U.S. and allies must 'persuade countries, not dictate to them,' former UK PM Gordon Brown says

Former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday that the U.S. and other powerful nations must "persuade countries, not dictate to them" in an increasingly multipolar world.

Much of the conversation at this week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has focused on a breakdown of trust between populations and world leaders, and how to restore it.

Allianz CEO Oliver Bäte told CNBC Tuesday that an "increasing detachment of the political elite from the working class" was the "number one risk for our societies."

And Brown, who served as British prime minister from 2007 to 2010 after 10 years as chancellor of the exchequer under Tony Blair, said leaders needed to consider that they are operating in a "different world from where we were 10 or 20 years ago.

"It's no longer a unipolar world, it's multipolar, there are multiple centers of power. It's no longer neoliberal economics, it's more mercantilist economics, states doing their own thing, and protectionist trade policies have become 'in' and we've seen a retreat from globalization," Brown told CNBC on the sidelines of WEF.

"To get people to operate, you've got to recognize you're in a new world. America and all the big countries have got to persuade countries, they can't dictate to them, and we've got to think about how we can solve the individual problems — so famine in Africa, we've got war in Ukraine, we've got Gaza, we've got energy prices and the energy transition, climate change as a whole."

He added that leaders need to look at how individual nations can cooperate on each of these issues individually if any progress is to be made.

Brown earlier this month penned an op-ed outlining how close a little-known process of negotiations during his premiership in 2007