The Trump administration has now dismantled two key institutions of American soft power: the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy. On March 28 the administration announced that it would be reducing the staff at U.S.A.I.D., the main agency for distributing foreign aid, to about 15 positions — down from the roughly 10,000 people it employed before Donald Trump returned to the White House. In January, the administration stopped $239 million in congressional appropriations for the N.E.D., a largely government-funded nonprofit with a mission of advancing democratic change.
Both programs were creations of the Cold War that long enjoyed support from leading Republicans and Democrats, embodying the adage that “politics stops at the water’s edge.” But Mr. Trump’s assault on these programs indicates that this truism no longer holds. Survey data from December suggest how politicized the issue has become: Nearly 75 percent of Republicans said foreign aid should decrease, compared to only a third of Democrats.
To understand why American soft power became so politically vulnerable, it helps to understand the damage progressives did to its broad legitimacy over the past decade and a half. They did this by implicating soft-power institutions in domestic political controversies, especially on issues of sexual politics. They conflated American interests overseas with progressive priorities, using taxpayer money to advance a set of claims over which Americans strongly disagree.
Consider how progressives discuss the war in Ukraine. When liberals like Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland celebrate support for Ukraine in part as an effort to fight “anti-feminist, anti-gay, anti-trans hatred,” they imply that the reason to oppose Russia is not just its unlawful invasion of another country but also its failure to embrace a progressive understanding of sexuality. Even if one agrees with Mr. Raskin’s views on trans rights, there is something awkward about suggesting that it is worth going to war for a cause that many citizens of the United States do not support.