Australia tallies Pacific impact of US foreign aid cuts

SYDNEY - Australia is racing to identify the South Pacific’s most pressing funding needs as the United States moves to slash its foreign aid budget, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Feb 27.

Crucial food, climate and medical programmes in the Pacific islands were left in limbo after US President Donald Trump’s administration announced a 90-day freeze on foreign aid in January.

Ms Wong said Australia had started auditing which Pacific programmes were most at risk, with a view to shouldering some of the burden.

But Ms Wong warned it was “unrealistic” to think Australia – already the Pacific’s largest aid donor – could totally fill the gap left by the US.

Senior foreign affairs official Jamie Isbister said Australia had already started considering how it could step up.

“It is not a one-stop review and done. The situation is fluid and we have to look at how we adapt our programmes in response to that,” he told a government hearing on Feb 27.

The pair’s comments were made just hours before the US confirmed it would slash US$54 billion (S$72.45 billion) from overseas development and foreign aid budgets – cutting 92 per cent of multi-year contracts.

Many aid agencies in the South Pacific have spent weeks bracing for the impact of the anticipated cuts.

Disaster-prone, isolated and threatened by rising seas, tropical Pacific island states are some of the most aid-reliant nations on Earth, development agencies say.

The US has, for years, helped to buy life-saving medicine for tropical disease, combat illegal fishing, and better prepare coastal hamlets for earthquakes and typhoons.

In a foreign policy “snapshot” released on Feb 27, the Australian government noted that Mr Trump’s America First agenda would see the US playing a “different role” in the world.

China, by contrast, continues to dish out