G20

The world is facing unprecedented health and economic crises that require a global solution. Governments have locked down their economies to contain the mounting death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic. With this response well underway, now is the time to move into a recovery effort.

If the wealthy countries cannot support measures to stave off a humanitarian crisis, the damage will run deeper than the resurgence of hunger and disease. The political repercussions will take the shape of civil strife, extremism, and mass migration. The G20 will do irreparable damage to social cohesion and international cooperation if it fails to act decisively.

The United States needs to lead in devising both immediate and systemic responses to the coronavirus challenge, but not alone. Leadership means neither diktat nor incantation of old formulas. It means using American convening power to adapt tested principles to new challenges, crystalizing friends and allies—transatlantic, transpacific and not forgetting hemispheric—around a common agenda.