BRUSSELS — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took aim at China, Iran, Russia and others on Tuesday for violating numerous treaties and multistate agreements, and he questioned whether many pillars of international trade and diplomacy are still relevant.
Pompeo said the Trump administration is no longer willing to accept such transgressions and is acting to reform institutions that have formed the basis of the post-World War II global order. He said a lack of American and European leadership over the last 30 years had contributed to the malaise.
“After the Cold War ended, we allowed this liberal order to begin to corrode: It failed us, and it failed you,” he said in a speech to the German Marshall Fund in Brussels.
He lamented that conventional wisdom had concluded that “the more treaties we sign, the safer we supposedly are” and “the more bureaucrats we have, the better the job gets done.”
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