Zohran Mamdani’s Internationalism Is Not an Afterthought

As the dust settles on New York’s mayoral election, the international impact of Zohran Mamdani’s victory has become clear: Mamdani didn’t just win a race; it redefined the meaning of local politics in a global city.

New York City is not only the seat of international diplomacy, home to vibrant migrant communities and a major tourism hub. Through its municipal partnerships, growing cultural production, and financial sector, New York City also exerts outsized influence on the world, and not always for good.

Throughout his political career in New York, Mamdani has both celebrated and interrogated his city’s global footprint. As a member of the New York State Assembly, he introduced legislation to prevent New York-based nonprofits from funding the occupation of Palestine, while joining South Asian members of the New York City Council in denouncing the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In his mayoral campaign, Mamdani was careful to focus on the portfolio issues that united his broad coalition. But international solidarity played a crucial, if more discreet, role in the campaign. He engaged immigrant communities across the five boroughs in their own languages, including Urdu, Spanish and Arabic. In his victory speech on election night, he spoke directly to them: “I’m talking about Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties, yes, aunties. »

The new Mamdani administration now has the opportunity to turn sentiment into effective policy and transform the New York Office of International Affairs into an instrument of international solidarity – at a time when the Trump White House is escalating its attacks on migrant rights, international law and the multilateral system in general.

New York City has a rich tradition of municipal internationalism. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, for example, understood that the city’s international role was both moral and material. Born into a family of Jewish and Italian immigrants, La Guardia worked as an interpreter for newcomers at Ellis Island, where he worked in Italian, Yiddish, German and Croatian. In Congress, before becoming mayor, he opposed the radical anti-migrant policies of the Immigration Act of 1924 and its “constant obsession with Anglo-Saxon superiority.”

Once elected mayor, La Guardia used his office to denounce the rise of fascist movements in the 1930s and to protect democracy in his country. He regularly recorded messages in Italian supporting the anti-fascist partisan revolt for broadcast on radio throughout Italy from 1942 to 1944 and personally led fierce attacks against “that swine Hitler” at anti-Nazi rallies of tens of thousands in New York. “To be against Hitler is to be for the German people,” La Guardia said in a pre-war speech in 1934, calling for a boycott of German products, “To be against Hitler is to be for the peace of the world. To be against Hitler is not to allow conditions that civilization will not accept.”

Half a century later, Mayor David Dinkins revived this tradition. Under his leadership, New York became a crucial node in the global movement against South African apartheid. Under Dinkins’ leadership, the city disinvested more than $500 million from companies doing business in South Africa and even established incentives for financial institutions that pressured the South African government to adopt anti-apartheid reforms.

Dinkins also used the symbolic power of internationalism to build a common front with emerging progressive leaders in South Africa and Haiti, just as he fought to make racial justice tangible in Harlem and Brooklyn. In 1992, Dinkins rallied 25,000 New Yorkers, largely Caribbean, in Central Park to support the Rev. Jean-Betrand Aristide, the popular former president of Haiti and liberation theologian, who was ousted in a right-wing military coup. Dinkins also hosted Nelson Mandela after his release from prison and later toured South Africa at Mandela’s personal invitation. “People say I’ve come a long way from home,” Dinkins said upon his arrival in South Africa, “And it’s true: I’ve come a long way. But today I’m finally home.”

The Mamdani administration can also look to foreign cities for inspiration for a renewed and strengthened Office of International Affairs. Under Mayor Ada Colau, for example, Barcelona reorganized its international relations department to transform the values ​​of the “City of Rights” into international policy. She forged partnerships on affordable housing, feminist politics and participatory democracy, shared expertise with European, Latin American and African cities and suspended formal relations with Tel Aviv due to Israel’s systematic human rights violations.

Mamdani can learn from these examples not only to assert a principle of international solidarity, but also to advance its core agenda of affordability. By building bridges to new sister cities, for example, New York City can find concrete solutions to its acute cost of living crisis: public housing in Vienna, public grocery store models in Greenland or Sri Lanka, or bold plans to curb car traffic and support active transportation from Paris.

The current constellation of sister cities reflects decades of ad hoc decision-making, missed opportunities and outdated priorities. Cities like Jerusalem in Israel are still considered close allies, while natural partners with large migrant populations like Mexico City, Kingston or Quito remain at arm’s length. These relationships can be evaluated and, if necessary, restructured to align with the administration’s agenda on behalf of all New Yorkers.

Even Mayor Eric Adams recognized this opportunity. During his tenure, New York expanded its sister city agreements to include both Bridgetown, Barbados, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Mamdani can now go even further. With Mexico City, New York could establish concrete policy exchanges around its universal retirement program, integrated and community-based public safety, and the expansion of public housing. With Toronto as Canada’s economic engine, progressive Mayor Olivia Chow is building thousands of new rent-controlled, off-market homes, rolling out programs to give schoolchildren free breakfast and lunch, and investing hundreds of millions of dollars in public transit.

However, the city twinning program is only one of the instruments available to the New York Office of International Affairs to forge effective solidarity with the world at large. The office currently hosts a junior ambassador program to train students in the practice of diplomacy; Mamdani could expand the program to support international exchanges that train a new generation of solidarity activists. New York City hosts more consulates than any U.S. city outside of Washington, DC; the Mamdani administration can use its consular engagement program as a vehicle for policy coordination or migrant rights advocacy.

But to do this, international affairs cannot be viewed as a mere afterthought. Too often, international portfolios are awarded as consolation prizes to scorned political allies — or worse, as in the case of outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, they can become porous avenues for promoting special interests abroad.

With a more thoughtful approach from New York’s Office of International Affairs – and a proper action plan for governing it – Mamdani can turn the page on the corruption of the Adams administration, resist the brutality of the Trump White House, and transform New York City from a playground for the global elite into a center of true solidarity with all workers.

The world is already looking to Mamdani’s leadership. If he empowers his Office of International Affairs to act decisively – to align solidarity with the needs of New Yorkers – he can once again transform the cause of global justice into a practice of local governance.