Philippa Kaur

Following Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the US needs to “take back” the Panama canal from Chinese control, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, visited Panama to demand the country reduce China’s influence. On the surface, it seems Rubio has succeeded.

On February 3, the Panamanian authorities withdrew from the China’s international infrastructure programme, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This makes Panama the first Latin American country both to endorse and to end cooperation with the BRI.

On February 4, local lawyers urged the country’s supreme court to cancel the concession given to Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Port Holdings which allows it to operate two ports at either end of the Panama canal. They say it violates the country’s constitution since it contains excessive tax breaks and cedes significant land areas to the port company. The Panamanian authorities are reportedly still considering this.

But what is the reality of China’s presence in the canal, and what does increased US scrutiny mean for Xi Jinping’s signature project?

The Panama canal is a key passage for US trade and military. The US accounts for 74% of canal cargo. However, while Trump’s fears of losing the canal may be understandable, his assertions about China’s influence are exaggerated.

The Panamanian government administers the canal through the Panama Canal Authority. Since 1997, CK Hutchison Port Holdings Limited, a Hong Kong-listed conglomerate with interests in over 53 ports in 24 countries, has operated the Port of Balboa and Port of Cristobal on either end of the canal. These are two out of five ports in the vicinity.

CK Hutchison Holdings Limited is one of the world’s leading port investors and is owned by billionaire Li Ka-shing. The company and projects have no direct ties with the BRI.

Business as usual: billionaire Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing with Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in 2017.
EPA/Bobby Yip/pool

The primary risks concerning China’s influence over the canal, as outlined by the US, are the potential for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to control the canal and “shut it down”.

Washington has also expressed concerns that the CCP’s access to dual-use port technology allows it to gather intelligence about US ships, such as transshipment patterns and naval routes. It also fears that China can exert an “economic chokehold” on the US in terms of the imposition of rate hikes on transit fees.

The first two points encompass the potential for China to use ports for naval purposes. But while the People’s Liberation Army navy has access to Chinese-owned ports under domestic laws and policies, they require host country permission to use Chinese-operated foreign ports. These ports are also often ill-suited for military support and operations.

So the most probable risk concerns intelligence. If the CCP deems it necessary to national security, it may use the 2020 national security law to gather sensitive data from Hong Kong-based companies.

As for rate hikes, there have been recent increases in response to droughts, maintenance investments and demand. Following Rubio’s visit, the US has claimed it is allowed to transit without paying fees.

This has been denied by Panama’s President, José Raúl Mulino. The fees are equally imposed due to neutrality principles initiated in 1977. There is no evidence that China has played any role in these rate hikes.

Panama’s ‘BRI-xit’ and Trump’s geopolitical gamble

In the unlikely event that CK Hutchison’s concession is cancelled, what would that mean for China’s presence in Panama? China’s investments in Panama precede the BRI, even if they have increased since the initiative’s launch.

The country holds geostrategic importance due to its location and role in international trade. So it’s a critical link for China’s establishment of a regional gateway for its economic and political influence.

This includes securing raw material and energy resource imports and enhancing export capabilities. China’s engagements in Panama include foreign direct investments (FDI), which amounted to around 0.8% in 2023 (compared to 3.6% by Spain and 19.6% by the US), primarily in the logistics, infrastructure, energy and construction sectors.

Most have been promoted as part of the BRI and faced renegotiation or cancellation for various – often geopolitical – reasons.

Donald Trump’s intervention prompted angry demonstrations in Panama during the visit by US secretary of state, Marco Rubio.
EPA-EFE/Bienvenido Velasco

Since BRI projects in the canal are already quite limited, withdrawing from the initiative is unlikely to result in significant short-term changes. CK Hutchison will only be “slightly affected” in case of a contract cancellation.

What’s more, as the case of Brazil shows, a country can remain unaffiliated with the BRI and still receive Chinese investments.

Therefore, Chinese engagements will probably resume outside the BRI framework. Still, even though China has shown restrained disappointment and argued that Panama has made a “regrettable decision,” Sino-Panamanian relations may cool until Trump’s attention has turned elsewhere.

Trump’s rhetoric over the Panama canal may be exaggerated to appease a domestic audience rooting for a “strongman president”. But it also reflects decades of US concerns about China’s growing clout.

So the administration’s focus on containing China is hardly surprising. Instead, it demonstrates Trump’s broader “make America great again 2.0” strategy. Therefore, Panama’s “BRI-xit” may bolster US resolve on “reclaiming” the Americas.

The Panamanian authorities seem caught between US pressure to limit China’s influence and the economic boost provided by Chinese “pragmatic” investments. So like other BRI countries, they face tough choices in the coming years.

As the largest provider of FDI – US$3.8 billion (£3.05 billion) per annum – and the canal’s biggest customer, US influence and economic leverage over Panama is substantial. Conversely, China’s interests and engagements in the country have increased, and the CCP has made it clear that it is patient and wants to continue cooperation and “resist external interruption”.

Protests have erupted in Panama over Trump’s “muscular approach”, and residents have expressed strong reluctance to return to US rule. Therefore, the question remains whether this is the “great step forward” for Panama’s ties with the US that Rubio suggests or whether Trump’s actions will ultimately push Panama closer to Beijing. More

“And one other thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education.”

