Monday 3rd February, 2025

It has now become abundantly clear that US President Donald Trump is trying to make America great again by creating a new world order according to his whims and fancies. His aversion to war is to be admired; he makes no bones about his contempt for belligerent NATO, and has not started any war himself, but in working towards the realisation of his ambitious goal of remoulding the world subservient to the US, he is proceeding with a Napoleonic zeal and a Nelsonian eye. He wants to wrest control of the Panama Canal, rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, annex Canada and buy or take over Greenland. He is apparently trying to bite off more than he can chew and labouring under the misconception that there will be no resistance to his grand plans.

President Trump issued a slew of controversial executive orders, immediately after being inaugurated last month, in a melodramatic manner suggestive of a blend of Hollywood and Bollywood. They and the subsequent supplementary presidential actions have raised many an eyebrow globally to the extent of making one wonder if critics are justified in having dubbed Trump a neo-isolationist devoid of any strategic sense.

Trump has launched a mass deportation drive and waged a tariff war. Mexico and Canada will face 25% tariffs while China will have a 10% tariff to contend with. Mexico and Canada have chosen to stand toe to toe with the Trump administration, which remains intransigent, and China’s response has been muted.

The 90-day US foreign aid freeze announced by President Trump has stunned the world. According to the US State Department statements, the aid pause does not apply to the funds already disbursed and obligated programmes, but new aid initiatives must meet three criteria—they must be able to make America safer, stronger and more prosperous. The immediate casualties of Trump’s aid policy are the US-funded programmes pertaining to peace building, health, climate, diversity, gender equity, etc. Trump has already ordered that the US withdraw from the World Health Organization, and whether it will leave the United National Human Rights Council (UNHRC) remains to be seen. The US pulled out of the UNHRC during Trump’s first presidential term.

The US aid pause has crippled the operations of America’s premier non-military aid provider, the USAID (the United States Agency for International Development). The USAID website went offline on Saturday, causing much concern worldwide.

The US foreign aid freeze is said to be aimed at scrutinising and preventing wasteful spending. The State Department has said in a media communique that “it is impossible to evaluate programs on autopilot because the participants—both inside and outside of government—have little to no incentive to share programmatic-level details so long as the dollars continue to flow”. There is no gainsaying that the US taxpayers’ money should not be wasted, but foreign aid reportedly accounts for only about 1% of the US federal budget. Calls for USAID reforms are not of recent origin; even some aid recipients themselves have pushed for them. But the general consensus is that the new US government could have introduced reforms without disrupting the ongoing USAID operations.

Interestingly, US military assistance to some countries including Israel will continue. The Trump administration is reported to have agreed to exempt from its unprecedented funding shutdown the money spent on humanitarian programmes that provide life-saving medicine, medical service, food, shelter and subsistence assistance. This is a salutary decision, but humanitarian organisations are sceptical.

Critics have condemned what they describe as a purge of some top-rung USAID officials, who have been sent on paid administrative leave for 90 days. They are of the view that Acting Director of USAID Jason Gray has given away a clue about the Trump administration’s motive for the ‘purge’. He has said some ‘actions within USAID that appear to be designed to circumvent the President’s executive orders and the mandate from the American people’ have been identified’.

Foreign aid is not necessarily altruistic. It is considered one of the three pillars of US national security, the other two being defence and diplomacy. Speculation is rife in US foreign policy circles that the biggest beneficiary of the aid freeze at issue will be China. The EU is also coming under pressure to move in to fill the vacuum created by the US aid pause. It was the curtailment of western aid to Africa over human rights violations that enabled China to expand its influence over the African nations, and this prompted the EU to reconsider its aid policy. The American aid pause has the potential to make the developing world consider the US an unreliable partner.

It is not clear what the US is planning to do after the expiration of the 90-day funding shutdown. Trump is keeping the developing world on tenterhooks.