On February 28, the United States and Israel began war against Iran. The attack by the United States and Israel, carried out without prior warning or UN authorization, targeted and killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
Just two months ago, the United States launched a new offensive against Venezuela in which American special forces kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from his mansion in Caracas and transported him to New York, where he faces criminal charges in federal court.
Between these two violent attacks, US President Donald Trump withdrew from 66 international organizations, including 31 UN bodies, and launched a new body, a peace commission he chairs, that he has signaled could replace the UN.
These and other developments in recent years demonstrate that the world order the United States helped establish in 1945 is no longer in its interests.
For 80 years, American treasure, diplomacy, and military might have supported this structure. Whatever criticisms there may be about how that power was exercised, the scale of its involvement is astonishing, and there was no need for the United States to do this. That’s what I chose.
The world of 2026 will bear little resemblance to 1945. Europe was rebuilt. China has risen. Canada, Japan, South Korea, and many Gulf countries are wealthy. It is also on the rise in Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, India, Vietnam, and other countries.
Today’s threats, such as climate change, pandemics and terrorism, were almost unimaginable when the United Nations Charter was drafted. It’s no wonder Americans wonder why they must continue to bear undue burdens for a system designed for a world that no longer exists.
The question is what the rest of the world is going to do. For too long, multilateralism has been something provided by the United States and consumed by other countries. European countries took refuge under the security of the United States while criticizing its foreign policy. Developing countries demanded institutional reform while relying on American funds. Small states in the Caribbean invoked international law as a shield, but did little to enforce it.
If we truly value this system, we must demonstrate its value with resources, not just rhetoric.
A strong first step would be to recognize the reality and move the United Nations headquarters from New York. Why should the world body remain with countries that are withdrawing from many parts of it and building alternatives?
The transfer would signal that the international community intends to maintain multilateralism regardless of U.S. participation and is prepared to bear the costs of doing so. And there are many options for where to base the United Nations. Geneva and Vienna can provide neutrality. Nairobi and Rio de Janeiro will become the organizing centers of the Global South.
Island countries such as Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Jamaica, and Mauritius are also options. Such a choice would emphasize that this is now an institution for the weak, not the powerful.
If the world could mobilize trillions of dollars for war and relief, it could fund the relocation of command.
More fundamentally, the United Nations needs a new funding model. The United States provides about 22% of the regular budget and much more for peacekeeping. This dependency gave Washington enormous influence and made the organization hostage to U.S. domestic politics.
If we value multilateralism, we must close that gap. The European Union, China, Japan, the Gulf states and emerging economies must make contributions commensurate with their interests to a functioning international order. A diversified financial base would ensure survival and democratize global governance in a long-overdue way.
The urgency of these reforms is underlined by the ongoing crisis. An attack on Iran risks igniting a broader regional conflagration that could engulf Gulf states, disrupt global energy supplies, and send fragile economies into recession. The abduction of the Venezuelan president has destabilized Latin America and set a precedent that sovereign leaders are beyond the reach of unilateral military force.
Meanwhile, wars continue in Gaza and Sudan, and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo remains embroiled in conflict, with millions of displaced people straining the response capacity of neighboring countries. In each case, the UN Security Council has proven unable or unwilling to act, paralyzed by the very veto structure that privileges the strong over the weak.
A relocated and revitalized United Nations, broadly funded and no longer dependent on a single patron, will not solve these crises overnight. However, it is possible to act with higher legitimacy and lower moral selectivity.
Humanitarian corridors could be authorized without fear that the geopolitical interests of one member state would impede action. It could convene emergency meetings to stabilize energy prices, coordinate debt relief for countries brought to the brink by conflict-induced commodity shocks, and deploy peacekeeping missions that are independent of a country’s budgetary politics. The point is not that the reformed United Nations will be perfect. That is, the current system is structurally incapable of responding to emergencies that require collective action.
Each month of inaction widens the gap between the institution’s promises and its delivery, eroding the confidence of the most vulnerable countries that multilateralism is worth protecting in the first place.
Climate change structures also require action with special urgency. America’s withdrawal from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change threatens the Green Climate Fund, the Adaptation Fund, and the Loss and Damage Mechanism. For small island developing States and other countries vulnerable to climate change, these are more than abstractions: they are a lifeline.
There is limited space to build climate finance without relying on US participation, but it does exist. Europe needs to use its resources to demonstrate leadership on climate change. China, the world’s largest emitter, has the ability to become a major contributor if it wants to assert moral leadership.
For Caribbean countries, this transformation requires both humility and ambition. We’re humbled because we’ve relied on frameworks for so long that we’ve provided very little funding. We can be ambitious because we have 14 votes in the United Nations General Assembly, we have moral authority on the front lines of climate change, and we have a tradition of punching above our weight.
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) should propose a resolution on relocating its headquarters and funding reforms, convene like-minded countries, and strengthen the Caribbean Court of Justice as a regional anchor when global mechanisms reach an impasse. The blocs representing small island developing States, Africa, and other developing regions have the numbers to reshape governance if they act together.
The United States remains the world’s largest economy, the most powerful military, and home to many of the institutions, universities, businesses, and civil society organizations that drive global progress. Americans who believe in multilateralism remain large and influential. The door to new U.S. involvement must remain open.
But the rest of the world cannot wait forever for America’s domestic politics to be resolved. We must build institutions strong enough to function with or without U.S. participation.
(In 1945, a war-weary and generous America chose to build rather than retreat, and that choice shaped the world we inherited. In 2026, a different America made a different choice. We should accept it without resentment and recognize it as an invitation to finally take ownership of the international order we hold dear.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
