From Bretton Woods to Trump: Stitching and Unravelling the Fabric of Global Cooperation

8th January 2026

In July 1944, as World War II neared its end, delegates from 44 nations gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Their mission was ambitious: to design a new international economic order that would prevent the chaos of the interwar years and foster stability in the post‑war world.

The Bretton Woods Agreement created two cornerstone institutions:

The International Monetary Fund (IMF): tasked with stabilizing exchange rates, providing short‑term financial assistance, and ensuring monetary cooperation.

The World Bank (then the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development): designed to finance reconstruction in war‑torn Europe and support long‑term development projects worldwide.

The system also established a framework of fixed exchange rates, anchored by the U.S. dollar's convertibility into gold. For decades, this arrangement underpinned global trade and cemented America's role as the architect and guarantor of international finance.

The Post‑War Fabric of Multilateralism
Bretton Woods was more than a financial pact. It symbolized a philosophy: that nations could stitch together their interests into a fabric of cooperation, balancing sovereignty with collective stability. Over time, this fabric expanded to include the United Nations, climate treaties, human rights councils, and specialized agencies.

For the United States, leadership in these institutions was not charity — it was strategy. By shaping the rules, America secured influence, markets, and allies.

Trump's 2026 Withdrawals
Fast‑forward to January 2026. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum ordering U.S. withdrawal from 66 international organizations, including 31 UN bodies and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — the treaty underpinning the Paris Agreement.

The rationale was blunt:

Waste and inefficiency: Trump argued many organizations were redundant or mismanaged.

Sovereignty: He claimed global bodies constrained U.S. independence.

Economic burden: Contributions were portrayed as draining taxpayer resources.

Critics countered that this move unravels the very fabric woven at Bretton Woods. By stepping back, the U.S. risks ceding influence to rivals like China and Russia, who are eager to shape global rules in America's absence.

Bretton Woods system
The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial relations among 44 countries, including the United States, Canada, Western European countries, and Australia,[1] after the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement until the Jamaica Accords in 1976. The Bretton Woods system was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent states. The Bretton Woods system required countries to guarantee convertibility of their currencies into U.S. dollars with the dollar convertible to gold bullion for foreign governments and central banks. It envisioned greater cooperation among countries in order to prevent future competitive devaluations, and thus established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to monitor exchange rates and lend reserve currencies to countries with balance of payments deficits. According to Barry Eichengreen, the Bretton Woods system operated successfully due to three factors: "low international capital mobility, tight financial regulation, and the dominant economic and financial position of the United States and the dollar."
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