Rory Stewart

Minus one, the G19.

And we'll come to that in a second, was hosted.

So when major global forums like the G20 or COP, because actually, extraordinarily, this week, we've also had the end of the climate summit in Brazil, end up

functioning because a group of middle powers keep the process alive, while the United States either disengages or actively undermines consensus.

How useful is these summits in shaping real global outcomes?

Are they still effective spaces for cooperation?

Or have they become platforms that master the fact that the real decisions are now being made outside formal multilateral settings?

Let me have a starter on you for this.

Essentially, since the Second World War, the whole multilateral system, this whole idea that instead of just

country A doing business with country B is replaced by a system where the whole world gets together and small countries and big countries agree rules, was underpinned by the United States.

It was the way that America, after 1945, as the kind of big hegemon, 40% of the global economy at the end of the Second World War, chose to run the world.

They didn't run it like the British Empire, which was bilateral.

They decided to create

The UN, the World Bank, the IMF, NATO, all this stuff, right?

It's going to be multilateral.

And my fear is that when the United States is removed from the system, the basic heart and engine of multilateralism collapses.

And the problem started actually earlier with your friend, George Bush, because...

When he comes in is when America leaves Kyoto on climate, when it gets out of some of the ballistic missile and biological weapons stuff, when it leaves the International Criminal Court.

That's already the beginning of America disentangling itself.

But by the time you're with Trump, as you say, he doesn't even turn up to the G20, despite the fact America is the next country to host the G20.