Aid and soft power or bombs and billionaires?

Rainer Zitelmann’s article here, Why Trump is right to suspend USAID, does not do what it says on the tin. It does not demonstrate that President Trump’s decision to precipitately freeze

some $58 billion in US foreign aid allocated for 2025 was in any sense of the word right — neither morally, nor as an effective economic policy, nor as in the “soft power” interests of the

USA. But the article is a telling sign of the times.

Over half the readers’ comments on Dr Zitelmann’s defence of USAID’s “suspension” agree with his argument and find that he argues well.  This is a real shock for anyone familiar with how aid

works on the ground.  Maybe the prevalence of such opinions influenced Sir Keir Starmer’s decision this week to transfer 0.2% of GDP from our already decreased development aid budget to

defence, though (unlike Trump) with a two-year run-down time.

The UK’s need itself for a huge defence increase is another knock-on consequence of the Trump Presidency.  The UK Government’s mantra “this is a difficult decision” avoids the choice of

alternative difficult decisions, such as wealth taxes, which come with greater political costs.  The world’s poor will now be paying for Putin’s and Trump’s policies.  What control have we

taken back after 2016, if we accept military power, money markets, the autocrats and the feudal lords in California’s and Shanghai’s silicon valleys as our rulers?

But back to the cuts in USAID funding.  Dr Zitelmann supports the Trump attack on allegedly “woke” projects funded by USAID, though the examples quoted make up less than 0.02% of its

expenditure.  He also rehearses the arguments of books which claim that development aid has failed to jump start the economies of poor nations.  War, systemic corruption and bad governance

do indeed blight the development of many poor countries.  If, for example, you have to bribe your way through several roadblocks to get to and into a port, export growth is stunted.  In the

face of such problems, development aid — which encompasses a wide range of interventions — makes a contribution to solving them.

No-one denies that despite foreign governmental and NGO funding for development, in much of Africa and parts of Asia countries remain mired in poverty.   But this  does not justify suddenly

shutting down a major mitigating agency, as if it were a criminal enterprise — what President Trump called “the left-wing scam known as USAID”. If less than 0.02% of a state institution’s

activities are ill-judged, most people living in the real world would claim such institutions to be robust.

Dr Zitelmann has a touching faith in the free market, advancing an ideological defense of unfettered capitalism in a world in which the market is increasingly unfree, controlled by the tech

giants such as Elon Musk and the global corporations. Musk, wielding a chain-saw, now a populist power symbol, is determined to reduce USAID manpower to a skeleton.  Zitelmann categorises

USAID’s spending as “ideological”, wrong and therefore to be eliminated; “development”, doesn’t work and so also to be eliminated; or “humanitarian”, hence subject to cuts but with certain

“exemptions”.

Such handy, simple categories don’t work.  They overlap.  Take health.  If half your workforce is fighting off malaria, or dying from it, this harms productivity.   I’ve stood admiring

trained senior women in West Africa, some of them illiterate, chatting to mothers as the sun went down, cleverly passing on health messages and reducing infections.  The bonny babies in

bathtubs were a living testimony to the effectiveness of supporting health systems, providing finance and upskilling, in Africa. Is that a left-wing scam?

Is funding health development aid, humanitarian aid — or self-interest?  Ebola, Marburg, West Nile, and Dengue, one way or another,  cross borders and seas.  As does HIV.  Is funding a

feminist theatre company who, amongst their performances, role play preventative health care ideological, humanitarian — or old-fashioned Victorian common-sense?

Dr Zitelmann’s tribute to virtue is to point out exemptions from the freeze on USAID spending.  A few bits of infrastructure will be left standing amongst the wreckage of federal foreign

aid.  The priorities are interesting.  Most of the temporary exemptions relate to the spending of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and the State Department’s

Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.   Since 13 February the latter has received exemption for $5.3 billion spending, of which $4.1 billion is going to Israel and Egypt, plus more moderate

sums to Taiwan and the Philippines’ military. Compare this to USAID exemptions of $78 million for non-food aid to Gaza and $156 million to the Red Cross for its work during the current

ceasefire there.

Before the Trump Presidency, according to available figures USAID was spending a little over $10 billion on humanitarian aid and $10 billion annually on health, out of a foreign aid budget

of approximately $58 billion.  To date, the Department of State’s Bureau of Global Health, Security & Diplomacy has received a temporary exemption of $500 million for PEPFAR, the President’s

Emergency Plan For AIDS.  Launched by President Bush in 2003, it is estimated to have saved 26 million lives around the world.   PEPFAR is now operating on 8% of its 2024 budget of $6.5

billion with consequences that hardly need spelling out.  The waiver covers — in theory —  all aspects of provision: antiretrovirals, testing, treatment and supply-chains. But the disruption

already caused by a 90 day freeze, let alone the long term consequences, will cost many lives.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now acting-administrator of USAID, in place of Samantha Power who handled the COVID and Ukraine crises under Joe Biden.  At midnight last Sunday, out of a

total payroll of about 10,000, Rubio fired 1,200 USAID staff and put 4,200 on “administrative leave”.  Trump has repeatedly declared that the final staffing will be much less than 1,000 . 

Meanwhile the substantial buildings occupied by USAID have been handed over to Customs and Border Patrol. This is not to be confused with the humanitarian focus of the Bureau of Population,

Refugees and Migrants, which is likely to retain some funding for Latin American countries to spend on enforced returnees.

The former USAID chief Gayle Smith described the present situation as the “US signalling that we don’t frankly care whether people live or die and that we are not a reliable partner”.   The

Washington DC District Judge Amir Ali spoke of “irreparable harm”, issuing a ruling requiring – so far to no noticeable effect — a lifting of the freeze.  The Jesuit Refugee Service  founded

in November 1980 to respond to the needs of Vietnamese refugees, and now working in 57 countries, says “those waiting for our support were left stranded”, including displaced people  in

Chad, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, South Africa, South Sudan and Thailand. With money to pay local NGO staff cut globally, abrupt loss of USAID funding means a sudden halt to work

amongst the world’s poorest people.

Dr Zitelmann, and those who agree with him, suggest important questions.  If and when our children and grandchildren consult the Oxford English Dictionary, do we want them to find “archaic”

in brackets next to the word “compassion”?  Do we want them to live in a world in which the powerful states deny our common humanity — uniquely in the case of the USA as a consequence of

MAGA mania?  We may not have to wait long to find out.

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