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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. 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.Trade war may push Canada closer to its threatening ally
When Canadian defense expert Philippe Lagassé met with American counterparts in Washington this week, he quickly sensed they had not registered that the mood had shifted in Canada.
“There’s still a lot of emphasis on partnership,” he said. “We should be working together. We should be doing some things together.”
But Lagassé, an associate professor at Ottawa’s Carleton University, had to tell them that things had changed. “That’s hard right now because, politically, that’s just become a lot more difficult.”
Canadians were so angered by Donald Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats that they yanked American bourbon from liquor stores and turned up their noses at American produce. The typically staid hockey fans of Ottawa even booed the US national anthem.
Canadians, who are used to thinking of the Americans as friendly neighbors, are suddenly seeing them as a threat to their sovereignty. A poll this week shows 80% of Canadians support using oil as a weapon in the trade dispute, which would be a dramatic escalation. On Monday, Trump called off the planned 25% tariffs after Justin Trudeau agreed to take measures on the border, but the pause is for just 30 days.
Rattled Canadians are suddenly more committed to enhancing their sovereignty by reducing internal trade barriers, diversifying international trade so the country is less dependent on the United States, and beefing up the military.
Long a NATO laggard
It will need a lot of beef. For decades, Canada has sheltered under the coattails of Uncle Sam.
With oceans on both sides, an impassable ice cap to the north and friendly Americans to the south, there was little public support for military spending and lots of support for spending money on social programs. Even tough-talking Conservative Stephen Harper did little to boost defense spending. Canada is a NATO laggard, spending only 1.37% of GDP on defense — the average across NATO members is 2.71% of GDP — something Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Trump have all complained about. Last year, leaked documents showed that Trudeau told NATO that Canada had no plan to get to 2%, the level all NATO countries have agreed on.
When political circumstances changed, Trudeau laid out a plan to get to 2%, but years of neglect will take time to turn around. Due to recruiting problems, there are only 63,000 people in the Canadian Armed Forces — well below the 71,500 it is supposed to have. Even at full strength, it is tiny compared with the 2 million troops south of the border. To make matters worse, three-quarters of Canadian soldiers are either overweight or obese.
Canada has summoned the will, finally, to spend on defense. Trudeau has promised to reach 2% by 2032. His likely successor, Mark Carney, said Wednesday he would aim for 2030. The defense minister has said we could get there within two years, although quickly rearming would pose logistical challenges.
But it is not clear if Canada's big push will be in partnership with its newly hostile neighbors. After all, if the United States decides to put tariffs on all Canadian exports, driving the country into a deep recession, would Canada want to proceed with the CA$70-billion purchase of 88 F-35A US fighter jets? Or would Ottawa cancel the order and buy fighters from Sweden, which has never threatened annexation? And if Canada’s economy is in free fall, could it afford to buy either?
Pentagon control
And should Canada buy kit from a hostile power? Canada’s military technology is integrated with America’s, so any operations without US approval would be complicated. The F-35 can’t function without its autonomic logistics information system, which is controlled by the Pentagon, which could limit its effectiveness in a showdown with America.
There may be pressure, therefore, to work more closely with other countries — to buy equipment from the Europeans, for example — although the natural inclination of the defense community in Ottawa is to stick with the Americans, whom they see as their friendly big brothers.
“I think there’s going to be a pretty heavy emphasis on the fact that you take Trump at his word, so you buy more American equipment, and you invest more in the US,” says Lagassé. “You try to integrate yourself more deeply into those supply chains, and that’s how you protect yourself. The other side is going to argue, well, now this is too vulnerable. We should try to become less dependent, take a step back.”
Not a lot of choices
But Canadians are limited in their options, says Graeme Thompson, an analyst with Eurasia Group, because at the forefront of military innovation with AI and advanced computing, there are only two real options: China and the US.
“There’s the Chinese ecosystem and there’s the American ecosystem, and basically Canada doesn’t have a choice there. It’s not going to be able to develop its own autonomous tech ecosystem or supply chains. It has to be plugged into the US side of things. There’s a great line, I don’t know who said it, but ‘the US is our best friend, whether we like it or not.’”
Canadians may want their government to do more to assert national sovereignty, but Lagassé doubts that sentiment is strong enough to disrupt the close military cooperation between Canada and the United States.
“The public may want us to do something differently, but … is the public willing to sustain the cost? Is the public’s attention going to be sufficiently focused so that political leaders see gain in pursuing that? Or does it just kind of evaporate once the tariff threat is no longer present?”
