Multilateralism in the Age of Trump

Under the recent Conservative dispensation in Ottawa, everything was pretty simple on foreign policy: speak loudly, often stridently, and carry not much of a stick. For the new Liberal government, everything is more complicated. Its electorate and the party membership expect something more. Early gestures—in keeping with the steady, optimistic tone Justin Trudeau projected during the last election—have been met with plaudits internationally. The second coming of Trudeaumania was on full display here in Japan during the prime minister’s May 2016 visit and he thereafter also adopted a new approach to China and at the United Nations General Assembly. Recent Canadian activism on Syria in the General Assembly, in the face of deadlock in the UN Security Council, also displays Canadian diplomatic creativity. Stephen Harper’s stern pronouncements on global dysfunction are not much missed. Even though some of them were insightful, nobody likes a scourge.

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