Development in the Trump Era: What’s Next for Global Development Cooperation?

Andy Sumner and Stephan Klingebiel outline a potential path forward rooted in progressive coalitions that cut across traditional North–South divides.

The return of Donald Trump to the White House has reignited deep uncertainty about the trajectory of global development cooperation. Long before 2025, the multilateral system was already under pressure. But Trump’s second term marks a normative rupture: the retreat of the United States not just from global leadership, but from the very principles of internationalism, multilateralism, and development solidarity it once helped to construct.

In response to this new reality, EADI and the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) convened a diverse group of researchers to reflect on the implications of the “Trump 2.0 moment”. The result is a newly released EADI–IDOS Discussion Paper, Development and Development Policy in the Trump Era, which brings together sixteen concise contributions from scholars based across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, offering perspectives from both the Global North and South.

The collection offers an early assessment of how the global development cooperation system is being reshaped—and, in some cases, actively contested—in the wake of the United States’ normative and financial withdrawal. The publication also goes well beyond development cooperation, examining the implications for the multilateral system and highlighting challenges faced by the Global South—for example, in the area of trade.

The paper asks a core question: What happens when the world’s most powerful architect and funder of development cooperation seeks not only to withdraw, but to dismantle the very norms, institutions, and multilateral frameworks it once championed?

It also considers how other actors—both in the Global North and Global South—are responding and repositioning themselves in this transformed landscape.

Five overarching themes emerge from the collection:

First, the end of Western aid hegemony is accelerating

Several chapters trace how Trump’s policies have eroded U.S. leadership within the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), weakened the operational and normative capacities of USAID, and undermined the role of the United Nations in global development. Sebastian Haug, Anna Novoselova, and Stephan Klingebiel analyse the implications of institutional dismantling for the broader aid architecture. Peter Taylor reflects on the vacuum created by US withdrawal but also highlights emergent “bright spots” of innovation and adaptation. Emma Mawdsley documents how the infusion of culture-war logics into development policy—particularly the rejection of gender, climate, and racial equity agendas—has hollowed out longstanding areas of institutional cooperation. Andrew Fischer considers the impact of economic nationalism on aid and trade norms, arguing that Trump’s trade war has disrupted both global supply chains and the discursive basis of development cooperation.

Second, a “New Washington Dissensus,” is replacing the post-war consensus

The chapter by the authors of this blog maps the contours of a new nationalist conditionality regime that is increasingly displacing prior commitments to poverty reduction, social inclusion, and sustainable development. Mawdsley shows how this regime manifests concretely in the erasure of terms such as “climate,” “DEI,” and “gender” from U.S. aid documents and programming. Clara Brandi explores how Trump’s protectionist trade agenda contributes to the erosion of global development norms. Haug examines the rise of what he calls “transactional multilateralism,” in which US engagement with multilateral organisations is contingent, instrumentalised, and normatively hollow.

Third, the Global South is pivoting—but not without risk

In response to U.S. retrenchment, countries across the Global South and among middle powers have begun to reposition themselves through multi-alignment, regional platforms, and the strengthening of South–South cooperation. Indrajit Roy’s chapter highlights the revival of Southern multilateralism as a strategic response to systemic instability. Taekyoon Kim discusses how Asia-Pacific middle powers are increasingly turning to “minilateral” platforms to preserve agency in a fragmenting international order. Melis Baydag and Anna Villanueva Ulfgard analyse how populist governance in non-Western donor countries such as Mexico and Turkey is affecting their approaches to development cooperation. Brendan Howe considers the wider implications of U.S. abdication for Global South strategies, while Pritish Behuria makes a strong case for returning to structuralist approaches to development, arguing that current debates suffer from a selective amnesia about the political economy of transformation.

Fourth, while multilateral institutions are clearly under strain, they are not yet in collapse

Niels Keijzer analyses the European Union’s evolving role as a global development actor and its attempts to fill normative and financial gaps left by the United States. Rogelio Madrueño draws attention to the macroeconomic dimensions of U.S. withdrawal, especially the fragmentation of surplus recycling mechanisms that once stabilised the global economy. Taken together, contributions by Brandi, Haug, Keijzer, Mawdsley, and Fischer suggest that although multilateral paralysis is real, so too are adaptive responses—through the EU, the UN, and emerging coalitions such as BRICS+.

Finally, the future of development cooperation is up for grabs

Ishmael, Klingebiel, and Sumner outline the concept of “like-minded internationalism,” a potential path forward rooted in progressive coalitions that cut across traditional North–South divides. In our final chapter, Klingebiel, and Sumner propose four options for the future of development cooperation. Returning to where the collection begins, Peter Taylor closes with a hopeful call for new forms of learning, institutional rethinking, and public engagement that can help rebuild the foundations of solidarity and cooperation.

In short, the future of global development cooperation is now an open question. This publication does not seek to predict a single outcome, but rather to map the choices that lie ahead—and the forces that will shape them. The return of Trump may accelerate fragmentation, but it also invites renewed thinking about what kind of development system is needed and what coalitions might make it possible.

The full Discussion Paper is available here.

Stephan Klingebiel heads the research program “Inter- and Transnational Cooperation” at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). He previously led the UNDP Global Policy Centre in Seoul (2019–2021) and the KfW Development Bank’s office in Kigali, Rwanda (2007–2011). He is also a guest professor at the University of Turin, Italy, a senior lecturer at the University of Bonn, and an Honorary Distinguished Fellow at Jindal University, India.

Andy Sumner is Professor of International Development at King’s College, London, and EADI President. He is also a Senior Non-Resident Research Fellow at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research and the Center for Global Development; and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Royal Society of Arts.

This first appeared on the EADi blog.

Image: DonkeyHotey, adapted from Creative Commons licensed images from Gage Skidmore’s flickr photostream on Wikimedia