More than four decades on from the identification of the human immunodeficiency viruses that cause Aids, the illness still has no cure. However, it is now an eminently treatable and preventable condition, based on advances in medicine and through public health and education programmes. Indeed, so optimistic was the United Nations aids agency (UNAIDS) last year that it set a realistic goal to end the Aids pandemic by 2030, implying a 90 per cent reduction in new infections and deaths.
However, such a breakthrough for humanity was only ever going to be made possible by the continuing support of the rich nations of the world funding the work of the UN agency and charities throughout the global South, where countries lack the infrastructure to achieve such a goal. Tragically, that support has been critically weakened by the loss of major sources of Western aid, and most significantly the funding and support that the United States provided.
Thanks to Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the most powerful and the richest men on the planet respectively, millions of the most vulnerable and wretched of their fellow human beings will lose their lives needlessly. Children will be orphaned, families left devastated, and babies will perish as a result of the wanton destruction of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Within days of taking office, President Trump and Mr Musk’s so-called Department for Government Efficiency (Doge) embarked on a bogus mission to eliminate fraud and corruption in the agency’s activities, the result of which was not to build a more efficient, effective and transparent agency but to destroy it almost entirely.
The human cost is incalculable, both because the numbers of those affected are difficult to estimate, but mainly because of the sheer scale of the harm that is now being inflicted, and will continue to be inflicted, on people who had come to rely on the simple sexual health measures so mocked by the Trump-Musk partnership.
There was never much sense to what they were doing, as the most notorious of their mistakes proved. Mr Musk bragged that he had prevented $50m being spent on sending condoms to Gaza, an improbably large sum in any case. But it was soon discovered that there were no condoms going anywhere, and the funding was actually for prevention, care, support and treatment interventions for HIV and TB facilities in Gaza Province, Mozambique. All Mr Musk could say, when corrected, was that he couldn’t see why the American taxpayer was paying for such things anyway, “You know, why are we doing that?” Which is why it came as no surprise when, without Congressional authority, he and the president abolished the agency.
The reasons why USAID was such a force for good in the world were the same as they were when President John F Kennedy set it up in 1961. In his message to Congress, he declared: “The answer is that there is no escaping our obligations: our moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbour in the interdependent community of free nations – our economic obligations as the wealthiest people in a world of largely poor people, as a nation no longer dependent upon the loans from abroad that once helped us develop our own economy – and our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom.”
It is as eloquent and compelling an argument now as it was then, if not more so. Aside from the moral imperative to help one’s neighbour, USAID promoted America’s national interests by projecting “soft” power, maintaining alliances and friendships, and preventing what were then newly independent former colonies falling into the orbit of America’s enemies. At that time those expansionist enemies vying for influence were Russia and China, and, if President Trump were not so mesmerised by Vladimir Putin, he would understand that the global challenge to America is not so different now as it was in JFK’s time.
The difference now, and one that has become painfully clear after Mr Trump launched his trade war on China is that America is no longer the dominant economic power in the world – and Beijing has emerged as an alternative source of aid and “partnerships”. From the Caribbean to Africa to Indo-China, China has set itself up as the fount of generous aid projects in return for market access and diplomatic support – notably, over Taiwan. America has no answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and still less any response to the “Brics” movement, where Presidents Xi and Putin have assembled a loose alliance of sympathetic client states.
By contrast, the US is retreating and giving up on its alliances and trading partnerships in Mr Trump’s misguided quest to practise strongman diplomacy. He is setting America up only for further decline.
