USA Bids Farewell to the Global Common Good
Donald Trump rejects responsibility for the common good. But in the light of increasing crises the global order cannot afford imperial superpower posturing.
All views expressed in the Welternährung are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view or policies of the editorial board or of Welthungerhilfe.
As was to be expected, Donald Trump's return to the White House was bad news for international development efforts. After hardly a month in office, the new administration started to dismantle the bilateral agency USAID (United States Agency for International Development), slashing both staff and funding. Marco Rubio, the state secretary, was put in charge of the diminished institution.
Legal scholars argue that such action was illegal. The president does not have the authority to abolish an institution established by Congress. While he does have some discretion regarding the use of funds, he has the duty to spend budget money appropriated by Congress.
For several reasons, it is impossible to tell in precise numbers what impact the attack on USAID will have. Trump's erratic decision making is only one of them. What matters more, is that we do not know yet to what extent the courts will rule against his policies and weather his administration will obey their judgments. Moreover, USAID was only in charge of two thirds of Washington's $60 billion worth of official development assistance (ODA). The other $20 billion are disbursed by other departments. In Trump’s eyes, that money is probably dispensable too.
Rejecting Global Responsibility
Moreover, it does not make sense to consider ODA figures in isolation. The attack on USAID fits a larger pattern, which, among other things, includes the US exit from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The funding and the political clout of both institutions will suffer considerably. At the same time, Trump's tariffs are incompatible with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and darken the economic outlook internationally. His support for cryptocurrencies destabilizes the global financial architecture, but facilitates illicit financial flows. Most likely, the Voice of America will become an “America First” propaganda outlet, so people who live under authoritarian rule will lose a source of information that regularly tackled issues such as good governance.
What happens at the domestic level of the world's leading superpower, moreover, has serious global repercussions. By cutting funding for medical research at home, the US administration is putting a brake on international progress in healthcare. The more Trump succeeds in dismantling the rule of law and the separation of government branches at home, the stronger autocratic tendencies will become elsewhere.
In summary, Trump's various policies have one thing in common: The White House is bidding farewell to the common good at both international and national levels.
What Low-Income Countries are Facing
It is impossible to assess precisely what additional difficulties low-income countries must now cope with. In itself, the end of USAID will have a devastating impact, especially on poor people. Huge funding gaps have suddenly opened up in health care and education in many countries. Spending on food aid and the support of agriculture have similarly dwindled.
Many developing countries are heavily indebted, so they are unable to plug the gaps themselves. African countries, moreover, typically lack fully operational revenue systems. They neither raise sufficient taxes nor have the necessary administrative capacities for doing so. Anyone who tries to establish a proper revenue service must expect fierce opposition. After all, people resent paying taxes. But without a fully-fledged tax system it is impossible to generate the revenues a country needs.
While the typical policy environment of developing countries makes corruption easy, responsible leadership is very difficult. Implementing necessary reforms is a huge challenge in places where roads and power supply are poor, where government bureaucracies lack qualified staff and where the sense of national citizenship is thwarted by a diversity of languages and religious beliefs.
Chinese Aid is Different
In recent years, many low-income countries have been receiving support not only from established donor countries, but from emerging markets too. The most important is China. The more the number one world power withdraws from international affairs, the more influential the number two will become. The People’s Republic will try to further raise its profile by investing more in aid. Most likely, Beijing will nonetheless compensate for Washington’s retreat only indirectly - because its international development efforts differ radically from those of established donor governments.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is designed to build infrastructure, boost resource extraction and expand productive capacities in general. It prioritizes roads, ports, airports and railroads, especially if they are relevant for foreign trade. The People’s Republic is also supporting investments in power stations and water utilities in partner countries. The prime objective is to enhance economic capacities, not to tackle poverty directly.
Many BRI projects make economic sense. However, the volume of funding is quite volatile – and so is the quality of project implementation, as African experts report. That China's action is not transparent is also irritating. Projects are agreed with national governments, normally without any involvement of parliaments or the public at large. Because Beijing often insists on employing Chinese workers, the BRI does not do much in terms of generating jobs or training skilled labor in partner countries.
