B1 · Intermediate
13 min
businesspoliticsinternational relationseconomics
El Dinero que Desaparece: La Ayuda Internacional en Crisis
The Money That Disappeared: Foreign Aid in Crisis
Fletcher breaks down this story in English. Octavio reacts and expands in Spanish. Follow along with the live transcript, tap any word for its translation. Intermediate level — perfect for intermediate learners expanding their range.
So here's a number that stopped me cold this week.
The OECD, the club of wealthy nations, just reported that global development aid dropped by 23.1 percent in a single year.
The largest recorded annual decrease.
Ever.
Bueno, es un número enorme.
Well, it's a huge number.
En términos concretos, el mundo gastó 174.300 millones de dólares en ayuda al desarrollo en 2025.
In concrete terms, the world spent 174.3 billion dollars on development aid in 2025.
Eso suena a mucho dinero, pero es mucho menos que el año anterior.
That sounds like a lot of money, but it's much less than the previous year.
And the OECD was pretty direct about why.
The report points the finger squarely at the United States.
USAID, the American foreign aid agency, was essentially gutted in the first months of the Trump administration.
Mira, cuando un país tan grande como Estados Unidos corta su ayuda, el efecto es inmediato.
Look, when a country as large as the United States cuts its aid, the effect is immediate.
Estados Unidos era el donante más grande del mundo.
The United States was the world's largest donor.
No era el más generoso en términos relativos, pero era el más grande en números absolutos.
It wasn't the most generous in relative terms, but it was the largest in absolute numbers.
Right.
And I want to back up for a second, because I think a lot of people hear the phrase 'development aid' and their eyes glaze over.
So let's be concrete.
What is this money actually doing in the world?
A ver, la ayuda al desarrollo paga vacunas para niños en África.
Well, development aid pays for vaccines for children in Africa.
Paga escuelas en Afganistán.
It pays for schools in Afghanistan.
Paga agua limpia en Bangladesh.
It pays for clean water in Bangladesh.
Son programas muy concretos, muy directos.
These are very concrete, very direct programs.
I spent a lot of years in places that received this money, and I can tell you it's not abstract.
I've been in clinics in the Sahel that were entirely funded by USAID.
The sign on the door said it plainly.
And now that funding is gone.
La verdad es que esto no es solo humanitario.
The truth is this isn't only humanitarian.
Tiene una lógica económica también.
It also has an economic logic.
Los países pobres que reciben ayuda compran más productos de los países ricos.
Poor countries that receive aid buy more products from rich countries.
Es un sistema que beneficia a todos.
It's a system that benefits everyone.
That's actually a really important point.
Look, the history of development aid is not purely altruistic.
It starts right after World War Two with the Marshall Plan, which was simultaneously a humanitarian program and a strategic masterstroke.
Sí, el Plan Marshall fue una inversión americana en Europa.
Yes, the Marshall Plan was an American investment in Europe.
Estados Unidos gastó unos 13.000 millones de dólares entre 1948 y 1952.
The United States spent about 13 billion dollars between 1948 and 1952.
España también recibió ayuda americana en esa época, aunque por razones políticas muy complicadas.
Spain also received American aid during that period, though for very complicated political reasons.
The Franco years.
Yeah.
And the logic was exactly what you said, Octavio.
You rebuild Europe, you create trading partners, and you also build a wall against Soviet expansion.
Aid was always partly about power.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y durante la Guerra Fría, Estados Unidos y la Unión Soviética competían con ayuda.
And during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed with aid.
Daban dinero a países en África y Asia para ganar su lealtad política.
They gave money to countries in Africa and Asia to win their political loyalty.
La ayuda era una herramienta de la geopolítica.
Aid was a geopolitical tool.
And here's what gets me.
The argument inside the Trump administration, as best I can tell, was essentially: this money is wasted, it doesn't serve American interests, and American taxpayers shouldn't be funding it.
How do you respond to that?
Es que ese argumento ignora la historia.
That argument ignores history.
Cuando Estados Unidos deja un vacío, otro país lo llena.
When the United States leaves a vacuum, another country fills it.
China ya gastó mucho dinero en África e América Latina en los últimos años.
China has already spent a lot of money in Africa and Latin America in recent years.
Ahora va a gastar más.
Now it will spend more.
No, you're absolutely right about that.