President Donald Trump made this promise in a Sept. 13, 2023, campaign statement. Since then, he has frequently repeated his pledge to close the U.S. Department of Education.

Project 2025, the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the Trump administration, also provides detailed recommendations for closing the Education Department, which was created by an act of Congress in 1979.

On Feb. 4, 2025, Trump described his plans for Linda McMahon, his nominee for education secretary. “I want Linda to put herself out of a job,” Trump said, according to The Associated Press.

I am an anthropologist and have been studying U.S. political culture for years. During Trump’s first presidency, I wrote a book about the extremist far-right called “It Can Happen Here”. Since then, I have continued to study the Make America Great Again, or MAGA, movement, seeking to understand it, as the anthropological expression goes, “from the native’s point of view.”

Education policies in the U.S. are largely carried out at the state and local levels. The Education Department is a relatively small government agency, with just over 4,000 employees and a US$268 billion annual budget. A large part of its work is overseeing $1.6 trillion in federal student loans as well as grants for K-12 schools.

And it ensures that public schools comply with federal laws that protect vulnerable students, like those with disabilities.

Why, then, does Trump want to eliminate the department?

A will to fight against so-called “wokeness” and a desire to shrink the government are among the four reasons I have found.

President Donald Trump waves to supporters at a Jan. 25, 2025, rally in Las Vegas.
Ian Maule/Getty Images

1. Education Department’s alleged ‘woke’ mentality

First and foremost, Trump and his supporters believe that liberals are ruining public education by instituting what they call a
“radical woke agenda” that they say prioritizes identity politics and politically correct groupthink at the expense of the free speech of those, like many conservatives, who have different views.

Diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives promoting social justice – and critical race theory, or the idea that racism is entrenched in social and legal institutions – are a particular focus of MAGA ire.

So, too, is what Trump supporters call “radical gender ideology,” which they contend promotes policies like letting transgender students play on school sports teams or use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, not biological sex.

Trump supporters say that such policies – which the Education Department indirectly supported by expanding Title IX gender protections in 2024 to include discrimination based on gender identity – are at odds with parental school choice rights or, for some religious conservatives, the Bible.

Race and gender policies are highlighted in Project 2025 and in the 2024 GOP’s “Make America Great Again!” party platform.

Trump has repeatedly promised, as he did on Aug. 14, 2024, in North Carolina, to “keep critical race theory and transgender insanity the hell out of our schools.”

On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump signed executive orders targeting “gender ideology extremism” and “radical” DEI policies. Two weeks later, he signed another one on “Keeping Men Out Of Women’s Sports.

2. American Marxist indoctrination

For MAGA supporters, ”radical left“ wokeness is part of liberals’ long-standing attempt to ”brainwash“ others with their allegedly Marxist views that embrace communism.

One version of this ”American Marxism“ conspiracy theory argues that the indoctrination dates to the origins of U.S. public education. MAGA stalwarts say this alleged leftist agenda is anti-democratic and anti-Christian.

Saying he wants to combat the educational influence of such radicals, zealots and Marxists, Trump issued executive orders on Jan. 29 that pledge to fight ”campus anti-Semitism“ and to end ”Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools.“

3. School choice and parental rights

Trump supporters also argue that “woke” federal public education policy infringes on people’s basic freedoms and rights.

This idea extends to what Trump supporters call “restoring parental rights,” including the right to decide whether a child undergoes a gender transition or learns about nonbinary gender identity at public schools.

The first paragraph of Project 2025’s chapter on education argues, “Families and students should be free to choose from a diverse set of school options and learning environments.”

Diversity, according to this argument, should include faith-based institutions and homeschooling. Project 2025 proposes that the government could support parents who choose to homeschool or put their kids in a religious primary school by providing Educational Savings Accounts and school vouchers. Vouchers give public funding for students to attend private schools and have been expanding in use in recent years.

Critics of school vouchers, like the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers unions, argue that vouchers would diminish public education for vulnerable students by taking away scarce funding.

Trump has already issued a Jan. 29 executive order called “Expanding Educational Freedom and Educational Opportunity for Families,” which opens the door to expanded use of vouchers. This directly echoes Project 2025 by directing the Education Department to prioritize educational choice to give families a range of options.

4. Red tape

For the MAGA faithful, the Education Department exemplifies government inefficiency and red tape.

Project 2025, for example, contends that from the time it was established by the Carter administration in 1979, the Education Department has ballooned in size, come under the sway of special interest groups and now serves as an inefficient “one-stop shop for the woke education cartel.”

To deal with the Education Department’s “bloat” and “suffocating bureaucratic red tape,” Project 2025 recommends shifting all of the department’s federal programs and money to other agencies and the states.

These recommendations dovetail with Trump’s broader attempt to eliminate what he and his MAGA supporters consider wasteful spending and deregulate the government.

Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20 that establishes a “Department of Government Efficiency” headed by billionaire Elon Musk. Musk said on Feb. 4 that Trump “will succeed” in dismantling the Education Department.

An electric school bus is parked outside a public high school in Miami in March 2024.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Can Trump abolish the Education Department?

At first glance, the Education Department’s days might seem numbered given Trump’s repeated promises to eliminate it and his reported plans to soon sign an executive order that does so. Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota also introduced a bill in November 2024 to close the department.

And Trump has taken actions, such as seeking to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development without the required congressional approval, which suggest he may try to act on his Education Department promises.

