Far from Iran, Donald Trump’s impact on the world will be felt for decades – UK Times

Since the closure of the US Agency for International Development last summer, cuts in overseas aid budgets have followed from one Western government to the next like falling dominoes.

The UK is just one of many relatively prosperous nations steadily moving away from the UN-mandated target to devote a modest 0.7 per cent of GDP to development in the world’s poorest countries. Last week, the foreign secretary indicated that British assistance will be much more focused on war zones, such as Ukraine, Palestine, Lebanon and Sudan, with the savings going to boost UK defence.

These are retrograde steps, not just morally but in terms of the self-interest of the rich global North. Wars, droughts, famines, the climate crisis, and a total absence of economic opportunity are the powerful forces that have fuelled the waves of migration to the West from Africa and Asia. As current events demonstrate, there is no end in sight to such dislocations.

Foreign policy and international aid could do much more to prevent these human tragedies, most of which place the highest burden of support for refugees on the usually underdeveloped countries closest to where the events unfold.

Such has been the pattern for much of this century, and it is one reason why The Independent is reporting from resource-rich central Africa on one alternative to the previous model of international aid. It is summed up in these mercenary words of President Trump: “We’re going to take out some of the rare earth and the assets, and pay. And everybody’s going to make a lot of money.”

Such a deal has been struck between the Trump administration, US mining interests, and the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Felix Tshisekedi. His country has known little stability since its hurried independence from Belgium in 1960, and almost constant civil wars since the fall of the Mobutu regime in 1994.

Much the same goes for nearby Rwanda, which is supporting the M23 rebel group, a paramilitary outfit that holds the mines in the Rubaya area in the east of DRC. Yet the mines are still operating, and making substantial profits for those who are in control – but rather less for the miners, for whom it is highly dangerous work, or for the people of DRC (or Rwanda, for that matter).

Over the past year, as we report, Mr Trump has threatened to take over Greenland (which is Danish territory), toppled Venezuela’s president, and exploited Russia’s war with Ukraine in an effort to secure access to the raw materials that modern US industries demand. His war on Iran may set these efforts back, but his strategic intent remains – he wants to make foreign mines his.

Rubaya is a dominant producer of coltan, a substance used in manufacturing electronic components for consumer items such as smartphones, and in the defence industries, notably for making drones. This single site produces some 30 per cent of the entire global supply, while DRC as a whole accounts for 80 per cent. In today’s world, such critical resources can be as vital as oil and natural gas.

It is also only fair to point out that commercial extraction and industrial development can easily coexist with, for example, programmes to bring clean water to communities, or to eradicate “neglected tropical diseases” – the kind of work the Gates Foundation undertakes (and the foundation is also supporting The Independent’s journalism in this field).

In the south of DRC, this is also perhaps the case – but in the occupied, lawless east, it is not. There does not seem to be any US money being devoted to bringing peace to that region. The international community and UN agencies plainly still have an indispensable role to play in that respect.

The impact of the second Trump term on the world outside North America will be counted for decades. Already, it seems that no part of it has been left untouched by the sweeping chaos and upheaval unleashed by this most mind-boggling president. Seemingly blind to logic, he argues cases that are not arguable. From Iran to DRC, he talks in prices and deals rather than human lives.

There is, of course, a strong geopolitical aspect to this: rivalry between the US and China. For decades, through the Belt and Road Initiative, the Digital Silk Road, the Global Development Initiative and other policies involving emerging and developing economies, China has linked the security of supply of critical minerals to diplomatic and security goals – while the West, which means the US, has barely tried to compete. Under President Trump, whose mind is more naturally attuned to aligning foreign policy with commercial gain, this has begun to change.

The optimistic vision is one in which the US, China, and possibly Europe, compete to accelerate economic development in the global South, with commensurate improvements in living standards for the most vulnerable people on Earth. The danger, sadly, with too much evidence to discount it, is that this new model of international development is merely neo-colonialist. Or, indeed, nihilist, untouched by any values whatsoever.

The mixed experience of DRC strongly suggests that there is still a role for a more altruistic model of development; one in which governments, charities and NGOs are vital for reducing poverty and promoting peace – as is the media, for telling those stories to the widest possible audience.