Once tempers cool, Canadian politicians will continue to use procurement deals as a way of currying favor with the Americans rather than a way of asserting independence. After all, they are Canada’s best friends, whether they like it or not.
Graphic Truth: Canadian national pride rebounds
Since taking office, Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened the US’s closest ally, Canada, with high tariffs and statehood, sparking a surge of national pride among Canadians. The tension has manifested in symbolic acts of resistance: coffee shops renaming Americanos to “Canadianos” and premiers threatening to ban American products. New polling shows that this defiance isn’t anecdotal.
An Angus Reid poll conducted over the weekend reveals a dramatic shift in Canadian patriotism. Strong patriotic feelings increased from 49% to 59% in just one month. Canadian pride is up 12 points in British Columbia, 13 points in Quebec, nine points in Ontario, and a whopping 15 points in Atlantic Canada. The prairie provinces saw more modest increases, with Alberta up three points and Saskatchewan up four points, while Manitoba experienced a slight decline.
Despite a last-minute deal to delay 25% tariffs, the threat deeply unsettled Canadians. Given the US’s status as Canada's largest trading partner, potential tariffs could trigger a recession and imperil thousands of jobs. Accordingly, perhaps the poll’s most striking finding was that 91% of Canadians now want to reduce dependence on the US, prioritizing national economic independence over reconciliation.
Members of Mexico's National Guard queue to board a vehicle upon disembarking from a plane, after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump to bolster border enforcement efforts in response to Trump's demand to crack down on immigration and drug smuggling, in Tijuana, Mexico, on Feb. 4, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Mexican troops head to the border, Carney promises defense binge, Critics call on Canada to suspend US agreement, Tariff talk tops tickers
7,000: Earlier this week, at least 7,000 Mexican troops were on their way to the US-Mexico border as part of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s deal with the Trump administration to postpone, for one month, the imposition of a 25% US tariff on all Mexican goods. Experts say that the deployment, meant to meet Trump’s demands that Mexico crack down on fentanyl traffickers and illegal migrants, represents a reshuffling among the tens of thousands of troops that Mexico already deploys throughout the country to tackle these issues.
2 in 5: Mark Carney, who is campaigning for the Liberal Party leadership, has pledged to meet a target of spending 2% of GDP on defense. That would be two years earlier than stipulated under current commitments made by outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The matter has taken on fresh urgency in light of US President Donald Trump’s demands that NATO allies raise the benchmark to 5% of GDP – and his threats to annex Canada.
21: Immigration advocates and lawyers are calling on Ottawa to suspend a 21-year-old agreement with the United States under which Canada sends asylum-seekers apprehended at the border back into the US for processing. Critics say that the Trump administration’s recent moves to drastically restrict refugees’ access to asylum petitions fall afoul of international law, and they warn that Canada should not be complicit in these violations by sending people back to the US.
200: What’s the word among Wall Street analysts these days? Tariffs. Tariffs. Tariffs. So far this year, the term has come up at least once in more than 200 earnings calls with top companies listed on the S&P, a major stock index of American firms. The big question, of course, is how are companies planning to cope either with higher US tariffs themselves, or with the broader political and economic uncertainty about if, when, and how heavily Trump will use them.Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks during a campaign stop at Walker Construction in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, on Jan. 31, 2025.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford no longer likes Donald Trump
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who is seeking a new mandate in an election later this month, has been forced to explain a pro-Trump comment captured by a hot mic.
Ford, a Progressive Conservative, liked Donald Trump until the US president threatened to impose 25% tariffs on Canada, which would wreck the US-dependent Ontario manufacturing industry. In the video clip filmed at a rally, Ford says, “On Election Day, was I happy this guy won? 100% I was. Then the guy pulled out the knife and f***ing yanked it in me.”
Premier of Canada’s biggest province since 2018, Ford called a snap election for Feb. 27, some 15 months earlier than necessary, saying he needed a mandate to stand up to Trump. This quick election will allow him to get a new mandate before a federal election that is likely to elect Conservative Pierre Poilievre. Ontario has a long tradition of voting differently at the provincial and federal levels.
Ontarians have embraced Ford’s tough-on-Trump message. One poll shows him with the biggest lead since the turn of the century.
