We Need an Atlantic Charter for the Post-coronavirus Era

In August 1941, Winston Churchill climbed aboard the USS Augusta, anchored off the southeast coast of Newfoundland, ready to talk with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who awaited him on deck. The British and American leaders began lengthy discussions about the shape of a postwar world. Their eight principles for “a better future” included self-determination, open trade, freedom of the seas, and a rejection of territorial aggression. The Atlantic Charter, as the statement was eventually called, was a precursor to many collective arrangements, including the United Nations, NATO, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

The Atlantic Charter may have seemed quite premature. After all, the United States was not even at war in August 1941, and Pearl Harbor was still four months away. Yet FDR and