It is widely accepted that multilateralism is living its worst days. The United Nations, now 80 years old, seems to be out of touch with the challenges the world is facing, or so it is said.
One may wonder whether the alternative would be regionalism or even minilateralismo where crucial topics could be properly addressed. Unfortunately, it is not the case. Even though the passing of Pope Francis in March made possible for most world leaders from all the corners of the world to gather in Rome at his funeral, it seems the only bilateral relevant meeting that took place at that moment was between President Trump and President Zelensky.
In fact, a quick look at this year’s international summits reveals some sort of “attendance fatigue.” In general, world leaders tend to skip them for a number of reasons, mostly political, of course. Take the G7 summit held in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada, as an example. Even though most world leaders attended, the US President abruptly left for Washington to face the crisis in the Middle East caused - in his own words - by Iran’s nuclear program. Trump’s departure without joining Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, as scheduled, was a missed opportunity for a very much needed bilateral dialogue on crucial issues.
The BRICS + Summit held in Rio de Janeiro last July faced the absence of President Vladimir Putin since he cannot travel abroad to countries that signed the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court (ICC). There is a ban on Putin’s travel to ICC states that stretches across 125 countries: 19 in the Asia-Pacific, 28 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 33 in Africa, and 45 in Europe. Same happened two years ago on the eve of another BRICS + summit, this time in South Africa. Somehow the BRICS + Summit in Kazan, Russia in 2024 eased the tension provoked by the isolationism imposed on Moscow by the international community, but it is clear that it is not good for one of the most powerful leaders in the world to avoid crucial meetings not only at BRICS + but the G20 and even at the United Nations in New York. Of course, since the United States is not part of the ICC, Putin could meet with US President Trump in Alaska last August, although the encounter was not as productive as expected.
Then, let us take a look at the X Summit of the Americas to be held in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Originally the meeting was scheduled for October, but it was suspended due to the controversy surrounding the decision of the Dominican President Luis Abinader not to invite Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to the gathering, prompting Mexican and Colombian Presidents Claudia Sheinbaum and Gustavo Petro to announce they disagree with the exclusion of the mentioned countries and thus, would not participate. The Summit is expected to take place in 2026 to avoid empty chairs.
What about the much-anticipated CELAC-EU gathering in Colombia between 9-10 November? Sixty Heads of State were expected to arrive at Cartagena de Indias. Instead, only 12 did. The European Union leader Ursula von Der Leyen declined to participate by arguing she was attending the COP30 in Belém, Brazil. So, besides the 12 Presidents, Bogotá confirmed the participation of six vice-presidents, and 23 foreign ministers. From the old continent, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro arrived, because they have historical, linguistic, and commercial ties with Latin America and their absence would have been an insult to the whole region. The Finnish Prime Minister, Petteri Orpo, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Dick Schoof, and that of Croatia, Andrej Plenkovic were also present. Missing from the list, among many others, were German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and French President Emmanuel Macron. And even among the 33 members of CELAC, there were important defections: Javier Milei, president of Argentina, was not there, nor Claudia Sheinbaum, president of Mexico. To many, the pressures posed by Washington on external powers not to interfere in what Trump considers a natural zone of influence is the main explanation. This downgrade of Latin America-European Union relations is bad news, since the fate of the Americas seems to be entirely in the hands of Donald Trump.
Brazil, the host of COP30 these days, was not particularly on the agenda for world leaders since Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, and Narendra Modi declined to participate. As mentioned, at least Ursula von Der Leyen was present. Although media coverage showing Brazilian President Lula Da Silva shoulder to shoulder with Der Leyen was huge, the absence of other prominent leaders sends the message that something important is missing.
To make things worse, the G20 Summit that is scheduled for the first time in an African country, South Africa, will face the absence of US President Donald Trump and also his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. As mentioned, since South Africa is part of the ICC, Russia’s Vladimir Putin will not be attending.