He had been attacked by his Liberal and NDP rivals for the hot mic comment but the controversy is unlikely to hurt him electorally. Ontario voters know and like the larger-than-life Ford despite — or because of — his often brash but authentic approach to politics.Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre speaks in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, on Dec. 3, 2024.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre goes after fentanyl
Poilievre, who often blames Trudeau for soft-on-crime policies, said he would introduce mandatory life sentences for fentanyl traffickers. “I will lock up fentanyl kingpins and throw away the key. It's like spraying bullets into a crowd — even if you don’t aim, you will kill people. The penalty should be the same as murder.”
Canadian courts have often ruled that mandatory life sentences for any crime violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but Poilievre has said he would override the courts if necessary to get tough on crime.
The proposal comes as the Conservatives search for new messages to use against the governing Liberals. The party has been connecting with voters for two years by launching attacks against Trudeau and the unpopular consumer carbon tax. But Trudeau has announced that he is resigning and his likely successor, former central banker Mark Carney, has promised to get rid of that tax.
The polls have tightened slightly after many months of downward motion for the Liberals, and they are still moving. A poll of Quebecers shows many have suddenly decided to shift their support to the Liberals, and more would do so if Carney is leader.
Expect Poilievre to talk about crime and find new ways to talk about the cost of living, and keep an eye on volatile public opinion.
Silhouettes of soldiers stand in front of a computer screen displaying an image of President Donald Trump, alongside a Palestinian flag, on Feb. 05, 2025.
Trump aides scramble to clarify Gaza proposal amid backlash
Unsurprisingly, much of the world reacted with horror to US President Donald Trump’s call on Monday, at a press conference with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, for the deportation of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million people and a US takeover of the enclave.
But the Trump administration was forced to reckon with blowback in Washington too as lawmakers, even within the Republican Party, questioned the cost and wisdom of the plan.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified that despite Trump’s pledge to make Gaza “the Riviera of the Middle East,” the US does not intend to spend money on any Gaza reconstruction projects and that Trump’s plans did not entail “boots on the ground” in the enclave.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly fielded a barrage of questions about these issues during a closed-door session with GOP lawmakers on Wednesday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lauded Trump’s willingness to “think outside the box” but said only that the Pentagon would “look at all options.”
Sec. of State Marco Rubiosaid Trump had made a “generous” offer and contradicted his boss’s resettlement proposal by saying that the displacement of Gazans would be “temporary.”
Notably, no administration officials ruled out the core of Trump’s proposal, which was the forced removal of the entire Gazan population. According to legal scholars, this would amount to a “straightforward” crime against humanity under international law.
On Thursday, notably, the Israeli defense minister asked the army to formulate a plan under which Palestinians could “voluntarily” leave Gaza by land, air, or sea. And Trump posted to his social platform Thursday morning that the Gaza Strip will “be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting.”
Why cutting USAID will hurt American foreign policy
Ian's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take for today on USAID, the US Agency for International Development, which is in the process of being shut down. Nearly all Washington staff have been put on leave, they're closing missions abroad, the State Department moving to evacuate all staff around the world. Why should we care? Does this matter? This agency was set up back over 50 years ago, 1961, by then President John F. Kennedy, and it was meant to coordinate the distribution of foreign aid for the United States all over the world and differentiate that from military support that was provided by the United States.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the US isn't providing charity, that's not what foreign aid is, that it should be providing support for US national interests. And I agree that it should be providing support for US national interest, but it is important to recognize that actually when USAID was set up, it was set up in part as charity, that President Kennedy's position was that the United States had a moral obligation to support poorer people, and poorer countries around the world. They are fellow human beings, after all, and the United States has historically benefited massively from developing resources all around the world, and frequently, the people that lived in those countries didn't get very much as a consequence, and the US has benefited massively, as have other wealthy countries, from industrialization, and putting carbon into the atmosphere that now poor countries can't do because of climate change, and we're saying, "We need to transition," but the US, of course, has gotten the benefits of that historically.
You know, my view is, I'm okay with charity. I actually think that helping save lives with food and medicine for millions of people and especially babies and children. I mean, even if it did nothing for the United States directly, I would be okay with spending some of the money of American taxpayers on that, especially as opposed to say a war in Afghanistan or the latest sort of bomber program that is expensive and more than the Americans need. So, I push back on the US should never do charity argument. But leaving that aside, you don't need that argument to focus on the importance of USAID.
