BRUSSELS: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took aim at China, Iran, Russia and others on Tuesday for violating numerous treaties and multi-state agreements, and he questioned whether many pillars of international trade and diplomacy are still relevant.

Pompeo said the Trump administration is no longer willing to accept such transgressions and is acting to reform institutions that have formed the basis of the post-World War II global order. He said a lack of American and European leadership over the last 30 years had contributed to the malaise.

“After the Cold War ended, we allowed this liberal order to begin to corrode: It failed us, and it failed you,” he said in a speech to the German Marshall Fund in Brussels.

He lamented that conventional wisdom had concluded that “the more treaties we sign, the safer we supposedly are” and “the more bureaucrats we have, the better the job gets done.” Pompeo said organisations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are no longer doing the jobs they were created to do and are in dire need of change.

He also challenged the validity of the International Criminal Court and suggested the World Trade Organi­sa­tion is not upholding its own rules as they relate to China. Russia, he said, is violating key arms control treaties and undermining the sovereignty of its neighbours, while Iran is flouting UN Security Council resolutions. China, Iran and Russia all deny the charges, which the US makes frequently.

“International bodies must help facilitate cooperation that bolsters the security and values of the free world, or they must be reformed or eliminated,” Pompeo said. “When treaties are broken, the violators must be confronted, and the treaties must be fixed or discarded. Words should mean something.” The Trump administration has been accused by friends and foes alike of attacking the international order with its unilateral approach to many issues. It has withdrawn from the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal, the UN’s top human rights and educational agencies and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal with Pacific Rim nations.

But Pompeo rejected that criticism and said the US under President Donald Trump would restore its leadership by calling out countries that have exploited loopholes and weaknesses in these institutions as well as the unwillingness of the West to take action for their own gain. And, he argued that Trump is forging change necessary to preserve the liberal order.

“Under President Trump, we are not abandoning international leadership or our friends in the international system,” he said. “We are acting to preserve, protect and advance an open, just, transparent and free world of sovereign states. This project will require actual, not pretend, restoration of the liberal order among nations.” Pompeo is in Brussels for a meeting of Nato foreign ministers. He called on the allies to work together “to strengthen what is already the greatest military alliance in history.”

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2018