Sachs: US has shifted from global leader to free-rider

In an extended rumination on the state of international cooperation, Jeffrey Sachs offers this gloomy analysis of the U.S. trajectory: The US has shifted rapidly from global leadership to that kind of free riding, seeming to bypass the stage of global cooperation. Thus, the US currently excuses itself from global cooperation on climate change, IMF ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

In an extended rumination on the state of international cooperation, Jeffrey Sachs offers this gloomy analysis of the U.S. trajectory:

In an extended rumination on the state of international cooperation, Jeffrey Sachs offers this gloomy analysis of the U.S. trajectory:

The US has shifted rapidly from global leadership to that kind of free riding, seeming to bypass the stage of global cooperation. Thus, the US currently excuses itself from global cooperation on climate change, IMF financial-bailout packages, global development-assistance targets, and other aspects of international collaboration in the provision of global public goods. The weaknesses of global policy cooperation are especially worrisome in view of the gravity of the challenges that must be met.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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