What Should a City's Foreign Policy Look Like?

Three weeks before the presidential election, I wrote a piece for CityLab asking, “What Can a Foreign Minister do for a City?” Given early indications from the Trump administration on issues such as climate change and global engagement, perhaps it’s time to flip the question. What can cities do to create their own foreign policy?

The first article laid out four steps a foreign ministry might take to help cities engage on global challenges: supporting city-based networks, helping to deploy civic technology, working with counterpart ministries abroad to encourage vertical policy integration, and convening the global community to build momentum behind significant and widespread municipal challenges such as access to debt finance. I discussed some work that was ongoing at the U.S. Department of State and optimistically included other steps that would require more time to carry out.