Abolishing the department, however, would legally require congressional approval and 60 votes to move forward in the Senate, which is unlikely since Republicans only have 53 seats.

Trump also made similar promises in 2016 that were unfulfilled. And Trump’s executive actions are likely to face legal challenges – like a DEI-focused higher education lawsuit filed on Feb. 3.

Regardless of such legal challenges, Trump’s executive orders related to education demonstrate that he is already attempting to “drain the swamp” – starting with the Education Department. More

US President Donald Trump’s inaugural address on January 20 revealed the key themes of his rhetoric–triumphalism and overt authoritarianism–and provided insight into the programme he wants to implement. However, accomplishing his goals will not be easy amid deep divisions within the country that narrowly elected him.

The triumphant hero: martyr and messiah

In his 2017 inaugural address, Trump delivered a populist message decrying “the establishment” for the “carnage” afflicting “forgotten Americans”. Eight years later, in the longest inaugural speech in four decades, he painted a starkly different picture–one of a victorious and ambitious country with himself as both its savior and an embodiment of its triumph.

Trump used the words “I,” “me” and “my” 50 times in his 2025 address, compared to just four in 2017, deliberately merging his personal identity with that of the nation.

J. Viala-Gaudefroy, Fourni par l’auteur

He cast himself as both a hero-martyr –“tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history”– and the sole leader capable of solving the country’s problems. He linked his personal journey to divine intervention, declaring that God had saved him on July 13, the day he survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, “I was saved by God to make America great again.”

A radical crackdown on immigration

Trump’s stance on immigration is significantly more extreme than his 2017 agenda. While his first term focused on reinforcing borders, he now frames illegal immigration as an “invasion” requiring military intervention. On inauguration day, the president signed several executive orders, including one seeking to eliminate birthright citizenship despite its protection under the 14th Amendment. His hardline approach energizes supporters within his conservative base, some of whom subscribe to the “great replacement” theory and view his policies as necessary to preserve American identity.

Culture wars: race, gender and education

In his second inaugural address, Trump expanded his rhetoric to encompass culture war issues, aggressively targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in US workplaces. He accused the state of “socially engineering race and gender into every aspect of public and private life”, and then began dismantling programmes promoting equality, including recruitment efforts aimed at hiring racial and sexual minorities within the federal government.

His executive orders rescind measures dating back to the Civil Rights era, including one from president Lyndon B. Johnson mandating equal opportunity policies for federal contractors. Echoing president Ronald Reagan, Trump framed these actions in anti-racist language –“We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based”– disregarding the well-documented realities of systemic racism.

Trump also asserted that “there are only two genders, male and female”, and has signed an order recognizing only biological sex at birth. Framing this move as a defense of women, he argues that their “safe spaces”, including bathrooms and sports competitions, must be protected from individuals who “identify” as female.

In education, he decried critical perspectives on US history as “unpatriotic”, insisting that schools instill national pride instead of “teaching our children to hate our country”. His plan includes reducing or eliminating federal funding for schools that teach “inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content” or mandate vaccines and mask-wearing–despite education policy largely falling under state jurisdiction.

Reviving founding myths

Trump’s historical narrative is steeped in romanticized patriotism. He revived the myth of “the frontier”, a late 19th century ideal portraying westward expansion as the ultimate symbol of American dynamism. This narrative ignores histories of the genocide of indigenous peoples and environmental destruction.

His vision of “inexhaustible” natural resources –particularly shale oil and gas, described as “liquid gold”– reflects this ideology of relentless economic expansion and 19th century “bonanza economics”. By rejecting US conservationist traditions, Trump is prioritizing industrial growth over environmental sustainability.

Expansionism reimagined: from the frontier to space

Trump draws inspiration from president William McKinley (1897–1901), an advocate of expansionism during the Spanish-American War, which brought territories such as the Philippines and Puerto Rico under US control. Reviving the concept of “manifest destiny”, he merged exceptionalism with expansionism, vowing to “plant the American flag on Mars.”

Trump restated his intention to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”–a gesture with little practical impact given that much of the gulf lies outside US territory. While he has expressed interest in purchasing Greenland (which he has also claimed to be willing to take over) and even annexing Canada, he mentioned neither in his inaugural speech. However, he did promise to take control of the Panama Canal, justifying the move with a series of lies and exaggerations regarding its history and operation.

A new golden age or “Gilded Age”?

Trump’s admiration for McKinley extends to his economic policies. He envisions a protectionist strategy driving national reindustrialization. Yet, McKinley’s era–the “Gilded Age”–was marked by extreme inequality, a lack of income and corporate taxes, minimal regulation and rampant corruption. The wealthiest figures of the time, later dubbed “robber barons”, mirror the oligarchic ambitions of Trump’s current supporters.

Ironically, as economist Douglas A. Irwin notes, the economic prosperity of the late 19th century was not driven by tariffs but by mass immigration. Between 1870 and 1913, the US population doubled due to an influx of unskilled laborers, a reality at odds with Trump’s strict immigration agenda.

A nation divided under an assertive authoritarianism

Trump’s vision, as outlined in his speech, is one of maximal presidential power, where justice is subordinated to political goals. His decision to pardon over 1,500 individuals convicted for their involvement in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot underscores this authoritarian approach, reinforcing the idea that traditional laws do not apply to his most loyal and even violent supporters.