There has recently been an increase of BRI projects in the Middle East. This trend reflects the rivalry with the USA, since Trump is courting the Gulf monarchies. Such great-power rivalry is nothing new, of course. After World War II, all aid efforts were marked by competition with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. What matters today, however, is that a country’s chances to attract funding from China (or, for that matter, the USA) depend on its geostrategic relevance. Fighting poverty is becoming a mere afterthought.
China likes to present itself as a good “global citizen”, willing to cooperate with all countries of the global South in a spirit of solidarity. The truth is far more nuanced. The People’s Republic only provided incomplete information on the new COVID-19 virus to the WHO and did so only rather late. Had it acted differently, the spread of the pandemic would certainly have been stemmed faster – and the global health crisis might even have been avoided.
Like China, India too cultivates an image as a cooperative member of the global South, but it equally failed its partners in the pandemic. When domestic infection rates began to rise fast, Delhi stopped vaccine exports. Even though the country was only able to produce the vaccine thanks to Oxford University granting it the use of its patent under condition that it would provide the vital pharmaceutical to other low and middle-income countries.
In its aid efforts, every emerging-market government keeps its national interests in mind. India shows a keen interest in places where South Asian diasporas are major players in the economy. Brazil tends to focus on countries where Portuguese is the official language. Turkey’s engagement is particularly strong in regions with large Muslim populations. Similar concerns, of course, have always shaped the action of established donor countries. London and Paris, for example, have a pattern of investing ODA money in former colonies.
The Philanthropy of Oligarchs
The withdrawal of the US administration from international contexts does not mean that money from the US is becoming entirely unavailable. To some extent, philanthropists are stepping in where Trump is causing harm. Michael Bloomberg, whose media business made him a multi billionaire, has pledged to cooperate with like-minded people in attempts to ensure that the UNFCCC secretariat keeps getting funding and scientific data.
Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has recently announced that his charitable foundation will disburse twice as much money in the next 20 years as it did in the past 25. So far, it has granted $100 billion to healthcare, education and other developmentally relevant issues. Until the Gates Foundation’s anticipated end in 2045, another $200 billion are in the pipeline.
Thanks to its huge donations, the Gates Foundation has been exerting considerable influence on international institutions for a long time. Regarding food security, the most important of them is the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). It includes centers of excellence such as the International Rice Research Institute in Manila, the International Potato Center in Lima or the International Institute for Food Policy Research in Washington, to name only three. CGIAR work is essential for ensuring that humankind can produce enough food for everyone in the future. The Gates Foundation has similarly left its mark on the vaccine alliance GAVI and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Unlike Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and many other plutocrats, Gates is clearly interested in the Sustainable Development Goals. It is irritating, however, how his financial clout allows him to promote the kind of solutions he prefers. Without democratic legitimacy, for example, he supports the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture. He also considers nuclear power a clean energy.
Why Multilateralism is indispensable
Though Trump claims to make America great again, he is actually reducing his nation's influence. The belief that, as the world’s most powerful leader, he can force other countries to pay him tribute in bilateral negotiations is fundamentally misguided. The multilateral order is much weaker without the USA as a reliable partner. The USA used to benefit considerably from that order, of which it was an important pillar. Now, however, the new administration is gambling away its “soft” power, which results from the attractive example set by its institutions, economy and culture rather than its military strength (“hard” power).
The EU and its member states would be well advised to fill the gaps Trump is creating internationally, but they are unlikely to do so. The top concerns of European policymakers are currently the new arms race and fostering economic growth at the domestic level.
Unfortunately, the European public remains largely ignorant of how much distrust colonial legacies have caused in Africa and Asia. At a time when it would make sense to build trust by spending more on aid, cuts to ODA budgets are hurting our credibility in low and middle-income countries. Unlike the USA, the EU really only has soft power, so its international influence is likely to decrease even faster.
The world order that was to a considerable extent based on rules is fast becoming obsolete. However, humankind cannot afford the kind of great-power competition that marked the 19th century and caused two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. The problem is that such competition does not pay attention to indispensable global public goods.
Without ecological stability, our economic prospects and military security will become increasingly precarious. That violent groups thrive in scenarios of crisis is only part of the problem. The climate crisis is likely to escalate beyond foreseeable tipping points and that will prove catastrophic for each and every country, regardless of its comparative strength in hegemonic struggles.
Dr. Hans Dembowski is a journalist and the former editor of D+C Development and Cooperation.
