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It is disgusting to read the richest man in the world who “we spent the weekend feeding USAID in wood chipper.” That this raises a constitutional and legal issue for the Republic of the US is quite clear. Indeed, it is clear that those who now responsible would be quite happy to have such tedious restrictions. But there are also moral issues. Should the US attempt to support the poorest in the world are fed into a “Woodchipper” at all? The answer is “no”.
As Paul Krugman observes in an extraordinary part of his substance recently, the US made a great effort after World War II to be a new and different kind of great power: it sought to create Allies, not branches; economic development, not predator; Global institutions, not imperial rule; And international law, not the old idea of ”can make it right”. There was, inevitably, very incorrect. But in general, the US has really been an extremely benign and successful Hegemon.
The explosive increase in world trade, the growth of China and former India, the peaceful decline in the Soviet Union and, not least, the decline in the proportion of human beings living in extreme poverty 59 percent to 1950 to 8.5 percent in 2024 , despite a triple of the world population – are evidence of its success. The US must be extremely proud of its achievements as world leaders, and not seek to imitate the harassment of Vladimir Putin’s Russia instead. (See lists.)
The US Agency for International Development, therefore, is part of something much greater. The US also played a crucial role in the creation of the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the International Development Association and NATO – no doubt, both then and now, a defense counsel alliance
The basic idea was that the world would be a better place if we knew our common interest in peaceful cooperation. Why would anyone want to sacrifice this ideal for a return to the nineteenth -century competition among the great imperialist powers that culminated in two world wars, Stalinism and fascism? Do pathogens or climate know international borders? Is the war between nuclear powers even thoughtful? Could an island really be a place? Can humanity, by destroying this planet, really find the salvation on the barren planet of Mars?
The attack on USAID is a sign of madness that now overloads the US. But he is discovering. Its budget was 0.7 percent of federal spending and 0.15 percent of GDP in fiscal year 2023. Its destruction is above all symbolic. According to Musk, Usaid is a “Viper nest of the Radical Left Marxists who hate America”. USAID spends on things such as AIDS facilitation and family planning in the poorest countries in the world. So which radical left Marxist launched the president’s emergency plan for facilitating AIDS? George W bush, that’s who. Even if this attack proves only one interruption, it will do a lot of damage.
Unfortunately, this comes at a bad time for economic development. As the World Bank’s latest global economic prospects not only notice, not only is the global economic growth slowing down, but the performance of low -income developing countries has become particularly disturbing.
“Catching towards advanced levels of income from the economy has continuously weakened (developing market and developing economies) during the first quarter of the 21st century,” the report argues. This is the result of successive shocks, slowing reforms, and a more adverse external environment, characterized by a large part of the “uncertainty of set policies and first trade policies shifts.”
“The rapid growth supported by internal reforms and a benign global environment allowed many low -income countries. . . to reach the high income rank in the first decade of this century. Since then, the degree to which low -income countries have been graduating in middle -income status has slowed significantly. “Increasing the real income per head in these countries has simply become anemic. This is partly due to internal conflict and partly due to adverse external developments, including the global financial crisis, pandemia, sudden prices of goods prices essential and higher interest rates.
As a result, it argues the report, in a wide range of development metrics, today’s low -income countries are behind where those that were subsequently made middle income were in 2000. They are also now more sensitive to strokes related to climate change.
In considering the situation of the poorest countries it is necessary to understand the restrictions on them. They lack resources to provide health care or necessary education. Thus, according to the World Bank, health costs per person in high income countries are more than 50 times larger than in low -income, in real terms, and the expenses for education are more than 150 times larger. Moreover, the cost of debt interest is up to more than 10 percent of government revenue in low -income countries, in part due to the need to borrow in crisis and partly due to raised rates interest.
A world with more prosperous, healthier and more sustainable places is a better to live, not just morally but practically. The main instruments for achieving these goals remain multilateral institutions. If SH.BA is to depart from its past wisdom, it is up to the rest to create a multilateral way forward, while hoping that the US will finally find a way out in the light.
Minouche Shafik has argued convincingly for some serious rethinking. There are really many global challenges ahead, as she notes. But there is a glorious opportunity. The elimination of the extreme poverty deception from our planet is now tantalizing nearby. But we are failing. We need to try more. This long -standing target is very close to abandoning.
martin.wolf@ft.com
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