He has also launched a sweeping purge of the federal administration, citing “integrity, competence, and loyalty” as guiding values. Additionally, he has openly planned to use the Justice Department and FBI for political purposes.

Unlike previous presidents, Trump made no effort to unite a deeply divided nation during his address. He ignored the tradition of acknowledging his predecessor, Joe Biden, and instead declared his electoral victory proof that “the entire nation is rallying behind our agenda.”

However, the US remains fractured politically. Trump secured less than 50% of the popular vote in the November election, his party holds the narrowest House majority since the 1930s, and he entered office with one of the lowest initial approval ratings in 70 years–just 47%. His personal favorability was even lower, hovering around 41% (Reuters, NPR).

This polarization is evident in the public reaction to his most controversial policies, such as his pardoning of the January 6 rioters just after his inaugural address. While his base celebrates these decisions, the broader American public largely disapproves. The fundamental question remains: can US institutions withstand the growing tensions? Without majority support, realising Trump’s most radical societal and political agenda may prove an uphill battle. More

In his first few days back in office, President Donald Trump engaged in a whirlwind of executive actions, from exiting the World Health Organization, to deploying military personnel and National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Many of these actions are unprecedented. Some appear to be illegal and unconstitutional, according to legal experts and judges. But none of them should come as a surprise – nearly all of them were outlined in 2022 in a plan called Project 2025.

A Heritage Foundation representative attends a Moms for Liberty National Summit in Washington on Aug. 30, 2024.
Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Project 2025 is top of Trump’s to-do list

Project 2025 is a multifaceted strategy to advance conservative policies in the federal government. Part of this effort revolves around the “Mandate for Leadership,” a 922-page document published in April 2023 that outlines a slew of proposed governmental policy changes.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank and advocacy group, organized the collaborative effort. A long list of other right-leaning research organizations and interest groups, like Moms for Liberty and Turning Point USA, also participated in Project 2025.

In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, Project 2025 participants wrote on the plan’s website that “to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left,” they would “need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration.”

In my research on think tanks, I’ve investigated how these research organizations can influence public policymaking. The most potent strategy is to ally with a political party and support its objectives through research and advocacy. This is exactly what the Heritage Foundation has done via Project 2025.

Even though Trump said during his 2024 campaign that he was not affiliated with the project, evidence of Project 2025’s agenda can be seen throughout the beginning of his second term – as well as in his first administration.

For example, on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump echoed the plan’s statement that “men and women are biological realities” when he signed an executive order that, in part, recognizes “two sexes, male and female” that are “not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” This order led to the removal of transgender references from government websites.

Other orders are similarly aligned with Project 2025. Take Trump’s executive order that, in part, eliminated the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, or OFCCP, a government office previously charged with ensuring companies working with the government did not discriminate against any employees. Project 2025 recommended, quite simply, to “eliminate OFCCP.”

Some news reports have found that there are already many other examples of Trump policy decisions and executive orders that appear to mirror Project 2025 recommendations.

One CNN analysis from Jan. 31 found that more than two-thirds of the 53 executive orders Trump issued during his first week in office “evoked proposals outlined in [the] ‘Mandate for Leadership.‘”

Heritage Foundation’s decades of activism

Project 2025’s influence on Trump reflects the Heritage Foundation’s growing importance to the Republican Party.

In my forthcoming book about the polarization and politicization of policy research organizations, I show the many ways that think tanks like the Heritage Foundation have become embedded within partisan networks and intimately connected to politicians. Increasingly, Heritage and other partisan-aligned think tanks, including progressive groups like the Center for American Progress, use their research to consistently support partisan agendas that align with their policy goals.

The relationship between the Heritage Foundation and the GOP represents the most extreme version of this dynamic. The think tank has supported Republican presidents as far back as Ronald Reagan, using another policy document – also called the “Mandate for Leadership” – to secure significant policy gains through his administration. But the symbiosis between the Heritage Foundation and the GOP has been particularly notable since Trump gained more influence in the party.

At the start of Trump’s first term, as one Heritage Foundation researcher told me in 2017, the think tank recognized that the “administration didn’t have much policy depth, so when they won the election they were sort of like, ‘Now what do we do?’ And that’s where Heritage comes in. … We work on these issues year-round, so we’ll stand by your side.”

The Heritage Foundation also vetted potential staffers for federal government positions. This led to more than 66 Heritage employees or former employees working for the Trump administration by the middle of 2018.

But Heritage has not entirely dictated Trump’s agenda. While the group did say that Trump “embraced 64 percent of our 321 recommendations” by the end of 2017, the think tank has also revamped its agenda to align with Trump on the issues he cared most about, like trade and culture wars.

As the think tank’s president, Kevin Roberts, said in 2024, Heritage views its job as “institutionalizing Trumpism.”

The people connecting Trump to Project 2025

Many of the contributors to the “Mandate for Leadership” had been Trump administration officials, like Russ Vought, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget and current nominee for the same position.

This list also includes John Ratcliffe, the former director of National Intelligence and incoming CIA director, and Tom Homan, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and current border czar.

In all, more than half of the plan’s 312 authors, editors and contributors previously worked in the first Trump administration.

