.S. allies ¡ª including in Europe and the Indo-Pacific ¡ª still rely on post-World War II multilateral economic and security arrangements to maintain global order not at the price of sovereignty, but in defense of it.
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