Can International Law Chart a New Course for U.S. Foreign Policy?

The United States stands at a moment of genuine reckoning about how it will conduct itself in the world. For four years, American foreign policy operated on a principle of maximum flexibility—the idea that national interest is best served by keeping hands free, by rejecting the constraints of international agreements and institutions, by treating multilateral frameworks as obstacles rather than assets. Now, as that era closes, a quieter conversation is taking shape among diplomats, legal scholars, and foreign policy thinkers: What if the opposite were true? What if binding oneself to international law—to shared rules, to transparent processes, to institutions that constrain not just America but every nation—actually strengthened rather than weakened American power?

The question sounds abstract until you consider what it means in practice. The Trump administration's approach to foreign policy was built on the premise that the United States is strongest when it acts alone, when it can withdraw from agreements on a whim, when it answers to no authority but its own judgment. This meant pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, abandoning the Paris climate accord, rejecting the International Criminal Court, and treating traditional alliances as transactional relationships to be renegotiated at will. The logic was straightforward: why tie your own hands? Why accept constraints that other nations might not respect? Why submit to institutions that could limit your options?

But proponents of a rules-based approach argue this logic inverts the actual sources of American strength. They contend that international law, properly understood, is not a constraint on American power but a multiplier of it. When the United States commits to transparent rules—when it agrees to be bound by the same frameworks it asks others to follow—it gains something more valuable than short-term tactical flexibility: it gains legitimacy. It gains the ability to build coalitions, to rally allies, to make other nations want to cooperate rather than merely comply. It gains the moral authority to call out violations by adversaries, because it cannot be credibly accused of hypocrisy. It gains the ability to shape the international order rather than simply dominating it through force.

This is not naive idealism. It is a calculation about how power actually works in a world where no single nation can solve its problems alone. Climate change does not respect borders. Pandemics do not negotiate. Nuclear proliferation does not stop at the edge of unilateral declarations. The problems that will define the next generation of American foreign policy are inherently multilateral. They require cooperation, coordination, and shared commitment to rules that everyone, including the United States, will follow.

The practical stakes are substantial. A return to international law frameworks would mean rejoining institutions the Trump administration abandoned, recommitting to treaties that constrain American action but also constrain adversaries, and accepting that sometimes American interests are best served by accepting limits on American power. It would mean treating alliances not as temporary conveniences but as enduring commitments. It would mean accepting that legitimacy—the belief among other nations that American power is exercised fairly and according to shared principles—is itself a form of power.

What remains unclear is whether the next administration will embrace this vision or whether the pull toward unilateral action will prove too strong. The choice is not between idealism and realism. It is between two different theories of how American power works best: one that sees strength in freedom from constraint, and one that sees strength in the ability to shape the rules that constrain everyone. The answer will reverberate through decades of American foreign policy, determining not just how the United States acts but how the world responds to American action.