Is Trump's "America First" policy special or part of a general trend in the US relationship with multilateralism?

The 2025 MSC Report by the Munich Security Conference is out now and I am delighted to have contributed some insights from my ExitUS Dataset. My data reveals that:

1. the US relationship with multilateralism has been consistently ambivalent since the end of the Cold War;

2. US engagement in new multilateral initiatives has become the exception and clearly declined since the "unipolar moment" in the 1990s;

3. US disengagement from multilateral cooperation under Trump 1.0 was less exceptional than often assumed. US withdrawal of support from international agreements and organizations reached similar levels during the governments of Clinton or Bush Jr. and usually peaked when Republicans controlled Congress.

For stakeholders of multilateralism, these patterns indicate that US withdrawal is not a new or Trump-specific phenomenon. As new multilateral initiatives by the US have become rare, they must defend existing institutions: They must try to keep the US at the table or substitute for US support where it disengages!

Thanks a lot to the Munich Security Conference team for this opportunity to share insights from my research and especially to Leonard Schütte for the stimulating discussions about the future of multilateralism in times of hashtag#multipolarization! I am looking forward to continue this exchange at hashtag#MSC2025!Based on our research about negative institutional power and institutional contestation, we argue that Trump 1.0 only escalated attacks against those institutions in which the U.S. lacked control. This strategic pattern allows us to derive concrete predictions about in which institutions Trump 2.0 will voice reform demands, engage in subversion, or withdraw membership.