Global aid after Trump’s exit: How Europe can lead reform and head off Russia and China

Problem

President Donald Trump’s decision this week to withdraw the US from 66 international organisations, including 31 UN agencies, will fundamentally weaken collective efforts to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals and advance climate action.

However, criticisms of the international aid system are not without merit. For many years it has struggled with high administrative costs in expensive UN hubs, badly targeted funding and programming driven by donors rather than need. Institutional fragmentation and duplication, weak accountability mechanisms and a chronic shortage of local expertise have undermined effectiveness and political legitimacy in partner countries. This has also generated scepticism of aid spending in the West.

Solution

In the short term, the US withdrawal will impact on aid receivers. Yet it also gives European governments and the European Commission the chance to reposition the EU and its member states as the central stabiliser of the international aid system.

Their aim should be to turn structural aid reform into leverage and agenda-setting power: developing standards for needs-based and locally led assistance, influencing emerging aid governance systems and co-defining rules for working with partners from the global south. If they can address inefficiencies in the system, the commission and member state governments could rebuild credibility with countries that have grown disillusioned with the aid architecture and which have become receptive to alternative providers.

Importantly, it would help head off others, such Russia and China, moving in to design rules in this area—such as promoting sovereignty-first models that constrain independent and effective humanitarian action. This would run directly counter to EU interests. Equally, a dysfunctional system would increase the risk of political instability and conflict across the world.

The coordination around this joint reform could be led by Spain, potentially in a “coalition of the willing”. Such efforts should focus on advancing the feasible points of the “humanitarian reset”, a UN-led initiative to reform global aid that has stagnated due to a lack of financing and political leadership. Pooling resources, including within the EU, could be a first step. Spain has traditionally ranked in the middle tier of Official Development Assistance (ODA) donors. But as America, Sweden, Germany and others have cut spending, Spain has moved in the opposite direction and increased its ODA commitments. A Spanish push for European leadership on aid reform could also reinvigorate Europe’s soft power. In the long run, a coalition of EU member states enabling a more effective, coherent and accountable aid system would strengthen the bloc’s ability to set agendas rather than merely react to them.

Demonstrating impact and value for money would help undercut populist narratives that attack development cooperation in Europe. By communicating clear returns on investment—from stability to economic cooperation—European governments could better insulate aid budgets from political pressure.

Context

The US exit is the latest retreat from international aid cooperation. While the scale of the current withdrawal is unprecedented, the logic behind it is not. Trump’s transactional “America First” approach and scepticism towards multilateral institutions were evident during his first term.