The United States is almost entirely withdrawing from international development cooperation. Just weeks after his return to the White House, President Donald Trump has swiftly fulfilled one of his key election promises. According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the “review” of US development funds has already been completed. Following a six-week shock offensive, coordinated with far-right tech billionaire Elon Musk and his government-slashing team at DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency), Republicans are celebrating the “long-overdue and historic reform” as a major triumph.
Cornela Möhring was a Member of the Bundestag for Die Linke from 2009–2025 and the latter’s spokesperson on development policy.
In his speech to Congress in early March, Trump repeatedly attacked foreign aid. He claimed to have uncovered “hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud” and that the “appalling waste” would come to an end. The president mocked diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) scholarship programmes in Burma, LGBTQ rights support in “the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of”, and economic development programmes for “sedentary migrants”, a term he dismissed, saying “nobody knows what that is”. All this was met with derisive laughter from Republicans.
The main purpose of this attack on US foreign aid is domestic political gain. Trump is presenting the slashing of funds for the world’s poorest to his voters as a victory in the (culture) war on the perceived “waste” of American taxpayers’ money. In classic conspiracy-laden rhetoric, Republicans spread the narrative that foreign funds form a corrupt network tied to the “liberal-globalist agenda”, the “Deep State”, or lazy, “woke” civil servants.
The withdrawal of the world’s largest development cooperation donor significantly weakens democratic actors, minorities, and vulnerable populations within the international system while allowing oligarchs, autocratic regimes, and violent actors in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to tighten their grip.
The result of this frontal attack on international cooperation is a political, economic, and humanitarian disaster. Rubio announced that 5,200 of the 6,200 programmes run by the US development agency USAID have been axed. The remaining 18 percent of the original funding will now fall under his department’s control. The integration of the development agency into the State Department signals both further reductions to and politicization of US development assistance.
Selfishness Cloaked in Religion
The State Department’s announcement that it had turned off the tap for the Global South followed a memorable appearance by Rubio. A professed Catholic, he gave a live interview on Fox News on Ash Wednesday with a black cross of ashes on his forehead, a Christian ritual that symbolizes the transience of life, readiness for repentance, and hope for resurrection. While drawing the ashen cross, priests typically intone, “Repent and believe in the Gospel” or “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. We are witnessing a political elite putting a religious gloss on the effective end of solidarity with millions of disadvantaged people in the Global South. By all appearances, the nationalist selfishness of a superpower that is increasingly pursuing its interests through coercion and violence is being justified with a Bible in hand and a cross of ashes on the forehead.
Despite criticisms of development aid from former colonial powers, the industrialized world’s international development funding serves as a vital safety net for the world’s poorest, comparable to a national welfare state.
It remains uncertain whether the cuts to foreign aid will hold up legally. On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order freezing US foreign aid and mandating its review. It will become clear in the coming weeks and months how the courts will assess the Democrats’ substantive objection that only Congress can end Congressionally approved USAID programmes, which would potentially make these presidential cuts illegal. The Supreme Court has already rejected an early March government appeal to block a judge’s order that required the release of the frozen foreign aid and gave the Trump administration an ultimatum.
A Full-On Geopolitical Assault
Regardless of what happens next with US foreign aid, the isolationist geopolitical offensive by Trump’s allies will persist. What we are witnessing in real time is nothing less than the rapid withdrawal of the world’s largest donor from international development cooperation. While US foreign aid has long served the geopolitical ambitions of a superpower that, since the end of the Cold War, has enforced a Pax Americana through military dominance, a liberal-democratic framework, and the neoliberal Washington Consensus, Trump marks a disruptive return to the isolationism that shaped US foreign policy from the mid-19th century until World War II. Today, this crisis-ridden hegemon has adopted a more brutal stance on the world stage, transforming from a power with soft influence and willing allies into an iron-fisted empire on an ego trip.
