The USA's involvement in international organisations
The USA is a leading member of several important international organisations.
G7 and G20 Group
The G7 (formerly G8 when Russia was a member) and G20 international groups contain most of the countries in the world with the largest economies. Summits or meetings of the leaders of the G7/G20 countries offer the opportunity for the US and other group members to develop closer economic ties to expand trade. In addition, it allows the US another forum to discuss issues of global concern such as climate change, terrorism or conflict and poverty. The 2024 G7 meet will be held in Puglia, Italy with the G20 meet in Rio, Brazil.
In 2014, Russian membership of the G8 was suspended when Russia annexed the Crimea Peninsula from Ukraine. However, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the G7 nations, who are strongly on the side of Ukraine, introduced a range of economic sanctions to restrict Russian trade and to weaken its economy. As the war in Ukraine has progressed, the members of the G7 group have supported Ukraine financially and militarily against Russia. In late 2023, the G7 members were also looking at ways of confiscating up to $300 billion of Russian assets to further weaken the Russian militarily.
The G20 has similar aims to the G7 but includes an additional 12 members to reflect the growing economic importance of countries such as Brazil, India and Indonesia.
The United Nations
The USA is a founding member of the The successor to the League of Nations, the United Nations was established in 1945 as an international organisation designed to keep peace, uphold international law and set standards in human rights. (UN):
- it is one of the five permanent members (P5) on the UN Security Council, alongside the UK, China, Russia and France
- it is the biggest single contributor to the UN regular budget, providing 22% of the funding, as well as 27% of the UN peacekeeping budget
Although the US is an important member of the UN, the relationship between the two has been strained. The US hosts the UN headquarters in New York and contributes the most of any single country to UN programs but in most years the US has failed to pay its contribution in full. The US does not contribute any troops to UN peacekeeping missions.
Trump and the United Nations
During Trump’s presidency, between 2016 and 2020, Trump was often critical of the UN especially over the size of the US financial contribution. Trump also criticised the World Health Organisation (WHO) which he claimed was controlled by China. Trump had the US pull out from the WHO.
Biden and the United Nations
President Biden (2020-24) is more supportive of the United Nations and sees the UN as a forum to globally promote democracy and human rights. In 2021, the US rejoined the WHO.
UN Security Council
As a permanent member of the UN A council in the United Nations, made up of fifteen member states that is responsible for maintaining international peace and security. , the US can veto any Security Council proposal (plan) put forward. Since the Security Council is the part of the UN responsible for peace making and peacekeeping as well as international sanctions, this gives the US a very influential role.
There are five permanent members of the council (USA, China, Russian Federation, France, UK). They have the power to vote against, and effectively veto, any Security Council proposal put forward.
The US has used its veto several times in recent years. Each time it has voted against resolutions relating to Israel and Palestinians including use of the veto four times since October 2023 in respect of the Israel-Gaza war.
The US has at times found decision-making within the UN Security Council frustrating or time consuming. Russia and China are also permanent members and have used their veto to block US proposals. Recently, Russia has used its veto on resolutions about conflict in Syria and Ukraine. For example, in 2022, Russia vetoed two Security Council resolutions that would have demanded that Russian troops were withdrawn from Ukraine and its occupation of Ukrainian territory should not be recognised.
Like many other countries, on occasion, the US will do what it believes is in its best interests regardless of what the UN or the rest of the world think. However, on most international issues of concern, the US does work within the decision-making processes of the UN Security Council, e.g. in 2023 in respect of some aspects of the crises in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Palestine and, in Sudan and South Sudan.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
The US has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation - a defensive military alliance set up in April 1949 to provide a counterforce to the Soviet armies of Eastern Europe. (NATO) since it was established in 1949. NATO is the largest and most powerful military alliance in the world. In theory, the 32-nation organisation is made up of members of equal standing, where each country has one vote in decision making.
However:
- the USA is the dominant player within NATO
- it contributes far more troops, resources and finances than any other single member of the alliance
- more than any other country the USA sets the NATO agenda. For example, it is claimed the USA has kept the pressure up on European countries to look to expand NATO eastwards.
In recent years, the USA has also tried to encourage the other members of NATO to take a greater responsibility for their own defence and to make a larger contribution to NATO's finances. It had been argued that the US had been focusing its attention more on Asia and the Far East as opposed to Europe. However, with Russian annexation of the Crimea in 2014 and then military invasion of Ukraine in 2022, NATO and American support for the Atlantic Alliance has moved to the top of the US international agenda.
US leadership within NATO remains very important. For example, US support to Ukraine from Jan 2022 to October 2023 was worth $75.4 billion of which $46.3 billion was military support. In 2024, President Biden proposed a further $61 billion in aid to Ukraine.
On the other hand, the US also needs NATO as it allows the US to confront difficult and diverse threats to its security alongside other countries which support democratic values. As part of NATO the US is stronger.
Trump, Biden and NATO
In his time as President, Joe Biden has repeatedly reaffirmed US support for NATO. This contrasts with Donald Trump who criticised NATO members and wanted all members to increase military spending to 4% of GDP as opposed to the required 2% of GDP. In 2024, it was expected that only 18 NATO members were expected to reach the 2% of GDP target in 2024.
In his first term as president, Donald Trump had also threatened to remove US forces from Germany over accusations that Germany were ‘not paying their bills’, but these plans changed when Biden took office.
In 2024, when campaigning for the Republican Party nomination for US president, Trump went further by suggesting that if a country in NATO was not spending enough on its own defence he would “encourage” other countries to attack it, presumably he was talking of Russia. President Biden’s response to these comments was very critical calling Trump’s words “shameful” and “un-American.”
AUKUS
In September 2021, the USA entered a new security pact with the UK and Australia called AUKUS. This has been described as a pact against China, although the country wasn’t mentioned in the launch to the press.
President Biden also hosted a visit from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in October 2023. Both leaders aim to increase links between their two countries to increase their security and that of other countries in the Pacific.
