Can Foreign Aid Be Reformed? Should It Be?

Net Assessment

Chris, Melanie, and Zack review Adam Tooze’s recent article on the failure of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – and Western-directed aid efforts generally. What should be the goals of foreign aid? Can development assistance, as it has recently been implemented, actually make a meaningful long-term difference in living standards? What might steep cuts in foreign aid mean for poor countries? In an era of great power competition, should we look at development assistance as a way to counter China’s influence? Grievances for the Trump administration’s policies toward China and its new deals with Qatar, and to the US Senate for failing to assert its authority over the war powers. Attas to President Trump for successfully brokering a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, and for negotiating a new deal with Finland to build icebreakers.

Links:

• Adam Tooze, “The End of Development,” Foreign Policy, September 8, 2025,

• Evan Cooper and Alessandro Perri, “Scenarios for US Foreign Aid in 2035,” Stimson Center, September 19, 2025

• Max Bearak and Lazaro Gamio, “The U.S. foreign aid budget, visualized,” Washington Post, October 18, 2016

• Rand Paul, “The Constitution Does Not Allow the President To Unilaterally Blow Suspected Drug Smugglers to Smithereens,” Reason, October 8, 2025

• Kathryn Watson, “Hegseth announces Qatar will build air force facility at U.S. base in Idaho,” CBS News, October 10, 2025

• “Putting the Global Order Back Together,” International Affairs Forum, Traverse City, MI, October 23, 2025

• Valentina Finckenstein, How International Aid Can Do More Harm than Good: The Case of Lebanon, LSE Ideas, February 2021.

• William Easterly, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, Penguin Books, 2007.

• “Aid Cannot Make Poor Countries Rich,” The Economist, March 6, 2025.

• Noah Robertson, Katie Tarrant, Ellen Nakashima, “Bipartisan Move to Restrict Trump’s War Powers Fails in Senate,” Washington Post, October 9, 2025.

• Steve Holland, Anne Kauranen, Jeff Mason, and Gram Slattery, “Trump and Finland’s Stuff Approve Deal for Icebreaker Ships,” Reuters, October 9, 2025.