What to watch as Biden admin ‘re-engages’ with UN

US President Joe Biden has committed to multilateralism, but what path will his administration take at the UN?

The United States Senate is set to confirm President Joe Biden’s nominee for ambassador to the United Nations this week, a major step in the administration’s drive to take a multilateral approach to foreign policy and mend Washington’s relationship with the international body. While the country has held an outsized role at the UN since its inception in 1945 as the largest financial contributor to the organisation headquartered in New York City, relations sunk to a low point during former President Donald Trump’s term. But the US government’s closeness to the UN has historically “waxed and waned” at the will of domestic politics, particularly during the last 10 to 15 years, said Alanna O’Malley, chair of United Nations Studies in Peace and Justice at Leiden University in the Netherlands.