Worst-case scenario

US Mideast allies face ‘worst-case scenario’ with Trump aid cuts and tariff whiplash

The withdrawal of aid by the U.S. and Europe could feed extremism and lead to a surge in emigration, experts warn.

By Clothilde Goujard and Giovanna Coi

The sun pounded down on a single bulldozer and steel rods — all that remained on the deserted construction site of a half-built school.

Work on Safed High School, which was meant to accommodate around 1,500 students in Jordan’s second-largest city, suddenly stopped in late January when the world’s No. 1 aid provider, the United States, froze funds globally, with few exceptions. 

The effect of the stoppage on this sprawling city, its inhabitants and contracted employees, home to Jordan’s first Palestinian refugee camp in the 1940s, was nearly immediate. 

“Within just one day, we were laid off,” said one engineer who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the effects of the aid freeze. 

U.S. President Donald Trump’s suspension of $40 billion in foreign aid days into his second administration — and subsequent large cuts — will be felt far outside Safed High School, and far beyond Jordan. Egypt, Israel and Jordan are among the top recipients of U.S. aid: In 2023, countries in the region collectively received nearly $4 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The drastic move is set to weaken countries in a tumultuous region wrestling with political instability, humanitarian issues and economic woes, a dozen analysts, officials and aid workers told POLITICO. Some added it could undermine Washington’s influence in the Middle East, which aimed in part to secure goodwill with allies in the region, support democracy, and prevent the potential rise of insurgencies and extremists.

Other major donors, including the United Kingdom and a handful of European countries, have decreased aid to the region in recent months, in part to make up for the U.S. threat to roll back aid to Ukraine. The Trump administration has prompted fears it might not remain a reliable ally to Europe after abandoning a long-standing Ukraine-friendly approach in favor of Russia while threatening NATO members if they don’t increase their defense spending. 

Some have fallen into line immediately.

The U.K. slashed its overseas aid budget this year to its lowest level in more than 25 years in order to steer funding to defense. Germany’s new government is looking into cutting aid funding after a historic boost to defense spending.

“What we’re seeing right now is a dramatic contraction of aid in a way that will likely fundamentally reshape the entire aid system [and] humanitarian operations on the ground,” said Delaney Simon, senior analyst with the U.S. program at the International Crisis Group. 

All roads lead to Jordan

The impact of the U.S. cuts will also be felt in Iraq, which continues to rebuild after America’s occupation and to ward off remnants of the Islamic State group; in Syria, where a new government leads a fractured country in dire need of aid; in Yemen, as a decade-long civil conflict sputters on; and further afield as Israel’s multifront war in Gaza and Lebanon continues. 

Amal Hamdan, who has consulted on election monitoring programs in Iraq and Lebanon, called the cuts “genuinely concerning.”

“This kind of work was truly about maintaining stability and democracy in some parts of the world where democracy and stability are not a given,” she said. Hamdan is a consultant for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, which helps countries organize independent elections and counts USAID as one of its main partners. 

Jordan, America’s key ally in the Levant, has received military and economic aid since the 1950s. In 2023, it took in more than $1.5 billion to shore up, in part, hospitals, water and electricity supply and refugee programs. 

Shortly after he took office in January, Trump announced a 90-day stoppage and review of the country’s foreign aid, which makes up nearly half of all humanitarian and development funding globally. Almost 90 percent of USAID contracts were affected, according to a document obtained by POLITICO. 

That economic hardship was amplified by the Trump administration’s imposition, and then sudden suspension, of certain global tariffs in recent days. Jordan, which exported more than $3 billion to the U.S. in 2023, was hit with a 20 percent tariff by its American ally.  

“Jordan has been a crucial partner for the U.S. in terms of security, military support, but the U.S., by cutting this aid, has destabilized Jordan directly,” said Kelly Petillo, program manager for the Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Since its establishment in 1961, USAID has focused on a broad range of humanitarian, peace, governance and economic programs in the Middle East, aiming to exert control and help stabilize a youthful region facing numerous challenges from conflicts to droughts and high unemployment. 

