A sweeping White House directive ordering the United States to withdraw from dozens of international organisations and treaties has reignited debate over whether President Donald Trump is repositioning the country for a more confrontational role on the global stage.
In a presidential memorandum signed this week, the administration instructed federal departments to begin withdrawing from international organisations, conventions, and treaties deemed “contrary to the interests of the United States”. The directive affects 66 bodies in total, including 31 entities linked to the United Nations, as well as a further 35 non-UN organisations.
While the memorandum stops short of withdrawing the United States from the United Nations itself, it represents one of the most extensive rollbacks of multilateral engagement in modern US history. Agencies have been ordered to halt participation and funding “to the maximum extent permitted by law”.
Concerns over the administration’s retreat from multilateral diplomacy have been sharpened by Trump’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric on territorial and security matters. In recent months, he has revived and escalated his long-standing interest in Greenland, repeatedly describing the Arctic island as strategically vital to US national security and refusing to rule out coercive measures to secure American control. Greenland is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO ally of the United States.
Speaking to , regional governance and election expert at the African Centre for Governance, Tendai Mbanje said Trump had not ruled out the use of force in relation to Greenland.
“On the Greenland issue, Trump’s push is not diplomatic but appears coercive. Floating military options fuels speculation that he is preparing for confrontation, not cooperation. This posture risks escalating tensions with NATO allies and destabilising Arctic security. If Donald Trump were to attack Greenland, NATO’s future and strength would face a severe crisis,” said Mbanje, who is also a governance and election expert attached to the University of Pretoria.
“Since Greenland is part of Denmark, a NATO ally, such aggression would shatter the alliance’s core principle of collective defence and trust among members. The credibility of NATO as a defensive pact would be undermined if its most powerful member turned against another, creating deep fractures within the alliance. European allies would likely rally to defend Denmark, isolating the US and weakening NATO’s deterrent power, while rivals like Russia and China could exploit the divisions.
“In essence, NATO’s survival depends on solidarity, and an internal attack would risk collapsing its unity and diminishing its global relevance,” he said.
Commenting on Washington’s sweeping withdrawal from key international institutions, Mbanje said the United States was stepping back from the global stage and reducing its voice in collective decision-making.
“Pulling out of all these platforms creates a vacuum that other powers will quickly fill, shifting the balance of influence and ultimately weakening US influence in the long term. Allies may feel abandoned, questioning America’s reliability in global cooperation,” he said.
“Issues like climate change, health and security need collective action. The US withdrawal weakens the global response. Finally, the US risks trading short-term sovereignty, canvassed in its ‘interests’, for a long-term loss of global leadership.
“History has always shown that there is a lifespan to global leadership and influence. The writing is on the wall — American influence, with the current leadership style, its days are numbered,” Mbanje said.
The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) declined to comment on Washington’s latest moves.
Political analyst and international relations expert Dr Gideon Chitanga, however, said he did not believe Trump was spoiling for an all-out war.
“I don’t think the US is preparing for war. The one major thing that I see is the realisation that the US cannot contest with the People’s Republic of China at the level of soft power in the context of an extremely right-wing ideological posture — conservative in a way, but different in its quest for a populist, racist and narrow definition and self-understanding of Washington’s interests, particularly under the Trump regime.
“In this context, international law or shared norms are not something that the US would seek to pursue, particularly globally shared norms. There is a way in which the Trump administration is ideologically proselytising, in the sense of spreading these particularist norms to other countries and leaders who would be willing to identify with and share the Trump governance posture,” said Chitanga.
He said the US’s withdrawal from international organisations had been a long time coming.
“There is no interest whatsoever within the Trump administration to either abide by shared norms or abide by international law. Ideologically, Trump and his government have been very clear that they do not share what we would call progressive ideas,” said Chitanga, a researcher at Maximilians-Universität München in Germany.
“In short, we are witnessing an adventurist, narrow-interested, hegemonic US pursuing exclusionary interests. We will have to see how this plays out, particularly where it concerns other parties and countries that also have their own interests and whose sovereignty and self-determination should legitimately be upheld. Hence the basis of diplomacy is peaceful engagement and cooperation under the UN Charter,” he said.
Among the most prominent bodies targeted in the latest withdrawals are the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the legal foundation of international climate cooperation, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which provides scientific assessments used by governments worldwide. The US is also set to withdraw from the UN Population Fund, UN Women, and the UN Conference on Trade and Development.
Outside the UN system, the directive names institutions involved in counter-terrorism cooperation, cyber governance, migration, biodiversity, democracy promotion and the rule of law. These include the Global Counterterrorism Forum, the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, and international bodies focused on environmental science and electoral integrity.
The White House has framed the move as an effort to protect US sovereignty and end what it describes as undue influence by international bureaucracies. Officials insist the policy is defensive in nature and aimed at restoring freedom of action in foreign and domestic policymaking.
However, analysts say the scale and scope of the withdrawals raise broader strategic questions about the direction of US foreign policy at a time of growing global instability.
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