British Foreign Secretary David Lamy has warned that US President Donald Trump's decision to cut foreign aid could be a "strategic mistake", PA Media/DPA reported.
The Trump administration has unveiled a plan to drastically reduce staffing levels for US international aid projects around the world as part of the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Lamy urged the US to "take a hard look at what went wrong" under the previous British government when it decided to close its Department for International Development. He added that Britain has been "trying to mitigate the negative consequences of this strategic mistake" for years, after in 2020 Prime Minister Boris Johnson is merging the department with the Foreign Office, BTA reports.
“Development remains an important tool of soft power. And in the absence of development, I would be very worried that China and others will fill the gap“, he told the “Guardian“ newspaper.
The Trump administration's plan foresees significant cuts, with fewer than 300 people remaining at the Agency for International Development to run humanitarian aid programmes around the world.
On Thursday evening, organisations of workers in the US federal system filed a lawsuit asking the courts to stop the closure, arguing that Trump does not have the authority to close an agency that is enshrined in legislation at the congressional level.