British Prime Minister Starmer announced last week that the UK would fund increased defence spending by cutting its foreign aid budget from about 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3%. His development secretary, Anneliese Dodds, resigned on Friday over the scale of the cuts. The decision comes just weeks after President Trump ordered a freeze on US aid spending and told European countries they needed to significantly increase defence spending.
The UK aid cuts have been in place since 2020. The country’s aid budget is now at its lowest in decades, with funding for long-standing recipients and humanitarian emergencies particularly hard hit. The UK is not alone – France and Germany have also cut their foreign aid budgets in recent years.
But the European cuts, while significant, pale in comparison to the impact of the Trump administration’s decision to close USAID and freeze almost all federal aid spending. The move calls into question the modern aid and development system in which the United States has played a central role, including funding major UN agencies and supporting large-scale basic health programs around the world.
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