As G-20 leaders gather next week in Rio de Janeiro, Donald Trump’s big win in the U.S. election has raised questions about the future of multilateralism. With his “America First” message, Trump is anything but a poster boy for the cause. And a new administration will take the helm against a backdrop of increasing paralysis at hallowed international organizations such as the United Nations and World Trade Organization. Multilateralism seems to be in big trouble.

But this distrust of multilateralism also comes in the context of decreasing unipolarity in the international system. Taken together, these factors may open the door to a revitalized G-20. It will take a new bargain between the United States and the global south to get there.

As G-20 leaders gather next week in Rio de Janeiro, Donald Trump’s big win in the U.S. election has raised questions about the future of multilateralism. With his “America First” message, Trump is anything but a poster boy for the cause. And a new administration will take the helm against a backdrop of increasing paralysis at hallowed international organizations such as the United Nations and World Trade Organization. Multilateralism seems to be in big trouble.

But this distrust of multilateralism also comes in the context of decreasing unipolarity in the international system. Taken together, these factors may open the door to a revitalized G-20. It will take a new bargain between the United States and the global south to get there.

The G-20 is a compact, informal body of only 19 countries (plus the European Union and the African Union) yet represents the three main sets of states in the international system: the global west (the United States and its core allies), what I have called the “global east” (Russia and China), and the global south (the vast, essentially unaligned region stretching from Latin America to Southeast Asia and the Pacific). With the global west and the global east in a state of systemic rivalry, the global south is the center........

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