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Editedby

JillianGoodman

P

together,quarrel,andultimatelyresolveissuesthat

gobeyondborders.Atfirstthediscussionwaspri-

marilyoneconomics,buttheagendasquicklygrew

toencompasshumanrights,internationalsecurity,

globalhealth,andclimatechange.Thejointstate-

mentofvaluestypicallyproducedatoneofthese

gatherings, known as the summit communiqué,

lacks the force of law, or really any force beyond

symbolism. But what it signifies—multilateralism,

globalization, international understanding—has

formed the foundation of the world order in what

we like to think of as the modern era.

That foundation is beginning to crack. In the

age of the strongman leader embodied by Russia’s

Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan,

and especially since the election of U.S. President

Donald Trump, disrupting international norms has

become a norm in itself. After last year’s G-7 meet-

ing in Canada, Trump blew up the communiqué he’d

agreed to mere hours earlier, reacting to a perceived

By 2 a.m. on June 29, officials locked away in the

negotiating room at the Group of  20 summit in

Osaka, Japan, were starting to fall asleep. They’d

been working without a break for two days, subsist-

ing on pasta with shrimp paste and other unpalat-

able fusion fare, and yet were no closer to drafting

a communiqué that all the world leaders present

could accept. As the fatigue set in, the “Sherpas,” as

these officials are known, decided the only way to

stay awake was to conduct the rest of the meeting

standing up. Even that didn’t resolve the impasse.

Forums such as the G-20 and the Aug. 24-26

meeting of the G-7 in France were first dreamed up

in the 1970s as a place for foreign officials to come

○ G-7 host Emmanuel Macron

has vowed to “innovate,” but the

age of multilateralism is over

BloombergBusinessweek August26, 2019

Practicing th