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The end of US soft power?
The world’s wake-up call came at 3 a.m.
In the early darkness on Saturday, Feb. 1, USAID was suddenly shut down. “This site can’t be reached,” read its homepage. The end of the great age of American soft power began.
It was shocking, but not surprising. When Elon Musk pulled the rip cord of his verbal chainsaw and declared that USAID was a $40 billion “criminal organization” that “must die,” the deep-cut result was inevitable. President Donald Trump agreed, saying the organization was run “by a bunch of lunatics.”
Today, the website message is more stark. “On Friday, February 7, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. (EST) all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.”
The remnants of USAID will be rolled into the State Department.
Is this really the end of American soft power and, if so, how should allies respond?
Created by President John F. Kennedy back in 1961, USAID was meant to be the bicep in America’s muscular arm of diplomatic power. According to the Congressional Research Service, USAID “provides assistance to strategically important countries and countries in conflict; leads US efforts to alleviate poverty, disease, and humanitarian need; and assists US commercial interests by supporting developing countries’ economic growth and building countries’ capacity to participate in world trade.”
It was a broad mandate covering over 131 countries and hundreds of programs.
What did they do? At its best, USAID helped fight deadly diseases through programs such as the Malaria Council in Uganda, or the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It supported NGOs working to stop the spread of Ebola and Marburg virus and to feed hungry people in Sudan.
The hyperpolarized culture wars rang the death knell of proportionality long ago, so when Musk dismissed the entire agency as “a radical left political psy ops” program, it fit the moment. Everything is now either the worst or the best. The middle ground is gone. But for all that, the facts remain and they are worth mentioning.
For example, the White House currently has a website up outlining its claims of waste and abuse at USAID, chronicling things like $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland and $32,000 for a “transgender comic book in Peru.” Those are making headlines in the culture war media. There will be other examples of programs the current administration chooses not to fund or accuses of corruption, but how many?
Turns out, the website only gives concrete examples of about $12 million worth of programs they don’t like, along with allegations but no data on “hundreds of millions” of others. Of USAID’s annual budget of $40 billion, that adds up to less than 2%. Is the best answer to a broken toe the complete amputation of a leg? Apparently so.
USAID was an important instrument of what Joseph Nye called “soft power,” achieving national security and goals through attraction, not coercion. “When you can get others to admire your ideals and to want what you want, you do not have to spend as much on sticks and carrots to move them in your direction,” Nye wrote in “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics” back in 2004.
USAID was just that, projecting the ideals of the US in places where chaos, poverty, and insecurity are fertile grounds for malevolent forces that endanger the United States. It did this by supporting multilateral institutions, such as the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement. Soft power is a form of security and is supposed to work in conjunction with hard power. But if you think the cost of soft power is high, try the costs of hard power. Americans know that all too well from experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What is striking about all this is that the Trump administration is not just trying to recalibrate US soft power to promote its own agenda. If that were the case, they would simply reform USAID, not kill it. This is radically different. What is now clear is that the Trump administration doesn’t believe in the value of soft power at all. It simply has no use in their political playbook.
There are no countries happier with the retreat of US soft power than China and Russia. Their influence in developing countries will now grow dramatically. Democracies are in retreat all over the world, as the Freedom House map shows, and the sunset of US soft power will make it worse.
But this is not the only example of the twilight of US soft power. The threat of 25% percent tariffs on allies like Canada is another. There is no closer ally to the US than Canada, with a shared border, a free trade deal, and deeply connected cultures. The tariff threat suddenly upended that, leading to scenes I have never witnessed in my lifetime, such as Canadians booing the American national anthem at hockey games.
The northern sense of confusion and betrayal is being amplified by the election cycles in Canada, with politicians now stoking a patriotism that comes at the expense of affection for the US. It is not a good trend but in context, completely understandable.
At this moment, the ubiquitous soft power of American culture has gone from inspiring to infuriating, the American beacon of freedom is now fried up into Canadian bacon. It will take a long time to reestablish trust between the friendliest of all neighbo(u)rs.
Let’s not overstate things. US soft power is not gone; it’s just diminished. American culture, innovation, and institutions remain resilient to challenges and attractive to billions of people. And for all the talk of diversifying trade, Canada will be economically tied to the US forever. There is simply no escaping geography.
But the end of the golden age of American soft power means that hard power options — militarily and economically – are now the most prominent tools on the table. Trump’s repeated claim that Canada should become the 51st state while threatening to economically destroy the country has gone from a bad joke to an ominous warning. How to respond?
As the US abandons its soft power strategy, its allies are having to develop their own versions of it to avoid punishment. Taking on Trump in a hard power fight is, after all, a lose-lose. A trade war may hurt the US, but it would hurt Canada much more.
The strategy now is to use soft power levers to try to convince the US president that what Washington wants, Ottawa wants too, without giving up too much in the process. So spending $1.3 billion at the border to stop illegal immigration and fentanyl is money well spent if it can help stave off tariffs that would likely push Canada into a recession. Of course, the tariffs aren't solely in response to fentanyl and immigration, but those are low-hanging fruit and, so far, addressing those issues has worked.
Then what? What are the rules of soft power in dealing with President Trump? Don’t celebrate and gloat over a win. Stay cool when threats don’t materialize. Don’t make it personal because with the president the personal is political. This is not a strategy of appeasement but simply using carrots, not sticks. To twist an old David Frost saying, soft power is the art of letting someone else have your way.Sudanese Refugees in the Central African Republic
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