I've watched this play out repeatedly.
In 2020 and 2021, when the US pulled back from Afghanistan, China moved in with infrastructure deals almost immediately.
Soft power abhors a vacuum.
Bueno, y no es solo China.
Well, and it's not only China.
Rusia también usa ayuda económica como herramienta política en África.
Russia also uses economic aid as a political tool in Africa.
El grupo Wagner, que ahora tiene otro nombre, operó en muchos países africanos precisamente porque Estados Unidos y Europa redujeron su presencia.
The Wagner Group, which now has another name, operated in many African countries precisely because the United States and Europe reduced their presence.
So let's talk about the European side of this, because the OECD report doesn't just blame the US.
European countries also cut their aid budgets, though less dramatically.
Where does that come from?
A ver, la situación es complicada.
Well, the situation is complicated.
Muchos países europeos gastaron mucho dinero durante la pandemia y después durante la guerra de Ucrania.
Many European countries spent a lot of money during the pandemic and then during the Ukraine war.
Ahora tienen menos dinero para ayuda exterior.
Now they have less money for foreign aid.
Es una realidad económica difícil.
It's a difficult economic reality.
The extraordinary thing is that the UN target, the benchmark that wealthy nations agreed to decades ago, was to give 0.7 percent of their national income as aid.
Basically nobody ever hit that target.
Now most countries are moving further away from it.
Mira, España tampoco llegó nunca al 0,7%.
Look, Spain never reached 0.7% either.
Es una promesa que los políticos españoles hicieron durante muchos años pero nunca cumplieron completamente.
It's a promise that Spanish politicians made for many years but never fully kept.
Hay un movimiento ciudadano en España que se llama precisamente '0,7%' que lleva décadas reclamando esto.
There is a citizens' movement in Spain called precisely '0.7%' that has been demanding this for decades.
I remember that movement.
I was in Madrid in the late nineties and those yellow ribbons were everywhere.
That was a genuine grassroots campaign.
It feels like a different era now.
Sí, fue un momento importante.
Yes, it was an important moment.
Había mucho optimismo después del fin de la Guerra Fría.
There was a lot of optimism after the end of the Cold War.
La gente pensaba que el mundo iba a ser más solidario, más justo.
People thought the world was going to be more solidary, more fair.
La verdad es que eso no pasó exactamente así.
The truth is that didn't happen exactly like that.
I mean, look, there was genuine progress.
The millennium development goals actually moved the needle on extreme poverty and child mortality.
The data on that is real.
The question is what happens to that progress now.
Eso es lo más preocupante.
That's what's most worrying.
Según la ONU, en los últimos años el número de personas con hambre aumentó.
According to the UN, in recent years the number of people who are hungry increased.
La pandemia fue muy dura.
The pandemic was very hard.
Ahora la guerra en el Oriente Medio y la reducción de la ayuda crean una situación muy peligrosa.
Now the war in the Middle East and the reduction of aid create a very dangerous situation.
Let's be specific.
What programs actually got cut?
Because I think when people imagine USAID, they picture bureaucrats in Washington.
The reality is much more granular than that.
Bueno, los recortes afectaron programas de salud reproductiva en África, programas de agua potable en Asia, programas de educación en América Central.
Well, the cuts affected reproductive health programs in Africa, clean water programs in Asia, education programs in Central America.
También programas de respuesta a catástrofes naturales.
Also programs for disaster response.
Todo esto paró.
All of this stopped.
There's a very specific program called PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which was started by George W.
Bush of all people, and it has saved an estimated 25 million lives.
There were serious questions about whether that would survive.
Es que eso es lo más irónico.
That's the most ironic thing.
Un presidente republicano creó uno de los programas de salud más importantes de la historia.
A Republican president created one of the most important health programs in history.
Y ahora otro presidente republicano recorta la ayuda exterior de manera dramática.
And now another Republican president cuts foreign aid dramatically.
Los partidos cambian.
Parties change.
Right, so this is worth lingering on.
Bush's PEPFAR was bipartisan, it had Christian evangelical support because of the moral argument, and it genuinely worked.
The Trump approach represents a real philosophical rupture, not just with Democrats but with a whole Republican tradition.
La verdad es que hay una nueva filosofía en Washington.
The truth is there is a new philosophy in Washington.