An incredibly important but often underappreciated part of Project 2025 was its staffing effort: The coalition worked to identify, vet and train potential staffers and appointees who are now making their way into the Trump administration and executive agencies.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gestures toward a visual aid about Project 2025 during a news conference in September 2024 in Washington.
Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

What people – and the law – say about Project 2025

Polling from January 2025 shows that a majority of Americans oppose many of Trump’s actions since retaking office, sometimes by large margins.

Even during the presidential campaign, both Project 2025 itself and the policy ideas it advocated were broadly unpopular. Democrats consistently warned about the plan in their attacks against Republicans.

The lack of popular approval for Project 2025 and its proposals is notable because the Heritage Foundation has historically invested time and money into gaining public support for its work. It even operates an initiative that polls citizens on how they “interpret arguments for and against our policy recommendations and how we can best gain their understanding and support.”

There are also legal considerations.

Many of Trump’s actions – like saying the government will deny citizenship to children born to some immigrants in the U.S. – rest on potentially unconstitutional interpretations and expansions of presidential power.

This represents another about-face for the think tank, which has historically opposed efforts to empower the president at the expense of congressional authority. Indeed, the Heritage Foundation was founded to work through Congress to accomplish its goals. But with Project 2025, it seems it is pursuing a new strategy.

How successful the Heritage Foundation is in helping Trump implement Project 2025 proposals will partially depend on how the public reacts. Whether Congress asserts its control over budgetary matters and exercises general oversight of the executive branch will also matter, as will the decisions made by the American judicial system.

These checks and balances have helped sustain American democracy for nearly 250 years – whether they will continue to do so remains to be seen. More

One of the executive orders US President Donald Trump signed the day he was inaugurated was a 90-day pause in US foreign development assistance.

The US Agency for International Development, USAID, was ordered to halt funding. Programs worldwide were issued with stop-work orders.

All of a sudden, more than US$60 billion (around A$95 billion) of programs for the world’s most vulnerable people just stopped.

So what happened? The world became less fair, and US soft power fizzled.

What’s happened so far?

We know this decision will cause deaths.

Stop-work orders were delivered to programs that provide AIDS medication to patients. If you stop this, people die.

Charities, many of which work on a shoestring, had no choice but immediately to lay off staff.

Food and vaccines already in warehouses couldn’t be distributed.

Programs providing landmine clearing and counterterrorism training ceased.

Belatedly, the US walked this back to some extent by saying life-saving humanitarian programs would be exempted.

But it doesn’t appear to have slowed the pace of layoffs, partly because of confusion.

With USAID staff now either sacked, placed on forced leave or told to stay home – and the agency’s website taken down – USAID is essentially no longer operational.

Agents from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have raided the offices of USAID and assumed control, with Musk posting on his X social network that “USAID is a criminal organization” and “it’s time for it to die”.

Some of the people affected have gone public, including Australian organisations on behalf of their partners.

But most in the sector can’t speak up if they hope for funding in the future. So the true extent of the impacts, including their knock-on effects, is likely much larger than has been publicly reported so far.

A more unequal and unstable world

With the halt in aid for the poorest, the world just became more unequal.

Before this week, the US was the world’s largest aid donor.

USAID was established by then-US president John F. Kennedy in 1961. Its programs focused on improving global health, alleviating poverty and providing emergency relief in response to natural disasters or conflict, as well as enhancing education and strengthening democratic institutions abroad.

The countries that were receiving the most USAID assistance in 2023 were Ukraine, Ethiopia, Jordan, Afghanistan and Somalia.

USAID programs distributed food to impoverished nations, including Uganda.
Stephen Wandera/AP

In the Indo-Pacific, the Lowy Institute’s aid maps show that the Pacific received US$249 million (about A$470 million) and SouthEast Asia received US$1 billion (almost A$1.6 billion) in US overseas development assistance annually in the most recent data.

This funded 2,352 projects, including peacebuilding in Papua New Guinea, malaria control in Myanmar, early childhood development in Laos, and programs to improve the education, food security and health of school-age children across the region.

All of these programs are now being reviewed to ensure they are “fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States”.

Based on the first Trump administration, there seems no chance that programs on climate, gender equality, abortion and equity inclusion will be reinstated after the 90-day assessment period. Losing funds for climate adaptation and mitigation is a huge issue for the Pacific Islands.

Assistance for survivors of gender-based violence, employment for people with disabilities and support for LGBTQIA+ youth will likely lose funding.

In communities that received significant USAID funding, the sudden cut in programs and loss of community organisations will damage the fabric of society.

An unequal world is a less stable one. Australia’s peak body for the non-government aid sector, the Australian Council for International Development, says the suspension of USAID programs “will work against efforts to build peace, safety, and economic stability for the world”.

A power that’s no longer super

Thinking of the impact on the US interests, there has been an enormous hit to US soft power from an entire pillar of US foreign policy suddenly disappearing.

This is underlined by the fact the cuts apply equally to ally, partner and adversary nations alike.

USAID offices in Washington were closed shortly after the executive order.
Shawn Thew/EPA

In the Pacific, the Biden Administration made a real effort to increase US presence, opening embassies and announcing USAID programs.

All of this has now been squandered by withdrawing from this space. I am aware of a project for which China has come in to provide funding where US funding has gone. It is a spectacular setback for the US.

What is most extraordinary is that this is self-inflicted damage. There were alternatives, such as continuing business as usual during a 90-day period of review, then giving notice to some programs that they would be discontinued.

