The United States has helped create and lead many international organizations (IOs). Yet in the last six years, the US announced its withdrawal from several IOs including the World Health Organization, UNESCO, and the Universal Postal Union. Do Americans care about US withdrawals from IOs? When do Americans support withdrawing from IOs and support candidates who propose this? We argue that Americans’ support for multilateralism tends to divide along party lines, and that IO withdrawal can activate those preferences. We also argue that framing an IO withdrawal as benefiting US national interests can make Americans more likely to favor IO exit. Data from four US survey experiments during the 2016–2020 Trump administration support these arguments. Democrats tend to oppose IO withdrawals while Republicans tend to support them. Further, results show that IO withdrawal (and how it is framed) affects candidate choice and policy support. This suggests that announcing IO withdrawal can be used to rally domestic electoral support. Still, the data also show that a large proportion of the US public values remaining in IOs, even when IOs are imperfect or challenging. In these cases, we note that sunk cost fallacies, status quo bias, and loss aversion may pose friction points for supporting withdrawal. Our findings have important implications for research on public opinion about international cooperation, backlash against IOs, and their life cycles.

美国帮助创建并领导了许多国际组织（IO）。然而在过去六年里，美国宣布退出世界卫生组织、联合国教科文组织和万国邮政联盟等多个国际组织。美国人关心美国从国际组织中撤资吗？美国人什么时候支持退出IO并支持提出这一建议的候选人？我们认为，美国人对多边主义的支持往往会因党派分歧而出现分歧，而国际组织的退出可以激活这些偏好。我们还认为，将 IO 退出视为有利于美国国家利益可能会让美国人更有可能支持 IO 退出。 2016-2020 年特朗普政府期间四项美国调查实验的数据支持了这些论点。民主党人倾向于反对撤回IO，而共和党人则倾向于支持。此外，结果表明，IO 撤回（及其框架）会影响候选人的选择和政策支持。这表明宣布退出IO可以用来争取国内选举支持。尽管如此，数据还显示，美国公众的很大一部分价值观仍然停留在国际组织上，即使国际组织不完善或具有挑战性。在这些情况下，我们注意到沉没成本谬误、现状偏见和损失厌恶可能会造成支持退出的摩擦点。我们的研究结果对于有关国际合作、反对国际组织的强烈反对及其生命周期的公众舆论研究具有重要意义。