Former United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power has spoken out about a backsliding on multilateralism, saying it is “mindless and self-defeating” to refuse to work with other nations when confronted with global problems.

Responding to a question from Devex during the Aurora Dialogues summit in Yerevan, Armenia, she said “it's very hard to think of a single problem that one can deal with without a multilateral solution in 2018,” including climate change, peace and security, and humanitarian crises.

Since taking office in January 2017, Obama’s successor, President Donald Trump, has pulled out of a number of multilateral agreements, including the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Iran nuclear deal. He has also cut funding from several U.N. agencies and proposed cuts to others, including the U.N. Population Fund, which lost its second-largest donor as part of U.S. funding cuts for sexual and reproductive health and rights; the U.N. Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, from which the U.S. withdrew in October; and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees which the U.S. withheld funding from over demands for reform. After much speculation, however, the administration backed the World Bank’s recent capital increase.

Power said “it goes without saying” that multilateral solutions are required to tackle issues such as climate change, and to garner “the kind of economic leverage we needed to bring Iran to the table.” She added that even issues that may look domestic are often transnational in some sense.

Read the full article about multilateralism by Jessica Abrahams at Devex International Development.