The performative and haphazard way in which the policy has been implemented suggests an administration that doesn’t care much about the world outside its borders and is more concerned about ideological battles within.

Researcher Cameron Hill describes Trump as linking foreign aid “to the symbols and slogans of his domestic political coalition”. This is likely to continue beyond the demise of USAID to other agencies involved in foreign assistance, such as development finance.

Australia needs to help fill the gap

What does this mean for Australia? As a middle power, it has an opportunity to step up – and work with other development partners such as Japan, Korea, India, Indonesia, Canada and European donors in the face of a genuine emergency.

For the Australian government this might mean an emergency increase in development funding or freeing up existing funding to keep the lights on.

Australia will undoubtedly now need to step up on climate programs in the Pacific if US funding doesn’t return. Australia could seek to convene an urgent meeting through the Pacific Islands Forum to discuss.

The first fortnight of the Trump administration has had global impact well beyond US politics. On the most important issue for the majority of the world – development – the US decided to withdraw, destroying in a few days what took decades to build. More

In 2018, a colleague and I, together with a team of Greenlandic research assistants, conducted one of the most comprehensive surveys to date on public opinion in Greenland. We travelled to 13 randomly selected towns and settlements across the island nation, conducting in-person interviews with a representative sample of adult residents.

The survey explored a wide range of topics. We asked for views on climate change, economic matters – and the prospect of independence from Denmark. Until recently, this was the latest poll on what the people of Greenland thought about this issue.

Greenland, a former Danish colony, is currently an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. This political arrangement grants Greenland extensive self-rule, including control over most domestic affairs, as well as its own prime minister and parliament. However, Denmark retains authority over foreign policy, defence and monetary policy.

While our survey results were covered in Greenlandic and Danish media upon their release, they received scant international attention. This changed abruptly on January 15, when newly re-elected US president Donald Trump reposted an old news article about our results. The headline stated that two-thirds of Greenlandic citizens support independence.

Trump posting the 2018 poll in 2025.
Truth Social

Trump did not add a comment in the post but the insinuation was clear given his recent statements about annexing Greenland from Denmark: Greenlandic residents want independence from Denmark, and therefore, they might be open to other political or economic arrangements with the US.

“I think we’re going to have it,” Trump recently said after a phone call with the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, who told him the land was “not for sale”. Trump has in the past spoken of somehow “purchasing” Greenland but has since moved on towards speaking in more assertive terms about taking control of the territory.

Back in 2018, when we conducted the survey, Trump had not yet revealed any plans to annex the island nation. It was a scenario we could hardly even have imagined and therefore did not ask our participants about. As such, regardless of how Trump framed them, the survey results in no way indicated that the population harboured a desire to join the US.

In fact, a recent survey conducted by Sermitsiaq (a Greenlandic newspaper) and Berlingske (a Danish newspaper) directly addressed this question and found that only 6% of respondents wanted Greenland to leave Denmark and instead become part of the US.

In the study I published based on the 2018 data collection, I reported that a majority of the Greenlandic population aspired to independence. Two-thirds of the participants thought that “Greenland should become an independent country at some point in the future”.

Opinions were more divergent regarding the timing of independence. When asked how they would vote in an independence referendum if it were held today, respondents who stated a preference were evenly split between “yes” and “no” to independence.

‘I think we’re going to have it’.
EPA

The Act on Greenland Self-Government, passed in 2009, grants the Greenlandic government the legal authority to unilaterally call a referendum on separating from the political union with Denmark. According to the law, “the decision regarding Greenland’s independence shall be taken by the people of Greenland”.

During the 15 years since its passage, the option to call a referendum has not been exercised. This is likely due to the potential economic consequences of leaving the union with Denmark.

Each year, Denmark sends a block grant that covers approximately half of Greenland’s budget. This supports a welfare system that is more extensive than what is available to most Americans. In addition, Denmark administers many costly public services, including national defence.

This backdrop presents a dilemma for many Greenlanders who aspire to independence, as they weigh welfare concerns against political sovereignty. This was also evident from my study, which revealed that economic considerations influence independence preferences.

For many Greenlanders, the island nation’s rich natural resources present a potential bridge between economic self-sufficiency and full sovereignty. Foreign investments and the associated tax revenues from resource extraction are seen as key to reducing economic dependence on Denmark. Presumably, these natural resources, which include rare earths and other strategic minerals, also help explain Trump’s interest in Greenland.

As Greenland’s future is likely to remain at the centre of a geopolitical power struggle for some time, it is crucial to remember that only Greenlanders have the right to determine their own path. What scarce information is available on their views suggests that while many aspire to independence, it is not driven by a desire to join the US. More

Since becoming president, Donald Trump has issued a record number of executive orders. Several aim to dismantle federally funded initiatives based on the idea that “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) are goals worth achieving.

In response, many commentators have warned Trump may be dragging the United States back to the dark days of the “pre-civil rights” Jim Crow era.

But who or what was Jim Crow?

The term Jim Crow refers to the long period in US history when black Americans could not exercise the same rights of citizenship as white Americans.

“Jim Crow” segregation began when slavery ended in northern states such as New York, between 1777 and about 1830. There was a brief reprieve from some of the era’s excesses just after the Civil War, when African Americans could do things such as run for political office, vote, and own land even in the South.

