The decision by the administration of US President Donald Trump to suspend or close the 64-year-old operation of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, has been called by some analysts as an erosion of the prestige that the superpower has built since the Cold War.
This decision will certainly have an impact on Cambodia, especially on existing aid programs. In the more than 30 years of its mission in Cambodia, the United States has provided more than $3 billion in business since 1992. This is according to the claim of Ms. Samantha Power, the administrator of USAID, who visited Cambodia in October 2024.
However, Mr. Pen Bona, a spokesman for the Royal Government, said that The suspension of USAID assistance only affects small projects in Cambodia and does not disrupt government operations.
The scale of the impact on Cambodia is not large compared to the assistance programs that USAID provides to developing countries, including the United Nations, which total more than $70 billion a year.
The real impact of the closure of USAID operations is on those who serve under the projects. And the institutions that receive the aid package and the people who benefit from this project, but in the world, it is quite large, especially in Africa and other poor countries.
In fact, the World Health Organization has claimed that this decision could put the program to combat the spread of AIDS in 50 countries, especially in Africa, at risk.
With the decision on the future of USAID, some analysts have argued that the US decision is an undermining of its prestige as a world power. This claim was also confirmed in an article by the South China Morning Post.
In the article, US Senator Chris Coons claimed that the current closure of USAID operations around the world is a gift to China.
He claimed that this is a gift to a competitor that the United States is facing in the world today. Separately, Chinese officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that closing USAID’s operations would boost Beijing’s prestige in Third World countries that are in dire need of aid.
The closure of USAID’s mission, which was a hotbed of Cold War activity from its founding in 1961 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, will open the way for the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA), established in 2018, to take over. Expanding activities to enhance Beijing’s prestige and influence on the international stage.
After USAID’s recent suspension of aid, a senior official of the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) revealed that it will increase investment in international development and improve its foreign aid program.
In an interview with Phoenix TV, Hu Zhangliang The vice president of the China International Development Cooperation Agency made the remarks without addressing the United States. He simply said that we will not do as some countries do, leaving the recipients of aid in a desperate situation.
So far, apart from USAID and CIDCA, many countries have established international development agencies to help poor countries, but their funds are not as large as USAID. These aid agencies include the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and the French Development Agency (AFD), among others.
