In April 2023, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in the US, published a 900-page document titled “2025 Presidential Transition Project”, which became known as Project 2025. Project 2025 set a list of several broad conservative objectives that would reassert presidential power, reshape the Federal government, consolidate executive power in favour of right-wing policies, and re-establish American traditional values. Donald Trump vehemently denied that he would adopt Project 2025 during his presidential campaign. It soon became clear that he fully embraced it. Donald Trump’s inaugural speech set the tone for the policies that were to come. For Trump, America was under attack and American citizens had to be protected: “From this moment on, America’s decline is over”. From stricter border controls and an attack on migrants to reversing climate initiatives in order to battle the USA’s “energy emergency”, Trump set the stepping stone for a more isolationist and nationalist American era.

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On the day of his inauguration, he signed 26 executive orders, 11 presidential memoranda and repealed 67 executive orders signed by his predecessor, Joe Biden. Part of these 26 executive orders, drafted from the Project 25 playbook, was the executive order that targeted Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) which are described as “radical and wasteful”, an executive order on ‘protecting women from gender ideology’, and the “re-evaluation and realigning” of foreign aid.  The impacts of these executive orders go beyond the US borders. In this short article, we will look at how these orders have impacted global development by discussing the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the targeting of gender equality and the Women, Peace and Security agenda, and the broader impacts on migration and the environment. Although these issues may seem disconnected, we argue that Trump’s hostile approach to Global Development is part of a broader, long-standing process of reversal of such policies by Western liberal democracies.

DOGE and the Dismantling of USAID

Following Elon Musk’s endorsement and financing of Donald Trump’s campaign, Musk’s plan to take over the US bureaucracy started taking form. Elon Musk first mentioned the creation of a "government efficiency commission" during a podcast on 2 August 2024. A few days later, Donald Trump and Elon Musk held a discussion on X on issues that ranged from climate change and energy policy to immigration and nuclear warfare. Days following Donald Trump’s re-election, Trump, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and others gathered at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk and Ramaswamy were initially in charge of the organisation. DOGE took shape with an executive order on 20 January 2025. A day later, Ramaswamy quit, leaving Musk as the sole leader. The organisation’s own identity is abstract, as it is not a formal department of the US Government – for this to happen, it needs to be approved by the Congress. Its purpose is “modernising federal technology and software to maximise government efficiency” and its mission is to “end the tyranny of the bureaucracy”.

As DOGE moved to pause all foreign aid, which for the US includes both development and military funding, USAID became its primary target. By 2023 the US was the world’s largest contributor of foreign aid having spent $68 billion in foreign aid, more than $40 billion of which were USAID’s. The Agency had a significant presence in Europe, especially Ukraine, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. As soon as DOGE announced the dismantling of USAID, its projects froze, and its staff were put on administrative leave. This triggered a series of repercussions in sectors where the organisation was active. Specifically, in 2023, USAID was mostly involved in economic development, humanitarian assistance, program support, health, governance, peace and security and the environment. For example, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Jordan, Somalia and the Congo topped the chart for foreign aid through USAID, with Ukraine receiving $16.43 billion in aid. Soup kitchens in Sudan closed within a week of the announcement, healthcare services in Sudan and elsewhere were stopped, and millions are projected to lose access, HIV clinics throughout Africa shut down, leaving thousands without medicine.

Despite DOGE’s aim to tackle bureaucracy, it soon became clear that the agency was targeting DEI. An article published on the White House website singled out USAID and accused it of “WASTE” and “ABUSE”. The article lists twelve projects and their funding: “$1.5 million to ‘advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities’”; “$70,000 for production of a ‘DEI musical’ in Ireland”; “$2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam”; “$47,000 for a ‘transgender opera’ in Colombia”; “Funding to print “personalized” contraceptives birth control devices in developing countries” among others. At the same time, Elon Musk and others were sharing debunked claims related to USAID’s spending on social media. It became clear that for Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their "war on woke”, the USA’s soft power and international objectives were starkly different from DEI- and USAID-related practice.

Gender and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

Among the executive orders Donald Trump signed on the day of his inauguration, one focused on gender. Its primary aim is to defend women from what was framed as “gender ideology extremism”, orders that “federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology.” The order’s primary target is transgender rights by insisting on a biological definition of sex, and denying  the existence of trans people as a group:

Accordingly, my Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.

Accordingly, my Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.

The executive order on gender cannot be seen separately from the executive order........

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