The Trump administration has revived the “America First” mantra with renewed vigor—a slogan whose roots trace back to the isolationist impulses that shaped U.S. foreign policy from the nation’s inception through the eve of the Second World War. Since Donald Trump assumed office, the dismantling of USAID, the slashing of more than 2,000 agency jobs, and the abrupt cooling of transatlantic relations signal a deliberate march away from global leadership.

But this turn inward is not a course correction. It’s a strategic miscalculation—one that may hasten the erosion of American global influence. In relinquishing its role as an engaged global power, the U.S. is not simply conserving resources; it is forfeiting leverage to rivals like China and inadvertently pushing developing nations to recalibrate their alliances, often toward spheres of influence more amenable to authoritarian power structures. What was once a U.S.-led international order is now being actively contested—and the U.S. is voluntarily stepping aside.

The most visible casualty of this reorientation is foreign aid. USAID, the backbone of America’s global outreach, has been gutted. Thousands of programs dedicated to public health, democratic governance, and educational development have been frozen. Sudan offers a grim illustration: nearly 80 percent of emergency food kitchens supporting victims of the country’s ongoing civil conflict have shuttered due to the sudden freeze in U.S. funding. More than a million people are affected. Meanwhile, private firms that once competed for USAID contracts now face financial whiplash, undermining not just humanitarian missions but also U.S. soft power abroad.

The administration frames these decisions as necessary belt-tightening. The funds, we’re told, will be reallocated toward projects that align with Donald Trump’s vision for America. “Less money spent overseas means more money spent here,” Mick Mulvaney, former White House Budget Director, said in 2017, distilling the administration’s foreign policy into a kind of transactional nationalism.

This fiscal logic, however, is undergirded by an ideological disdain for multilateral engagement. Back in 2018, John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Advisor, in outlining the administration’s Africa strategy, dismissed much of America’s aid footprint as ineffective or irrelevant. Aid, in this view, is not merely wasteful—it is antithetical to American interests. That notion was codified in an executive order issued on January 20th. President Trump asserted that “the United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.” Aid, the order suggests, will henceforth be tied to political utility, not developmental necessity.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has tried to temper this hard line by stating that foreign aid will continue—provided it directly serves American national interests. But that qualification underscores the transformation underway: aid is no longer a gesture of moral leadership or global stewardship. It is a tool selectively wielded to serve a narrow vision of American exceptionalism.

Yet, such logic is shortsighted. The U.S. cannot sustain global leadership by disengagement. Sir John Major, the former British prime minister, warned that if America ceases to stand with its allies in the ways it once did, the world will become “wholly different and, in my view, rather more dangerous.” That future is already being shaped. China, increasingly assertive on every continent, is filling the vacuum left by American retrenchment—not only with investment but also with influence.

And the cost of this retreat is not merely geopolitical—it’s also reputational. Foreign assistance accounts for around 1 percent of the U.S. federal budget, but its impact punches far above its weight. Foreign aid curtails the spread of infectious disease, combats the illicit drug trade, thwarts terrorism, and addresses the root causes of forced migration. It strengthens democratic institutions, undergirds fair elections, and nurtures civil society. In short, it does far more than charity—it protects U.S. interests while reinforcing its values.

By sacrificing that influence for the optics of austerity, the United States risks something far more costly than a few billion dollars: its credibility, its alliances, and ultimately, its global standing. The paradox of “America First” is that it may end with America isolated, diminished, and strategically adrift.

If America intends to preserve its global stature, it must reject the false dichotomy between domestic strength and international responsibility. True power, as history has shown, comes not from walls or military parades but from sustained engagement, principled leadership, and the willingness to invest in a world worth leading. Once that leadership is abandoned, reclaiming it is never guaranteed—and seldom bloodless.