This week, I watched New York’s East River swell with armed speedboats as cars, ferries, and planes ground to a halt for President Donald Trump’s motorcade to the United Nations General Assembly’s 81st session. Stranded temporarily, I had plenty of time to consider Trump's winner-takes-all rejection of the United Nations.

And yet, as UNGA81 continues, this dismissive bluster aims to hide the global ripple effects of a crumbling world order. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development oil inventories are at their lowest in decades as the US and Israel continue strikes on Iran, and as Russia continues to wage its war on Ukraine. The real costs continue to fall on those with the least cushion, including the 50 million people the World Food Program says will be pushed into acute hunger. While only 15% of the world’s population lives in what we call the Global North, that 15% continues to drive the greatest of climate and economic catastrophes imposed on the Global Majority.

Last year, the United Nations General Assembly felt like a descent into surrealism. This year, the world order is fully under attack. In the face of health and climate crises and unilateral wars, we can’t afford to ignore internationalism or to quietly retreat from institutions meant to buffer those most at risk.

Trump may have usurped the podium at UNGA to malign multilateralism, but we're doing the work beyond the podium.

This does not mean wholesale protection of multilateralism as we know it. From foundation leaders to UN officials to civil society, we hear calls for "reimagining" the UN and global governance. Indeed, we cannot build a future fit for purpose for us all if we don’t bring the lifelines we need—from the International Criminal Court to the Paris Agreement.

That is what makes this week so critical. UNGA takes place in the shadow of elections in Russia that are anything but free or fair and heading into midterms in the United States that, while free, rest under the pressure cooker of strong and clear cross-border efforts to attack open societies. If internationalism is to survive, we have to make the case for multilateral cooperation and global funding. Internationalism is the only way we can see ourselves through the crises that we’re facing.

Crises from the Covid-19 pandemic to the risks of unregulated AI have shown us that if we go at it alone or try to address just one country or one policy at a time, we will invariably fail all. We cannot withstand the polycrises we face if we don’t consider ourselves intrinsically linked to movements around the world. And philanthropy's purpose is precisely to fund what markets won't.

We—those who seek to protect human dignity and rights—are not alone. Autocratic leaders, who bask in impunity and lambast institutions like the UN, have a secret: They are the ultimate internationalists, under the guise of nationalism.

The irony is that autocratic forces have mobilized with one another, carefully, strategically, and across borders, over the last 20 years. They have trained each other, learned how to keep and barter power, and worked with the very same billionaires to mobilize breathtaking amounts of money to dismantle and destroy progressive policies and strip away our basic civil and political rights. "Make America Great Again" and "Russia United" are playing by the same authoritarian playbook to keep the opposition in check.

They have another secret: They need us, too. Leaders like Trump and........

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