Global Aid without the US
The conference in Seville has to give rise to new principles of cooperation in terms of development after the USAID catastrophe
Mitigating the damage done to the international community by Donald Trump after his decision to dismantle the world’s largest government cooperation agency, USAID, is really what representatives from more than 150 countries — among them 50 heads of state — are going to discuss from today until Thursday in Seville at the U.N.’s Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development. The meeting is taking place in the middle of a global landscape with record numbers of people affected by conflicts, natural disasters and the growing inequality gap in human development. The U.S. president has, with a signature, put an end to the sustainability of a global redistribution system that is not only a matter of justice, but also of security.
Since the start of his second term in January, the U.S. president has taken several controversial measures, but, as former High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell stated on Friday, “abolishing USAID is Trump’s most dramatic decision.” And this is no exaggeration. The American agency provided 40% of global aid. What Trump saw as an unnecessary expense has been used since the 1970s to combat poverty, eradicate diseases, fight against human trafficking and promote liberal democracy on a global scale.
The magnitude of the figures speaks for itself. In 2023 alone, Washington allocated $43.4 billion for international cooperation, which was invested in a long list of countries including Ukraine (already having been attacked and invaded by Russia), Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others. In Latin America, for example, USAID help was fundamental for Haiti, the poorest country in a region where only Argentina and Uruguay did not receive funds. It was also used to promote a small independent media. Multibillionaire Elon Musk, until very recently Trump’s privileged adviser, was the executioner who led the U.S. agency’s closure back in February. As Borrell said at the World in Progress forum on Friday, “The richest man in the world has signed the condemnation of the poorest children in the world.”
Now it’s about reforming the financing system of a mechanism that has often been considered of secondary importance politically, but which has proved to be crucial in international relations. It’s no easy task amid the gradual degradation of global governance and the spread of uncertainty in international relations. In addition to this, the void left by the United States is swiftly being filled by China, which is already becoming the Global South’s main bilateral financier, and is offering its aid on condition that it has access to strategic minerals for its own industrial development. It isn’t the desired path, as it means that multilateralism is being set aside once again, and it subordinates the legitimate development of other countries conditional on other interests.
Seville is a chance to establish the foundation of an international aid system that no longer relies on the U.S. Cooperation isn’t a kind of charity or a weapon of pressure, as Trump understands it to be, but rather a moral obligation that benefits everyone. Today’s desperate are tomorrow’s immigrants and armed fighters.
Mitigating the damage done to the international community by Donald Trump after his decision to dismantle the world’s largest government cooperation agency, USAID, is really what representatives from more than 150 countries — among them 50 heads of state — are going to discuss from today until Thursday in Seville at the U.N.’s Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development. The meeting is taking place in the middle of a global landscape with record numbers of people affected by conflicts, natural disasters and the growing inequality gap in human development. The U.S. president has, with a signature, put an end to the sustainability of a global redistribution system that is not only a matter of justice, but also of security.
Since the start of his second term in January, the U.S. president has taken several controversial measures, but, as former High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell stated on Friday, “abolishing USAID is Trump’s most dramatic decision.” And this is no exaggeration. The American agency provided 40% of global aid. What Trump saw as an unnecessary expense has been used since the 1970s to combat poverty, eradicate diseases, fight against human trafficking and promote liberal democracy on a global scale.
The magnitude of the figures speaks for itself. In 2023 alone, Washington allocated $43.4 billion for international cooperation, which was invested in a long list of countries including Ukraine (already having been attacked and invaded by Russia), Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others. In Latin America, for example, USAID help was fundamental for Haiti, the poorest country in a region where only Argentina and Uruguay did not receive funds. It was also used to promote a small independent media. Multibillionaire Elon Musk, until very recently Trump’s privileged adviser, was the executioner who led the U.S. agency’s closure back in February. As Borrell said at the World in Progress forum on Friday, “The richest man in the world has signed the condemnation of the poorest children in the world.”
Now it’s about reforming the financing system of a mechanism that has often been considered of secondary importance politically, but which has proved to be crucial in international relations. It’s no easy task amid the gradual degradation of global governance and the spread of uncertainty in international relations. In addition to this, the void left by the United States is swiftly being filled by China, which is already becoming the Global South’s main bilateral financier, and is offering its aid on condition that it has access to strategic minerals for its own industrial development. It isn’t the desired path, as it means that multilateralism is being set aside once again, and it subordinates the legitimate development of other countries conditional on other interests.
Seville is a chance to establish the foundation of an international aid system that no longer relies on the U.S. Cooperation isn’t a kind of charity or a weapon of pressure, as Trump understands it to be, but rather a moral obligation that benefits everyone. Today’s desperate are tomorrow’s immigrants and armed fighters.
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