Why is this happening? Why are there so many empty chairs at these summits? Of course, the problem of multiple meetings happening at the same time is part of the explanation. The timing for the CELAC-EU meeting was bad because either countries’ leaders attend it or participated in the COP30 gathering, but not both. The other fact is Donald Trump. For instance, the APEC meeting, held in Gyeongju, South Korea from October 31 to November 1, witnessed a minimum of empty chairs because Donald Trump was expected to attend, but, as he did during the G7 meeting in Canada, at the last moment chose to skip the APEC summit. However, Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping stepped into the limelight by calling for unity, cooperation and proposing a global body to govern artificial intelligence. The good news is that at least both, Trump and Xi, had a bilateral meeting in Busan, prior to the APEC gathering. So, this much wanted meeting took place, in fact, outside the APEC framework.
Not long ago, these gatherings were very much supported since the occasion for bilateral meetings was unique. It is not easy for global leaders to get together at different venues, but the possibility of attending them bringing together partners with which important trade, security, environment, disarmament, the 2030 Agenda issues, and related matters was attractive. Sadly, almost all these agendas are perishing due to tariffs and protectionism, various armed conflicts, a rampant arms race, and a lacking appetite for the Sustainable Development Goals. Since most topics rely on financing and money is mostly going to the military budgets of the most advanced nations, they do not seem willing to discuss market access for developing countries, neither providing resources to climate finance, and much less to fulfill the development goals of the 2030 Agenda. Pressures to increase the military budget to five percent of developed countries’ GDP is leading to dramatic cuts in development assistance to record levels, impacting not only the budget of multilateral institutions, including the United Nations’ programs, agendas and specialized agencies, but also specific tasks to fight hunger, to provide support for children and refugees, to deliver sanitation and vaccination, to provide relief due to natural disasters, and a long etcetera.
The retreat of the United States is also diminishing leadership in world affairs. The Trump Administration seems to prioritize those agendas over which Washington exerts more control, such as peace processes, limited military actions against perceived threats such as Iran, and, who knows, probably Venezuela. The threat of the use of force against organized crime seems to be very much in Washington’s agenda, a cause of concern in Mexico and other Latin American countries.
Tariffs have poisoned International Relations, making them so relevant that there is little room to deal with other critical aspects of the international agenda. As punitive as they are, they force countries towards bilateral negotiations directly with the United States, which sacrifices their attention to summits where not long ago, a constructive engagement approach through dialogue was possible. Not anymore.
In today’s global economy two important transformations have accelerated: on the one hand, the rise of the concept of economic security is introducing the issue of political risk into global value chains, and on the other, there is an ongoing process of regionalization to reduce the risk of a long global value chain, making adjacent regions and neighbors more attractive for these tasks. Thus, the idea of the world factory is dying and instead a more nationalistic approach is emerging. The world is very globalized. True. But, as the SARS-CoV2 pandemic showed, when the world factory - say, China stops - the global value chains suffer. For Trump, the priority is to bring back home American companies producing abroad, reducing dependence on global value chains and increasing employment. This is done through the threat of tariffs: those companies operating abroad will be punished with tariffs to convince them that it is better to produce within the US. This in-shoring, together with near-shoring strategies, promises to reduce dependence on, primarily, China.
But China has a strategy to reduce its dependence on the US with the imposition of its own tariffs. More and more it is also relying on its own market. This will have had a profound impact in global trade. The trade war between China and the US is also creating several conflicts in the world. Mexico and other countries like Argentina and Panama have been forced to diminish its links with China for the benefit of the US.
Thus, it seems the planning of major conferences, summits and meetings must improve to avoid overlapping that, as shown, has tremendous political and economic costs. To organize major events like the ones described here costs a lot of money and political effort and the resulting empty chairs create frustration. And this may damage the mood for dialogue and cooperation in today’s turbulent world by creating a “summits fatigue.” Apart from that, gatherings need to work with the US and other powerful participants to make sure these leaders do not sabotage each other. The task is not easy, but it needs to be done.
Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by María Cristina Rosas, a professor and researcher in the faculty of political and social sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. The column appears in The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service with the permission of the author. Rosas can be reached via email at: mcrosas@prodigy.net.mx
