In his first term in office, from 2017 to 2021, U.S. president Donald Trump put forward budget proposals providing for deep cuts to international development and diplomacy. Each of his three evisceration plans failed to pass Congress. 

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His three attempts failed largely because of alarmed responses from leaders of the Armed Forces, who argued that military might alone could not solve America’s conflicts and should be complemented by soft power.    

The budgetary wrangling in his first term brought into sharp focus Trump’s disdain for the civilian agencies that make up “soft power”,  chiefly the foreign service, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Voice of America and a number of lesser-known organisations devoted to conflict resolution 

Three months into Trump’s second term in the White House, the institutions he unsuccessfully tried to dismantle before are close to extinction. The term “soft power” is now rarely used in debates over the future of what Trump has termed “the Golden Age” of America. 

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Coined in the late 1980s by the Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye, the term soft power includes cultural and educational exchange programmes meant to improve the image of the United States and reinforce the influence of American popular culture, from McDonald’s to Hollywood movies. 

Applied skilfully, soft power helps to persuade others to do what a government wants without force or coercion.  

Trump prefers coercion --  in the form of tariffs. Within days of taking office, he imposed 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada and ten percent on China. The ostensible rationale: they were not doing enough to stop the flow of fentanyl, the potent drug blamed for more than 100,000 overdose deaths per year. 

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The tariffs Trump announced signalled the start of what the Wall Street Journal headlined The Dumbest Trade War in History. The president plans to widen it next month by imposing “reciprocal” tariffs to match the rates other countries charge on imports from the U.S. That means a global trade war. 

While the tariff wars became a dominant topic by economists, analysts and policymakers, the Trump administration pushed on with a sweeping campaign to reshape the country by cutting the size of the 2.3 million strong federal work force and eliminating agencies deemed unnecessary. 

As Trump and his closest aide, Elon Musk, see it, they include the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Voice of America, and the United States Institute for Peace (USIP).  

Trump gave Musk, the world’s richest man, immense power by making him the head of a newly-established organisation, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It is not officially part of the government but has been instrumental in firing or offering buyout to more than 100,000 people so far.  

In February, Musk described USAID as “a criminal organisation. Time for it to die” he said in a post on his social media platform X. He did not elaborate on his assertion but within a month, the vast majority of USAID programmes had been terminated and thousands of employees were laid off  and those working overseas recalled. 

USAID’s missions around the globe ranged from famine detection and polio vaccinations to emergency food kitchens in conflict zones. Freezing funds for humanitarian assistance had almost immediate effect, including shutting off more than 1,100 communal kitchens in Sudan for people left destitute by the country’s civil war. 

The Council of Foreign Relations describes USAID as “the foremost tool of U.S. soft power.” It was set up by John F. Kennedy in 1961to cultivate goodwill toward the United States. Among its notable successes were its role in eradicating smallpox and its part in a global campaign to fight polio.  

After a review of USAID’s work abroad led by Elon Musk, the Trump administration ended 5,200 of USAID’s 6,200 programmes, leaving intact only 18 percent which will be administered by the Department of State. Critics of the cuts say they leave the field wide open for China to expand its influence around the globe. 

That also applies to another controversial  move by Trump 2.0: silencing the Voice of America. The government-funded broadcasting network first went on the air in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda. It expanded over the years to become one of the world’s  biggest broadcasters, producing digital, TV, and radio content in 48 languages. 

In Trump’s first term in office he repeatedly criticized what he called the entrenched liberal bias of VOA journalists and accused them of spreading “radical propaganda” – the same charges he routinely levels at traditional media. 

On March 16, almost the entire staff of 1,300 journalists and assistants were placed on administrative leave. VOA went off the air. A catchy headline in the Washington Post put the closure in context: “Stalin, Mao and Khomeini couldn’t quell freedom’s voice. But Trump did.” 

There was enthusiastic applause from China and Iran, two countries ruled by dictatorial regimes who hated VOA’s coverage of events their own media were forbidden to touch. 

The Chinese Communist Party’s international media outlet, Global Times, headlined the demise of what it called “the lie factory.’  

It added, gleefully, that “from smearing human rights in China’s Xinjiang (province) to hyping up disputes in the South China Sea, from supporting ‘Taiwan independence’ forces to backing Hong Kong rioters, from fabricating the so-called China virus narrative…almost every malicious falsehood about China has VOA’s fingerprint all over it.”  

Praise also came from Iran, where VOA is banned as an “enemy broadcaster”. The broadcaster's Farsi speakers, about 100, are estimated to have reached around 9.5 million social media followers with news delivered via satellite and VPNs.  

In Trump’s first term, an open letter by 151 retired generals and admirals said that  

“elevating diplomacy and development alongside defence is critical to America’s safety.” They quoted then Defence Secretary James Mattis as saying that America had “two fundamental powers, the power of intimidation and the power of inspiration.”  

In the era of Trump 2.0, inspiration looks to be reserved for those who like tariffs and trade wars. 

Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.