And I want to, before I get into the national interest side, I do want to say I am empathetic with why it is unpopular. Because at a moment when so many average Americans feel like the US government has not taken care of them, and this is why you see so much backlash against all of the illegal immigrants that have not been addressed by administrations for many years, and why there's so much backlash against the US establishment, whether it's Democrat or Republican, in saying, "What about the average working American? What about our healthcare? What about our public school system? What about things that you should care a lot more about than sending aid to brown people around the world?" Which is essentially what USAID is mostly doing. I get that. And in that regard, it's an easy target for Trump. It's a particularly easy target for Elon Musk. I would ask first, "Why tax cuts for and regulations written by billionaires in the United States before poor people and Americans?" That would be my higher priority if I was really, really angry and antagonized by how badly money is being spent in the US. But that's a different story.
The point is you don't need to make the argument of charity. It is very clear that US foreign aid supports America's economic and national security interests. It is growing markets for consumers, for American businesses and products all over the world. The US has the biggest businesses. It has the biggest market. It benefits the most from other countries around the world having more capacity to sustainably consume and engage with those businesses. America benefits in having more health security by containing disease and pandemics because those diseases and pandemics don't suddenly stop at the American border. The US benefits from aid that reduces insurgencies creating instability that leads to more illegal migration all over the world, many of whom ultimately end up in the United States. It creates more economic opportunity and safety and security in origin countries. And that is a carrot that matters. It's not just about sticks. It's a carrot for economic statecraft that gives the Americans more influence as opposed to say the Russians, or more importantly the Chinese.
Because getting rid of USAID and cutting back on all these programs creates a vacuum. And that is an opportunity for adversaries. I've already seen ministers from large African countries who have their American programs getting cut off, reaching out immediately to their counterparts, ministers in China saying, "Are you willing to send in the programs to replace the Americans that are leaving?" And China doesn't have the economic wherewithal, the Americans do, but they certainly will seize opportunities that are economically useful to them, long-term, because they have a much longer-term perspective on these things than a US administration that's gone in four years. So I worry about that.
I think that USAID has been America's principle interlocutor with civil society in developing countries. And to the extent that we care about those countries having systems that are more aligned with the values and standards that the United States has historically promoted, then you don't want to undermine that and allow the Chinese to come in, which has very little interest in civil society, indifferent to civil society. It's a source of intelligence for the United States. And we've seen that even if it's sometimes uncomfortable for the local governments who aren't necessarily in favor of that. It is true that all USAID projects are probably not going to ultimately be killed, that the State Department is going to take it over and Marco Rubio has said that, "There's a lot of corruption in USAID, and a lot of this money is misspent, and is spent badly, and breaks executive orders," and I am sure that is true, and I am sure that that corruption needs to be addressed. It wouldn't surprise me. The US is an incredibly bloated government system. But shooting first and asking questions later tends to kill innocencts. And that is of course the approach here. And the reality is, that Elon and Trump and their ability to act and be destructive is much greater than the damage control that the secretary of state can do at this moment. And the State Department just does not have the people or the infrastructure to execute on a lot of these programs once USAID is shut down.
And the message that this is really sending to allies is that the United States is an unreliable partner. You cannot count on it. That what they say to you in one administration is not going to be consistent in a second administration, in a way that is not true with other countries, most other countries, around the world. And so I continue to believe, as I did before Trump was inaugurated, that the US is going to see a lot of wins. A lot of countries are going to bend to his will because he's more powerful and he's willing to use that power directly. But that does not mean that the United States will long-term succeed in a law of the jungle approach, an approach which is all stick and no carrot, even when the stick is very, very big, but you can't wield it effectively for a long period of time. And other countries are learning that carrots are kind of smart. I mean, the Chinese originally perfected the all stick and no carrot approach and then saw that the United States was more effective in a lot of countries because they also had economic statecraft. They also had these commercial levers, and so the Chinese started saying, "Oh, we need to figure out how to deliver aid to a lot of these countries, doesn't have to be transparent, can work right with the governments, but ultimately that's going to give us more influence in these countries." And that is something that President Trump and his administration in the early weeks at least seemed to be jettisoning.
So I think this is Pennywise pound foolish. I think it is short-term beneficial to Trump and will look like a win for him and his base and long-term will undermine US power around the world and will of course make the world a less stable place. So on balance, I think this is a problem. It's not something that I think is going to go well. I would love to be proven wrong. I'll be watching it carefully and I think it's a good thing to be debating.
So that's it for me, and I'll talk to you all real soon.