Decisions made during the first weeks of Donald Trump’s second term have raised many alarm bells, and international cooperation has been no exception. The new administration has been quick to criticise and distance itself from USAID, the independent agency responsible for distributing the bulk of US non-military foreign assistance, especially in the economic, agricultural, health, humanitarian, and public governance areas. USAID provides services directly – US global health programmes, focused on combating AIDS and malaria, have saved more than 35 million lives worldwide over the past two decades – but its work also contributes to improving key information systems, such as the impacts of climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With more than $40 billion, USAID activities accounted for 40% of global official development assistance (ODA) last year. This is a significant figure, yet it accounts for less than 1 per cent of the US budget. The dismantling of the agency takes place within a broader context of change in US foreign policy, as evidenced by the withdrawals from the Paris Agreement and the WHO, the announcements of possible reductions or suspensions of contributions to several UN agencies (UNRWA, UNESCO, UNFPA), and the criticisms at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, it seems that from now on US geopolitical strategy will have only one compass: the economic and security interests of the United States. The hardening of the cooperation discourse is a novelty, at least relatively speaking. To maintain their hegemony, it had not been necessary for the richer countries to generate a realistic discourse, based on national interests, on development cooperation. Probably because those who could do so (the US in the first place) were also committed to the multilateral principles and rules of operation established after 1945. Principles and rules that ultimately underpinned the dominant paradigm of development that was also economic growth and that was favoured by the smooth functioning of an open global economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Donald Trump is thus dismantling a development architecture that was central to the post-World War II peace and prosperity agenda. This architecture, although conceived by the United States as a project of power and organisation of the world according to its interests, is no longer compatible with one the hyper-realist approach – absolute priority to national interests, rejection of multilateralism, Hobbesian vision of international relations – that Trump applies to all areas of his foreign policy – trade policy, conflict management, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, beyond the abandonment of millions of people by eliminating life-saving services, the decision to dismantle USAID means a loss of diplomatic, economic, and moral influence for the United States, and a decline in US soft power. And since it is not only in art that horror vacui<\/em> occurs, in geopolitics as well, this withdrawal has an impact on the rest of the actors in the global development landscape. Firstly, China and its broad strategy of international cooperation, centred on transport and connectivity, with an investment focus and, logically, detached from any democratic or rights-based conditionality. Significantly, some exceptions to the general freeze on USAID programmes relate to programmes in Taiwan or the Philippines, where competition with China is fierce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The change in US foreign policy will not only affect its global agency and capacity for influence, but also casts a longer shadow, which also affects development cooperation as a whole. We are referring to a doctrinal paradigm and a system of global action that has been articulated and affirmed over more than seven decades, with the OECD as the centre of technical regulation (cooperation as an instrument), and the United Nations as the place of definition and political agreement on the objectives to be achieved (development as an outcome). This system is under continuous review, but since 2015 and with the Sustainable Development Goals<\/a> (SDGs) a new problem has arisen: the SDGs point to a results framework that goes far beyond what can be done with cooperation and official development aid. In contrast to the Millennium Development Goals<\/a>, which basically set duties for development cooperation and donors, the SDGs are a grand agenda for all of humanity. As stated in IDEES journal<\/a> issue 55, this grand ambition does not help development cooperation by not giving it a clear and limited mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To this lack of definition in the mandate, which also exists between the declared objectives and the available resources, we can add today a more fundamental, ideological discussion between idealism – with formal institutions, guided by objectives shared by the whole of humanity, committed to international rules – and this new approach – which we can call hyper-realist – that does not hide its objective of maximising the profits that can be obtained from power relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Advocates of a third way have historically been the target of criticism, especially from the more idealistic camp. It seems a bit like the debate that has long divided social democracy: does achieving improvements in the real world and ensuring that people’s material living conditions allow for a more dignified existence mean giving up on a radically better world, or is it instead the best we can do in the time we have been given? In the end, the brutal closure of USAID reinforces the threat to the reformist and gradualist stance, attentive to detail and results rather than grand declarations and empty proclamations. A bottleneck between realists and idealists that poses a false debate with incompatible ideas, which need not be so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In thinking of solutions, we need to look to Europe. The Union could use this opportunity to become the reference point for a realistic and ambitious solidarity policy, adapting its international programmes to the realities and strategic interests of partner countries. This would involve improving the integration of international solidarity policy and European economic, industrial, and foreign policy. For example, some propose the creation of a Mediterranean-European renewable energy community that would aim to strengthen the economic and energy stability of the Maghreb countries and diversify European sources of supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Europe, as the main contributor to international organisations, and in a context of US withdrawal, should be able to have an influence commensurate with its financial commitments. Politicising development policy would also mean influencing international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and regional development banks, to align their projects with European priorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Europe’s policy of “international partnerships” should therefore be approached from a new vision, anchored in a truly transformative ambition, driven by fair cooperation with its partners. The global challenges we face – from climate change to demographic shifts to the transformation of global value chains – require a radical rethink of our approaches. A development policy, finally, articulated around a logic of unavoidable power, but within a system where the sum of different spheres of power allows us to create stability, with a minimum framework of cooperation, to guarantee responses to shared challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Photography: Hillel Steinberg. Demonstration against USAID shutdown in Washington DC, 28th February 2025. License CC BY-SA 2.0 Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n Alba Giol and Maria Fari\u00f1a, trainees at the CETC, have participated in this issue of Idees d’actualitat<\/em>.<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Decisions made during the first weeks of Donald Trump’s second term have raised many alarm bells, and international cooperation has been no exception. The new administration has been quick to criticise and distance itself from USAID, the independent agency responsible for distributing the bulk of US non-military foreign assistance, especially in the economic, agricultural, health, humanitarian, and public governance areas. USAID provides services directly – US global health programmes, focused on combating AIDS and malaria, have saved more than 35 million lives worldwide over the past two decades – but its work also contributes to improving key information systems, such\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":80518,"template":"","category_newspaper":[634],"segment":[],"subject":[],"class_list":["post-80584","newspaper","type-newspaper","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category_newspaper-634"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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