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Foreign aid is shifting—whether for better or worse depends on where you stand.
In the past two weeks, I haven’t been able to escape the news about Trump, Musk, DOGE, and USAID (US Agency for International Development). It’s happening thousands of kilometers from Jakarta, yet it still messes with my thoughts — and, let’s be honest, my emotions too.
If you’ve somehow managed to avoid the chaos, here’s the short version:
USAID is being taken apart under Trump’s DOGE team, with Elon Musk leading the charge in full disruption mode. Funding and staff are being slashed, and its future hangs in the balance. No one really knows what comes next, but the aid industry is in full panic mode.
Among fellow aid workers, reactions are mixed. The younger ones worry about what’s coming, while others go into denial mode — because doomscrolling through every update is exhausting. If just reading about it is stressful, I can’t imagine what it’s like for those actually living through it.
When Trump v1.0 pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement, the side effects weren’t all bad — European donors and philanthropists stepped up, proudly positioning themselves as the new saviors. But Trump 2.0? The world looks very different from eight years ago, and the ripple…