El argumento es: primero América.
The argument is: America first.
No importa lo que pasa en otros países si no beneficia directamente a los ciudadanos americanos.
It doesn't matter what happens in other countries if it doesn't directly benefit American citizens.
Es un cambio muy profundo.
It's a very deep change.
And here's the thing.
That argument has a political constituency.
When you go to rural Ohio or West Virginia and you ask people why the US is spending money in Zimbabwe when their hospital is closing, that's not an irrational question.
It's a real tension.
Entiendo esa tensión.
I understand that tension.
Pero hay una respuesta a esa pregunta.
But there is an answer to that question.
La ayuda exterior americana era menos del 1% del presupuesto federal.
American foreign aid was less than 1% of the federal budget.
No era la razón por la que los hospitales en Ohio cerraron.
It was not the reason why hospitals in Ohio closed.
Eso es un problema diferente.
That is a different problem.
Less than one percent.
And I always think that figure is striking because polling shows that most Americans think foreign aid is something like 25 percent of the budget.
There's a massive perception gap.
A ver, es un problema de comunicación y de política también.
Well, it's a problem of communication and also of politics.
Es muy fácil atacar la ayuda exterior.
It's very easy to attack foreign aid.
La gente que recibe la ayuda no vota en Estados Unidos.
The people who receive the aid don't vote in the United States.
Los que pagan los impuestos sí votan.
The ones who pay the taxes do vote.
Now, the other thing I want to pull on here is what this means for multilateral institutions.
Because it's not just bilateral US aid that's been cut.
The US has also been pulling back from international organizations, the WHO, the UN, various others.
Sí, y eso es un problema diferente.
Yes, and that is a different problem.
Las organizaciones internacionales funcionan porque todos los países grandes contribuyen.
International organizations work because all the large countries contribute.
Cuando el país más rico del mundo decide no participar, todo el sistema pierde fuerza y credibilidad.
When the richest country in the world decides not to participate, the whole system loses strength and credibility.
The extraordinary thing is that this is happening at exactly the wrong moment.
We have the Iran war disrupting food supplies.
We have ongoing climate disasters.
Sudan's famine.
The global need for aid is peaking while the supply is collapsing.
Mira, hay países en el mundo que dependen casi completamente de la ayuda internacional para sus sistemas de salud.
Look, there are countries in the world that depend almost completely on international aid for their health systems.
Países como Mozambique, Malawi, algunos países de Asia Central.
Countries like Mozambique, Malawi, some countries in Central Asia.
Para ellos, este recorte es una catástrofe real.
For them, this cut is a real catastrophe.
So where does this go from here?
Because I don't think Europe can simply fill the gap.
The numbers don't work.
Even if every European country doubled its aid budget tomorrow, it wouldn't compensate for what the US has cut.
La verdad es que Europa está intentando hacer más, pero tiene sus propios problemas económicos y políticos.
The truth is that Europe is trying to do more, but it has its own economic and political problems.
Alemania tiene un nuevo gobierno.
Germany has a new government.
Francia tiene tensiones políticas internas.
France has internal political tensions.
No es fácil aumentar el gasto en ayuda exterior en este momento.
It's not easy to increase foreign aid spending at this moment.
I keep coming back to something.
What this report describes is not just a budget line changing.
It's a signal.
It tells the world that the postwar international system, the one built on American leadership and multilateral cooperation, is changing in a very fundamental way.
Sí, y eso es lo más importante de todo esto.
Yes, and that is the most important thing about all of this.
El número, 23%, es impresionante.
The number, 23%, is impressive.
Pero el mensaje que envía al mundo es más importante que el número.
But the message it sends to the world is more important than the number.
El mensaje es: el mundo ya no funciona como antes.
The message is: the world no longer works the way it used to.
And I'll leave listeners with this.
The next time you read about a famine, or a disease outbreak in a poor country, or a refugee crisis, ask yourself: who was paying to prevent this, and are they still paying?
That number, 23 percent, has faces behind it.
Bueno, y para los que aprenden español, recuerden las palabras de hoy.
Well, and for those learning Spanish, remember today's words.
La ayuda al desarrollo no es solo un concepto económico.
Development aid is not just an economic concept.
Es una manera de hablar sobre qué tipo de mundo queremos vivir.
It's a way of talking about what kind of world we want to live in.