A New Landscape for Development: Recommendations

This is Part III of a three-part series, A New Landscape for Development, that examines the context, current state, and early impacts of the dramatic changes to U.S. foreign assistance in 2025.

Part I - The Ground Has Shifted
Part II - Examining Impacts, Capabilities, and Opportunities

The second Trump administration has brought sweeping changes to U.S. capabilities for engagement with developing countries. These changes have generated confusion and fundamentally disrupted long-standing systems, instruments, and approaches to international development support. In many cases, these disruptions had severe impacts on the programs and people associated with U.S. foreign aid and its delivery.

But those previous structures and systems were often most insightfully critiqued by those directly involved with U.S. international development and humanitarian assistance-as beneficiaries, partners, implementers, program managers, or policymakers. In the coming years, there may be an opportunity to replace once-entrenched systems with novel, effective, and innovative approaches.

The United States still needs ways to successfully partner with developing country governments and communities. Foreign assistance will continue to play a key role in those partnerships, contributing to international security and economic growth. This new landscape presents opportunities to shape the U.S. development engagement of the future.

Innovation and reform can be championed by stakeholders in Congress, the administration, other governments, the private sector, and beyond. The recommendations below reflect the importance of building out from the focused, transactional inclinations of the second Trump administration to help ensure U.S. foreign policy success amid an era of intensive geostrategic competition.