“We were really trying to use our influence to build, basically, a more stable, prosperous Middle East,” said Dave Harden, a former USAID official with over 20 years of experience working in the West Bank, Gaza, Yemen and Iraq. 

Aid to Jordan is the backbone of U.S. power in the Middle East, particularly in the Levant. In recent years the long-standing partnership has been critical to fighting terrorism, in particular the Islamic State group, as part of the U.S.-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.

POLITICO reached out to the Jordanian government to ask about the impact of U.S. aid cuts but did not hear back.

In recent weeks the U.S. cuts have compromised the management and security of camps in northeastern Syria, where tens of thousands of people including Europeans accused of links with ISIS are being detained, prompting security concerns across Europe. 

While the U.S. is still sending military aid to Jordan, the economic and humanitarian aid cuts across the Levant and within the region will inevitably disrupt economies, leading to further instability in the long term.

In 2023, U.S. assistance accounted for more than 2 percent of Jordan’s gross domestic product, nearly 4 percent of Syria’s and about 4.3 percent of Yemen’s GDP, according to data from the U.S. government and the World Bank.

“They [will] become countries where inequality subsists, [which] become safe havens for armed groups,” said Charlotte Slente, secretary-general of the Danish Refugee Council. “These countries will be prone to create security concerns around the world.”

Less aid, more migration

During Syria’s civil war, nearly half its population was displaced and in dire need of aid. That situation has only worsened since the formation of the new government. The need for foreign aid to fund reintegration programs for people displaced by ISIS in Iraq — or to feed nearly 15 million people in need of food assistance — will only increase. And the people impacted might be looking for those better prospects, jobs and respite from hunger and war in the very countries that have scaled back monetary support, analysts said.

As Syria’s war crested Europe faced a migration crisis, with a million Syrians making their way to the bloc’s borders in 2015. The Austrian government said at the time: “To address the root causes of migration, we decided to double our direct bilateral development cooperation.”

It has been common practice in Europe to use aid to deter migration to its borders. Now, however, many European governments want to pull the plug, analysts said. 

“It’s also a bit like ‘We’ve provided aid for decades and decades, and yet people are still coming to Europe in search of a better life,’ and that is being seen as a reason that aid doesn’t work, hence they can cut it,” said Anita Käppeli, director of Europe’s policy outreach at the Center for Global Development. 

In the Netherlands, for example, in a move reminiscent of the Trump administration, the right-wing government in February cut back on its foreign development budget, calling it a “Netherlands-first” stance. France has cut its aid budget by 35 percent under similar pressure from far-right parties.

The impact of that foreign aid pullback is already being felt by women in one of Amman’s free clinics. 

Germany, the U.K., Spain and the Netherlands will not renew funding for some health services in Jordan, said Abu al-Haija, the deputy director of free clinics in the country.

“We’re really facing a worst-case scenario,” said al-Haija, who has already had to lay off almost half of the staff at the medical center in northwestern Amman following the U.S. cuts. 

It’s one of the few clinics in Amman offering free health care, including gynecological and obstetrical consultations, support for rape and domestic violence survivors, and rehabilitation for children with disabilities.

“We’ve been doing this for more than 10 years, promising women and girls, especially among refugees, that they could come but [all] of a sudden, with the cuts, it will have been an empty promise,” he said.

Al-Haija is bracing for further layoffs as the U.S. drastically cuts funds for the United Nations Population Fund, a reproductive and maternal health agency.

As the region recalibrates what it can offer people, the situation will continue to deteriorate, said a Washington, D.C.-based USAID official who was granted anonymity to be able to speak about the cuts.  

“Less hope, more diseases, people’s children dying [due] to preventable causes, not receiving quality education, is [all] going to translate to increased vulnerabilities when it comes to ideological extremism,” the official added.