South America

Former Colombian President Iván Duque discussed Latin America’s resurgent left wing and advocated for environmental action at the Harvard Kennedy School on Thursday afternoon.

Companies that rely on certain countries in Asia for their supply lines will face continued challenges as geopolitical stresses, let alone global pandemics, cause supply shortages. Beyond causing economic harm, these shortages pose a direct threat to U.S. national security interests.

On March 29, the Future of Diplomacy Project hosted Nestor Forster Jr., Ambassador of Brazil to the U.S., who spoke about the bilateral relationship between the two largest economies and democracies in the Western Hemisphere: Brazil and the United States. He discussed the political and economic ties between the two countries in various areas, such as defense cooperation, trade policy, sustainable economic growth, environment, and science and technology. Faculty Chair, Nicholas Burns, introduced the event. Senior Fellow and former U.S. Ambassador to Brazil, Thomas Shannon Jr., and Project Coordinator, Erika Manouselis co-moderated this discussion.

For months, the coronavirus has crawled across the globe. One person at a time, it has passed through millions, reaching every corner of the earth. And it has not only infected people, but every aspect of our human cultures. Policymakers and the public sector face their biggest test in generations—some say ever—as lives and livelihoods hang in a terrible, delicate balance. Facing health crises, economic collapse, social and political disruption, we try to take stock of what the pandemic has done and will do. We asked Harvard Kennedy School faculty, in fields ranging from climate change to international development, from democracy to big power relations, to tell us how this epochal event has changed the world.

The panel considers how the US, UK and EU can contribute to a global response. It also asks what a global response to the health and economic crisis in the developing world would look like.

The UN Charter focuses on states as the central actors in the international system, defining as a multilateral action when three nation-states cooperate in a field of common interest. Today, nation-states are increasingly paralysed into inaction due to political divisions or great power rivalries. Hence, they are failing to effectively utilise collective action. Subnational entities are stepping into this vacuum to deliver on core functions embedded in the UN Charter, redefining effective collaboration on a transnational scale – what we call micro-multilateralism. Cities have emerged as particularly skilful champions of micro-multilateralism, even though their role as independent actors is not specifically addressed by the UN Charter. With 70 per cent of the world’s population projected to be urban by 2050, cities are now effectively tackling transnational issues once the prerogative of states.

Faced with those challenges and others, the president and his advisers offered mixed messages, apologising for and explaining away actions by Russia and North Korea while taking a harder line toward Venezuela, Iran and China.

President Trump’s unconventional foreign policy appeared in disarray amid a series of setbacks around the globe and mounting signs that the president and his advisors were on the verge of losing several risky policy bets.