But by 1877, conservative forces had regrouped. In the next few decades they enforced inequality through acts of violence such as lynching and by passing laws mandating separate public spaces and schools for black people and preventing them from voting.

The Jim Crow era ended with the mass mobilisation in the 1950s and 1960s of civil rights campaigners, which forced the federal government to take, in the words of President John F. Kennedy, “affirmative action” to make things more fair.

President Trump throws pens used to sign executive orders to the crowd during an event in Washington on January 20.
Matt Rourke/AAP

Who was Jim Crow?

The character of “Jim Crow” first came to life in 1828 on a New Orleans stage. An itinerant white performer, Thomas Dartmouth Rice, blackened his face and claimed to be mimicking the songs and dances of an enslaved man, named Jim Crow.

White performers and later even black ones wore makeup and outfits accentuating the supposed difference of black people from white norms of beauty. They performed songs, skits, and sometimes excerpts of other well-known stage plays, all designed to malign black people. One of those songs was “Jump Jim Crow”.

Cover of the early edition of ‘Jump Jim Crow’ sheet music.
Wikimedia Commons

Within ten years of Rice’s first rendition, the theatrical genre of minstrelsy took hold of audiences in the US, and spread across the British world, including Australia and New Zealand. Its popularity lasted right into the 20th century, as late as the 1960s.

Historians have never quite solved the mystery of how, by the 1890s, the mythical figure of Jim Crow became the shorthand name for the system of laws, violence, and caricature under which black Americans laboured for so long.

But by naming it as such, the shorthand implied the system was required in order to keep an inferior group of people, illustrated by the dissolute and comical character of Jim Crow, in check. The name stuck.

Actor Thomas D. Rice dancing blackface as the enslaved man ‘Jim Crow’ in 1836.
Wikimedia Commons

The name also travelled. In Australia, several Indigenous men were named Jim Crow (and Indigenous women named Topsy, after another caricatured figure in the wildly popular American novel and stage show, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin).

In central Victoria, Jim Crow Creek was renamed Larni Barramal Yaluk in 2023 after a long campaign by Dja Dja Wurrung leaders.

Why separate people by race?

The Jim Crow era emerged after slavery ended because wealthy white people wanted to maintain a cheap labour force.

They justified this system by claiming the aim of keeping white and black people apart was to maintain “racial purity.” (The very word, “miscegenation” emerged in 1864, just a year before the end of slavery in the US.) This rhetoric also helped make segregation appealing to poorer whites, because it enabled them to feel superior to non-white people.

Little Rock, 1959: a rally at the state capitol, protesting the integration of the local high school.
Wikimedia Commons

While segregation is now often imagined to have been total, in fact white and black Americans continued to inhabit many of the same spaces. White and black agricultural workers often tilled the same fields, while African American women worked throughout these decades as maids or cooks in white people’s homes, a very intimate role.

Maintaining inequality

The system of unequal opportunities – “Jim Crow” – was maintained in three main ways. First, with violence. More than 4,000 African Americans were killed in a ritual known as “lynching” between 1877 and 1950. Untold numbers suffered other forms of violence and lived constantly with the fear that they might be its victim.

Secondly, local and state governments passed laws and ordinances to control African Americans. These included dictates on mobility such as curfews; vagrancy laws to force black Americans to sign desperately unfair labour contracts; and prohibitions on black people owning firearms. Later, these laws were expanded to prevent black men (and later women) from running for office, voting, or sitting on juries.

And the laws mandated separate public spaces, such as in train travel or in the theatre, as well as separate educational facilities. In 1896, the provision of “separate but equal” public facilities was given the stamp of approval by the US Supreme Court. That decision was only overturned in 1954.

At the bus station in Durham, North Carolina, May 1940. Photo by Jack Delano.
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

Thirdly, the racism that had underpinned justifications for the trafficking of 12 million people from Africa across the Atlantic in the slave trade was expanded in new ways.

Grotesque caricaturing of black people became a mainstay of consumer goods (think of “Aunt Jemima” pancakes or “Uncle Ben” rice) and popular culture. This started with theatre in the 1820s, then later in recorded music, film, radio, and television.

Today’s picture

Now, “Jim Crow” is back in public discourse. Conservatives say their anti-DEI policies restore merit-based appointments and are genuinely “colorblind.” But the appointment of Fox News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, for example, suggests “merit” is understood very differently by different groups of people.

Critics such as Margaret Huang, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s president and chief executive, assert that Trump and others’ attacks on DEI “aren’t about a particular program or some acronym — they’re just a sanitized substitute for the racist comments that can no longer be spoken openly”.

Coupled with other presidential executive orders aiming to remove “birthright citizenship,” and to expand deportation of immigrants and limit fresh immigration, it’s clear Trump’s administration is intent on reshaping just who is a legitimate citizen of the US, and which groups of people have access to federal support.

If there is one lesson to take from the ignominious period of US history known as Jim Crow, it is this: it was overturned only by dint of African Americans’ immense collective efforts. These began with civil court cases in the 1830s through to marching across a bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.

Participants in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

Plenty of people are looking to their examples of community building, civil disobedience, and collective resistance to once again defend the principles of equality. More

The pairing of British prime minister Keir Starmer and US president Donald Trump connotes many imponderables. The only certainty happens to be the most significant: they will be in office together for four years.

