The Role of International Cooperation in Advancing Global Welfare

Why American Leadership Requires Engagement, Not Isolation

Campaign Briefing: Foreign Policy and Global Engagement

2028 Presidential Campaign of Martin A. Ginsburg, RN

July 28, 2026

I. The Record on Isolation

The United States has attempted isolationism before. The historical record is not ambiguous about the results. Between the two world wars, American withdrawal from international engagement — the rejection of the League of Nations, the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, the refusal to coordinate with European democracies on the emerging fascist threat — did not protect American interests. It deferred the confrontation until the confrontation became catastrophic.

The lesson is not that America should police the world or subordinate its interests to international institutions. The lesson is that disengagement does not eliminate the problems that engagement was addressing. It simply removes American influence from the process by which those problems develop and either resolve themselves or explode.

II. What International Cooperation Actually Accomplishes

It creates and maintains the rules-based international order that has governed global trade, security, and diplomacy since 1945. That order has produced the longest period without great power war in modern history. It has enabled the global economic integration that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty — including, significantly, American living standards that depend on global supply chains and export markets.

It provides the burden-sharing that allows the United States to maintain global influence at a cost lower than unilateral action would require. NATO allies contribute to the collective defense of shared interests. International institutions provide diplomatic channels that absorb conflicts before they require military responses. Trade agreements create rules that protect American producers from discriminatory practices.

None of these arrangements are costless. None are perfectly fair. All require negotiation, compromise, and occasional frustration. The alternative — unilateral action in every domain — is more expensive, less effective, and ultimately less sustainable for a democratic government that must justify its expenditure to its citizens.

III. The Standard for American Engagement

This campaign supports international engagement that is honest about American interests and honest about the interests of partners — that negotiates from strength but does not mistake belligerence for strength, that upholds commitments because reliability is a strategic asset, and that treats international institutions not as constraints on American power but as multipliers of it.

The measure of American leadership is not how often we act alone. It is how often we produce outcomes that serve American interests and the interests of the communities of nations on which American prosperity and security depend.

Martin A. Ginsburg, RN

2028 Presidential Campaign of Martin A. Ginsburg, RN