2025-12-01
41 分钟This is The Guardian.
Welcome to The Guardian Long Read,
showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture, politics and new thinking.
For the text version of this and all our long reads, go to theguardian.com forward slash long read.
They take the money and go.
Why Not Everyone is Morning the End of U.S.
Aid by Mara Cardis Nelson, read by Lana Joffrey.
Earlier this year, Donald Trump appointed a 28-year-old Doge alumnus,
Jeremy Lewin, to oversee his administration's approach to global aid.
Lewin's primary task has been to gut the U.S.'s aid funding.
In an interview with the New York Times,
Lewin argued that the traditional approach which he termed the global humanitarian complex didn't help poor countries progress beyond aid,
instead keeping them dependent.
The system he continued has demonstrably failed.
This isn't just the Trump administration's view.
For decades, there has been a robust debate in academic and policy circles,
discussed over drinks by development practitioners,
written about by critical economists and post-colonial independence leaders,
and percolating into the broader consciousness that aid isn't working, or at least not as promised.
When the news of Trump's US aid cuts broke this year,