It is rare for a prime minister and a president to have the luxury of knowing – barring extreme unpredictabilities, such as death or incapacity – they have a full term in harness. And personal chemistry matters.

Trump emphasises (rather too much for the liking of America’s allies) the deal, the handshake, the gaze; the bond that only the lonely, only those who lead, can have. Starmer emphasises level-headedness (although his government has not been particulary conspicuous in evincing it).

Opposites may well attract, but the precedents for coterminous presidents and prime ministers are not encouraging. John Major and Bill Clinton, elected seven months apart, spent 1992 to 1997 together. But in the very definition of what not to do before an election, London had made its preference for the result of the election in America known – and the other guy won. The Conservative and the Democrat were no more than coolly cordial thereafter.

Major awks.
Alamy/Michael Stephens

On his re-election in 2001, Tony Blair knew he had George W. Bush for at least four years – it turned out to be eight – but the consequences for him were disastrous once the two decided to partake in a war on “terror”.

In 1964, Harold Wilson and Lyndon Johnson were elected almost simultaneously, and spent 1964 to 1968 together. Though they were Labour and Democrat, and therefore from sister parties, it was not a harmonious pairing. Wilson’s meddling in, but lack of support for, Johnson’s war in Vietnam was a source of unbridled irritation in the White House.

Trump and May

The last time Trump became president, Theresa May was prime minister and she travelled with undisguised haste to the White House. There she achieved a highly untypical diplomatic coup in getting Trump to commit publicly to Nato (that bars should be so low was a general feature of the presidency).

Their subsequent relationship was, however, toxic. No prime minister has been less likely to gaze, to bond (despite pictures of them holding hands), and the president held her as having mangled Brexit, a bid for freedom with which he was keen to associate himself.

Theresa May and Donald Trump during her visit to the White House, before relations turned sour.
EPA

Before the US election, Starmer displayed a unfamiliar deftness of touch, and banked some credit. His immediate phone call to candidate Trump following an attempt on his life in July was both bold and smart. There followed the fabled Trump Tower two-hour chicken dinner.

It was more typical for Starmer that when it emerged, in a most unfortunate echo of 1992, Labour activists – and Starmer’s own pollster – were working on the Kamala Harris campaign, Trump’s people cried foreign interference and threatened legal action.

And the two in Starmer’s team who will have the most exposure to the new administration have both been publicly rude about Trump. David Lammy, now foreign secretary, called him “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic [and] narcissistic” in 2019.

Peter Mandelson, nominated but not yet confirmed as the UK ambassador to the US, has made comments about Trump being a “bully” and a “danger to the world”. To appease opposition in DC on his appointment, Mandelson has since turned on a sixpence (or perhaps a dime).

This is, at root, about Trump. No other president would have attracted such comments from frontline politicians. But from TV studio to TV studio, Lammy and Mandelson will have those quotes hung about their necks as if they were modern-day ancient mariners. Starmer’s innate caution in public utterance, in this area at least, has inured him.

Indeed, the repercussions of his unusual boldness in picking Mandelson over a career diplomat may discourage Starmer from ever thinking imaginatively again.

Most members of the Trump administration would be naturally hostile to a Labour government even without its leading figures insulting their boss or campaigning for his opponent. Certainly, the grounds for disagreement are great: the threat of tariffs, demanded increases in defence spending, the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, co-operation with China and support for Ukraine.

Thus Morgan McSweeney – architect of Labour’s 2024 victory, planner of its re-election and Starmer’s chief of staff – flew out to meet Susie Wiles, his equivalent in the White House. (It did not, a person privy to such information told me, go well. Voices were raised.)

Elon Musk, this moment’s most prominent presidential acolyte inveighed on X, “Starmer must go”, adding for good measure, “He is a national embarrassment.” It is indeed embarrassing – for Starmer – but he will be consoled with the well-founded suspicion that the life-expectancy of Musk and Trump’s tech bromance will be much less than four years.

Cause for self-reflection

The return of Trump, emboldened and more powerful than before, has effectively forced the posing of the age-old question: over which expanse of sea should Britain gaze – the Channel or the Atlantic? Churchill thought it should – and that only Britain could – do both.

Hence, perhaps, Trump’s own public statement about the possible destination of his first international trip: “It could be UK. Traditionally, it’s been UK.”

It hasn’t. Only Jimmy Carter, in 1977, and Joe Biden, in 2021, visited the UK first – and then because of summits. More than a few presidents (most recently Ford and Johnson) didn’t visit at all.

But even what might have been a supportive comment was laced with arsenic: “Last time, I went to Saudi Arabia because they agreed to buy 450 billion dollars’ worth of United States merchandise … And if that offer were right, I’d do that again.” Which at least may free the British government to be as unsentimentally transactional.

Trump and Starmer achieved big victories, albeit when painted in the most flattering terms. Starmer’s came on a historically low combination of vote share and voter turnout, Trump’s with fewer votes than Biden. But Trump will like that Starmer won a large majority. When May managed to lose hers in 2017, what little respect Trump had for her went with it.

Starmer would much rather have had four years with Biden, and even more with Harris, another public prosecutor of the left. But he has to deal with the transatlantic relationship as it is, rather than as he would wish it to be, and this one is most unlikely to be special.

Starmer is, moreover, a realist. Which is why he’ll also know that the second Trump presidency will be much more consequential than the first. Caution may have limited effect. More