For millions worldwide, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, “Make America Great Again” signals a descent into misery. Despite criticisms of development aid from former colonial powers, the industrialized world’s international development funding serves as a vital safety net for the world’s poorest, comparable to a national welfare state. Trump and his allies are now hacking away at these already inadequate redistribution mechanisms. In light of right-wing multi-billionaires’ full-on assault on democracy, cooperation, and equitable distribution, one imperative remains clear: international development cooperation must be defended just as much as the national welfare state.
The Impact on the Ground
The consequences of these cuts run deep and hit the most vulnerable hardest. Partners of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung in Tanzania, for instance, report that $400 million in US funding planned for 2025 has now been cancelled. Among other things, this affects labour market development programmes — thousands of subsidized jobs are being cut — and health programmes, with preventable diseases expected to resurge as free vaccinations are withdrawn.
In most African countries, family planning relies almost entirely on foreign funding. Contraceptives are distributed free of charge because poor sections of the population simply cannot afford condoms, the pill, or IUDs. Health and education programmes for the particularly vulnerable queer community in Africa are also being cancelled. Hard-won safe spaces for queer people and women affected by violence are vanishing. Organizations that conduct educational programmes and radio broadcasts to combat female genital mutilation, working directly with communities and offering safe havens, are shutting down. Hundreds of workers lost their livelihoods overnight.
In Tanzania, the two major US political institutes — the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) — which played a big role in promoting democracy, the rule of law, women’s rights, equality, and independent media, have already closed their doors. Love them or loathe them, authoritarian states like China, Russia, and Arab nations will exploit America’s retreat.
One thing is certain: tackling poverty and social hardship is a better path to peace than pouring hundreds of billions into an arms race.
In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh — the world’s largest refugee camp and home to over a million Rohingya Muslims fleeing genocide in Myanmar — the USAID cuts are bringing hunger and disease. In 2024, the US was the biggest donor to this persecuted minority, providing $300 million. While food distribution has so far been exempted from the funding freeze, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) reports a historic shortfall in funds, partly due to US cuts. According to the WFP, food vouchers in the camp already have to be reduced from $12.50 to $6 per month. This sprawling camp complex’s many small NGOs, which provide doctors, water, sanitation, waste disposal, and schooling, have had their funding completely cut off.
International funding for climate change mitigation is also impacted. While the US, the world’s largest climate polluter and strongest economy, provides insufficient public funding for the global transition away from fossil fuels and for climate adaptation, eight percent of international climate finance still originates from America. A third of this funding, channelled through USAID, has been frozen. By withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and drastically reducing climate finance, a key player in the fight against the climate crisis has stepped back. As record temperatures rise, the most vulnerable will bear the brunt of Trump’s policies.
Fighting Poverty Instead of Fuelling the Arms Race
German policymakers should now try to plug the gaps as best they can, especially for projects that directly support people in need — poverty reduction, health, nutrition, humanitarian aid, minority rights, and the environment.
However, the outlook is grim. Germany, too, has joined the global trend of slashing solidarity. The last coalition government, made up of the Social Democratic Party, the Greens, and the Free Democratic Party, implemented the most significant cuts to development cooperation of any German government since World War II, slashing funds for people in the Global South in particular. Compared to the final budget of the government that preceded it, funding for the Development Ministry fell by 23 percent over four budget years. Humanitarian aid from the Foreign Office shrank by an even steeper 29.9 percent.
These cuts were partly driven by Germany’s constitutional debt limit. Yet the incoming government is sticking to this historic error; a constitutional amendment that was passed in March exempted only defence spending from the debt limit.
One thing is certain: tackling poverty and social hardship is a better path to peace than pouring hundreds of billions into an arms race. That is why we must fight for increases in public revenue and for national and global redistribution. If we are to halt the march of the authoritarian alliance of Trump, Putin, and their ilk, we will need more, social justice, not less.
Translated by Diego Otero and Joseph Keady for Gegensatz Translation Collective.