Whatever happened to the rules-based world order?

Pacific Reflections By Gabriel McCoard

 This past month brought yet another episode of violence to the American political landscape, and with it, anxiety and nightmares about freedom of expression and whether there even is an American constitutional order.

I have nothing to say about it that hasn’t already been said, other than Charlie Kirk’s shooting came one day before the Sept. 11 anniversary, the quintessential dagger to the heart of American identity and what it means to be a citizen. Or, to channel Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, what truths America now holds to be self-evident.

I write this on the eve of the 80^th meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. By the time this goes to press, it will have come and gone. While there’s not much on the surface to connect these events, they are both part of Trump World 2.0: telling signs of a world order he envisions, which looks remarkably like world orders of the past.

I’ve never followed the general assembly. It veers too heavily toward a debate club than a problem solver. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume the UN is a valuable entity, which I believe it is, despite, or because of, its structural limits. The real work of such a body doesn’t happen in front of television cameras. In fact, I’m becoming a disciple of the fiscal order. Knowing where the money comes from, and how you can dole it out, decides whether you have an "order" with a capital O.

Over the past several months, the U.S. has upended the current Multilateral-ish World Order. This is not an astute observation; everyone is saying it. Ending USAID, gutting the State Department, pulling out of the Paris Agreement, levying tariffs (against partners, no less), splintering NATO, going after immigrants, adopting a McKinley-inspired push for territory and hollowing out the U.S. presence at the UN, are all promises Trump made.

I’m sure somewhere in China a bureaucrat is asking what happened to the “rules-based international order,” which just a few months ago the West was fond of citing.

Let’s hone in on the Pacific and whether the U.S. can agree with itself on anything it’s doing there. From opening and shutting embassies, to making promises and then obscuring it under layers of bureaucratic largess, figuring out what COFA promise is funded through which mechanism becomes a Sisyphean task.

Which returns us to USAID.

My personal prediction is that USAID will find a new life in the not-too-distant future. It serves as a conduit for too many vital services: currency stabilization, market maker for the American farmer, not to mention the indebtedness—literal and figurative—and alleviation of famine. Even the strictest ideologue in Trump’s circle will inevitably acknowledge a certain pragmatism in the agency's function.

But it will be a far different organization from what Trump 2.0 found in January 2025, and that will not be entirely bad. American institutions have been dangerously close to letting their self-avowed mission nobility cloud their own vision.

I mention this because the Pacific islands are the most aid-dependent region of the world. USAID has been the puppet master behind much of American diplomacy and the U.S. military interest in the region has not been higher since Marine blood stained the ridges of Peleliu. 

After 30-plus years of COFA-led development, progress is a mixed bag.

The humanitarian disaster of Truk Lagoon persists while Palau has seen prosperity in the form of the Sovereign Resort.

Outmigration to the U.S. continues, even as the region relies on incoming labor. It is the most perplexing mismatch I have ever seen, in scale if not in practice. Guam and Hawaii bear testament to this.

Despite our most optimistic visions, development is a shifting philosophy of what we want the world to be, and  it’s not necessarily aimed at improving the human condition.

Each nation’s development of another has been for its own purpose. Religious missionaries were out to civilize the natives. The British and Dutch East India Companies, with their own armies, were out to extract raw materials for their own markets. The Cold War’s great-power export of doctrine was meant to prevent the opponent from doing the same. These are hardly my own observations, but the idea has sticking power. 

Prosperity cannot come from outside. Sure, other nations, exchange rates, and preferential trade treatment can hinder or help, but rarely will an economy be imported. World Bank consultants did not turn Singapore into a global financial powerhouse.

Whether Micronesian development will have an island face or serve as a great-power bulkhead remains to be seen, as does the question of whether Trump 2.0 is leaving an influence void that China has the desire or ability to fill.

And what of the American Order, both for itself and for the world? This is what I’ll be thinking about. I might even watch some of the proceedings of the UN General Assembly.

Gabriel McCoard is an attorney who previously worked in Palau and Chuuk State. Send feedback to gabrieljmccoard@hotmail.com.

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