Mayors have always had one of the hardest — and most important — jobs. On any given day, mayors must make streets safer, prepare for extreme weather, attract jobs and investment, protect public health, earn residents’ trust and, increasingly, protect their communities from democratic backsliding.
At a time when many challenges landing on a mayor’s desk no longer stop at city limits, mayors need to learn from one another both at home and abroad. Yet a narrative has recently emerged that mayors and other local leaders are overstepping when they engage internationally — that building relationships with counterparts abroad amounts to a parallel foreign policy.
I see it differently. I have worked on both sides of this divide — as the first U.S. special representative for city and state diplomacy, inside Los Angeles City Hall as deputy mayor for international affairs and now as CEO of the Alliance for Local Leaders International (ALLIES), which helps local leaders learn from one another across borders.
Those experiences have shown me that the more responsibility mayors have for their residents’ everyday lives, the more important it is that they have the freedom and capacity to work with counterparts around the world. Doing so can create jobs, solve shared problems, foster better understanding of diasporas and enrich cultural life at home.
Chicago offers a useful example. Mayor Brandon Johnson recently led a mission to Rome alongside nearly four dozen business, civic and faith leaders. Beyond strengthening Chicago’s relationship with Pope Leo XIV, a Chicago native, the trip also gave the delegation an opportunity to learn from Rome’s experience with clean energy and innovative approaches to powering metro stops — an exchange of ideas that can directly benefit Chicagoans at home.
Chicago is hardly alone. In 2022, as the U.S. special representative for city and state diplomacy, I built a team to help mayors, governors and other local officials navigate international concerns. Over two-plus years, we connected with about 5,000 local leaders from all political parties and across the country, fielding questions ranging from helping constituents stranded overseas to boosting engagement with Ireland to determining whether someone claiming to be from the Chinese embassy actually was.
We provided many localities with customized foreign-direct-investment profiles and briefed hundreds on China’s aggressive local-level outreach, so leaders could engage with eyes open. In return, the State Department gained ground truth about what Americans actually cared about. We also saw how local ties could strengthen official bilateral relationships and how local leaders could advance practical cooperation on issues such as clean, affordable energy.
Now, at ALLIES, my team starts from a simple reality: Mayors are tackling challenges no city should face alone and that national governments aren’t always addressing quickly or effectively. That includes deploying artificial intelligence responsibly, preparing for extreme weather, protecting biodiversity and defending democratic institutions.
Given these challenges, I hear more mayors asking: Who has solved this problem, and what can we learn from them? Sometimes, another American city has the answer. Sometimes, it’s one overseas.
If Rotterdam improved flood resilience, shouldn’t New Orleans learn from it? If Seoul has modernized city services, shouldn’t American cities study that? If Warsaw has strengthened civic participation, shouldn’t that inform communities here?
There’s a straightforward, overlooked economic logic too. Mayors lead trade missions to open markets for local businesses, and economic development offices compete for foreign investment such as a factory or headquarters. Most recently, 11 American cities hosted World Cup matches and benefited from the resulting relationships, cultural connections and tourist dollars. If America wants to compete globally, our cities need more international expertise and better coordination.
But international issues also arrive at City Hall whether mayors seek them out or not. The Israel-Hamas war sparked protests and tension in cities nationwide, including Chicago. COVID-19 showed how quickly a public health crisis crosses borders. Cyberattacks can take down municipal water systems from thousands of miles away. Migration reshapes schools, shelters and budgets.
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Mayors on the front lines don’t get to opt out simply because these issues originate elsewhere. They turn to one another because they have to.
The same holds for democracy. We are not immune from the worldwide rise of authoritarianism — and mayors need each other’s help. The Pact of Free Cities emerged in 2019 because local leaders in Central Europe were confronting autocrats in their national governments. As those governments centralized power and weakened independent institutions, city governments became some of the last places where transparency, everyday freedoms and accountability survived.
Today, local officials in America face similar pressures, including federal attacks on leaders, their residents and their funding. Learning from cities that have navigated these pressures can help American leaders govern more effectively.
To be sure, a city’s diplomacy should be transparent: Residents deserve to know why their mayor is traveling, what partnerships their city has entered and what taxpayers get in return. But we can demand that cities engage wisely without making it harder for them to engage at all.
President Donald Trump’s administration closed the State Department unit I ran after my departure. Restoring that capacity would mean giving local leaders the information and expertise they need to navigate foreign governments’ outreach, understand the risks and opportunities, and make smarter decisions. China’s increasingly sophisticated local diplomacy efforts alone make the case for maintaining that expertise.
In a rapidly changing world, helping local leaders learn from one another across borders may just be one of the most practical investments in stronger communities, more resilient cities and a more competitive America.
If we fail to equip our cities for the world that is coming, we risk surrendering one of our greatest sources of American strength.
Nina Hachigian is CEO of Alliance for Local Leaders International (ALLIES). She was the first U.S. special representative for city and state diplomacy and an ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
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