When Donald Trump bulldozed his way back into the Oval Office as US President, it was clear he was wasting no time.
On day one, with the dust barely settling in the Oval Office, Trump signed an unprecedented 26 Executive Orders and reversed 78 of his predecessor Joe Biden’s actions.
His policies are vintage Trump: a resounding no to environmental controls, ‘woke’ initiatives, and multi-lateral institutions like the World Health Organization.
At the same time, he has given an enthusiastic thumbs-up to pressuring neighbours with tariffs and jammed the door open for TikTok to stay in the US.
Yet buried under the flurry of announcements was another seismic move: Trump has frozen almost all US Foreign Development Assistance for at least three months.
The directive, issued via the State Department, only provides few exemptions, such as emergency food programs and military aid to Israel and Egypt, while the rest is up for review under the famous ‘America First’ doctrine.
This is not a minor decision. The US, as the world’s largest aid donor, allocated $68 billion to foreign aid in 2023. Trump’s sudden freeze has thrown officials and plans into chaos, leaving many programmes uncertain, from de-mining, to education and public health projects.
Trump’s instincts seem to reflect the mood of the moment. Across the globe, aid budgets are being slashed. In the past year, France, Holland, and Germany have all trimmed billions from their overseas development budgets.
Across the West, voters grappling with the cost-of-living crisis are questioning why scarce resources are being sent abroad. Struggling economies and mounting debt make aid budgets a soft target for officials looking to balance the books.
Back in the US, Elon Musk is on the hunt for a trillion dollars in federal government savings via the new Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE), which would make even the former UK austerity Chancellor George Osborne sweat.
There was a time when international aid enjoyed more support, even from the right. Republican US President George W. Bush’s earlier policies included announcing a massive 50% increase in foreign aid.
In the UK, Conservative PM David Cameron enshrined the 0.7% GDP target into law. But since then, enthusiasm for aid has waned.
While Cameron successor Theresa May held the line, subsequent administrations did not, and the merging of a dedicated Department for International Development with the Foreign Office further side-lined Aid spending.
Even with the arrival of an internationalist Labour government, the trend has not reversed. The UK continues to drift away from its previous commitment to the UN’s 0.7% GDP aid target, and more of the aid budget is being absorbed within the UK as part of asylum costs.
It is a pragmatic acknowledgement that overseas development no longer seems to be part of a vote winning recipe. It’s hard to see this trajectory changing anytime soon, with richer countries continuing to shrink aid budgets, only intervening reactively during major crisis for optics.
Aid advocates warn this is precisely the wrong time to pull back. Conflicts rage on in Sudan, Gaza, and Ukraine, to name just a few, and humanitarian tragedies demand urgent and long-term responses to save lives.
The covid pandemic showed how vulnerable global health systems are, while climate change continues to unleash devastating floods, wildfires, and droughts with increasing frequency.
If aid as a major policy platform is to survive, let alone thrive, advocates must listen to the donors and adapt to a sceptical audience.
They will need to demonstrate the tangible benefits that overseas aid provides to donor countries; however uncomfortably transactional it may feel and help move the often-vague expression of soft power to direct links with domestic priorities.
For instance, how supporting conflict zones today can prevent tomorrow’s refugee crises as well as reduce the threat of terrorism.
More thinking is also needed to address perceptions about corruption or wasteful projects.
New models to measure the return on investment of aid, coupled with bolder messaging, especially targeting audiences outside their comfort zone, could help build more confidence in the sector and shift the narrative and develop new political champions. Until then, international aid risks becoming the sacrificial lamb of domestic political expediency.
It’s a sobering reality in an increasingly inward-looking world.
