Biden’s Modest Multilateralism

Like the Joni Mitchell song puts it, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” For example, classroom education was often deemed boring by students and obsolete by tech visionaries. Then, COVID-19 made it difficult or impossible to meet in person. Now we yearn for in-class experiences.

Perhaps the same is true of international economic cooperation. Multilateral institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations agencies have long been unpopular among much of the public for supposedly encroaching on national sovereignty.