There were few, if any, people in the room who weren’t aware of the meeting under way that afternoon in Saudi Arabia—Russian and American diplomats talking about the future of Ukraine with no Ukrainian input. But none of the 3,000 attendees at the defense forum in Kyiv—a combination conference and expo designed to bring startups, investors, soldiers, and government officials together to discuss Ukraine’s burgeoning defense industry—mentioned the proceedings in Riyadh.
Even if a peace deal is signed in coming months, the world-class weapons industry that has emerged in Ukraine since Moscow’s invasion in 2022 is likely to play a pivotal role in the country’s future—both as a deterrent against future Russian aggression and an export-driven pillar of the Ukrainian economy.
The sprawling expo showcased just how much the fighting in Ukraine has transformed war as we know it. The four or five dozen companies present ranged from fledgling startups to established manufacturers producing at scale for the Ukrainian armed forces. Exhibition booths featured every conceivable type of drone, large and small, for use in the air, at sea, and on the ground. Also on display was a range of electronic-warfare jamming and spoofing devices.
FACT:The number of African American-owned exporters grew by 60% in 2022. (Most recent year available.)
THE NUMBERS: African American businesses exporting to Africa –
Year
Number of firms
Export total
2022
491
$192 million
2021
163
$105 million
2020
138
$45 million
2019
278
$45 million
2018
200
$27 million
2017
300
$62 million
* Census and BEA data collaboration
WHAT THEY MEAN:
A Black History Month look at U.S.-African trade and its role in the recent African American export boom:
As a point of departure, here’s then-President Bill Clinton peering into the future, as he signs the African Growth and Opportunity Act in the millennial spring of 2000:
“Sub-Saharan Africa is home to more than 700 million people [ed. note: now 1.25 billion], one of our biggest potential trade partners. I say potential because American exports now account for only 6 percent of the African market. This bill will surely change that as it expands Africa’s access to our markets and improves the ability of African nations to ease poverty, increase growth, and heal the problems of their people. It promotes the kinds of economic reform that will make sub-Saharan nations, on the long run, better allies, better trade partners, and stronger nations.”
Scrolling ahead a quarter-century: A unique Census Bureau/Bureau of Economic Analysis data collaboration, “U.S. Exporting Firms by Demographics,” provides the most detailed statistical portrait of a trading community anywhere in the world, with insights on exporting companies by size, export market, ownership by race and ethnicity, gender, veteran status, and more. Its count two years ago revealed an exceptionally severe blow to African American exporters during the COVID-19 pandemic. As economies worldwide closed the overall count of American exporting businesses fell by 17,000, or 5%. Loss counts varied by ownership but, in most cases, not by a lot: the Census/BEA counts of white-owned and women-owned exporters, for example, fell by 1.5% and 2%, that of Hispanic businesses dropped by 7%, and the number of Asian-American and Native American exporters remained stable. The African American exporting community, by contrast, lost a third of its members, contracting from 1,514 in 2019 to 1,001 in 2020.
The next edition, as we noted last February, found a modest but hopeful rebound in 2021, to 1,139. And the most recent, out three weeks ago, reports a surge to 1,802. Its count of businesses and their $1.2 billion in exports — substantially driven by a boom in exports to African customers — are both the highest numbers in the six-year-old series. A table:
Year
Number of Firms
Total Exports
2022
1,802
$1.195 billion
2021
1,139
$1.122 billion
2020
1,001
$1.097 billion
2019
1,514
$806 million
2018
1,400
$830 million
2017
1,200
$616 million
Policy likely helped support this strong recovery: Gina Raimondo’s Commerce Department made a concerted effort to raise the exporter count through more engagement with this and other “underserved” — women, rural, veterans, ethnic — communities through the Global Diversity Export Initiative. So did the economic environment across the Atlantic – Africa’s GDP growth is a point above the world rate, and the continental market is becoming simpler, more efficient, and easier for small businesses to manage as the African Continental Free Trade Area “AfCFTA” enters into force. African American firms seem to be tapping this opportunity especially quickly — almost 500 of the 1,802 exporters have African customers, and the African share of the total sales has jumped from 6% before the pandemic to 16%. A 2022 table by market:
Number of Exporters
Export Value
World
1,802
$1.195 billion
Mexico
154
$225 million
Africa
491
$195 million
(Nigeria)
204
$76 million
(Ghana)
104
$14 million
(South Africa)
41
$10 million
Canada
460
$162 million
European Union
319
$100 million
United Arab Emirates
110
$85 million
United Kingdom
201
$63 million
Caribbean Islands
n/a
$55 million
All Other
n/a
$310 million
In sum, very much the situation President Clinton imagined in which African growth supports American businesses and production, with particular (though by no means exclusive) benefits for the diaspora.
The cautionary notes in this relate more to policy than data or economics. Like all U.S. exporters, African American exporters are at risk of retaliation and loss of markets as the Trump administration threatens tariffs against America’s major trading partners. Mexico, Canada, and the EU, all recent targets, provide 40% of African American export earnings – a bit below the 50% for all U.S. businesses and far below Native American exporters’ 78%, but still a lot. On a lesser but still important scale, it isn’t clear that the newly confirmed Commerce Secretary, Mr. Lutnick, will have the same interest in export promotion generally, or this community specifically, that his predecessor did. And the African Growth and Opportunity Act itself, now approaching its 25th anniversary and still the “foundation” of U.S.-Africa economic relations today, ends this September — which would mean some fraying of business ties — unless Congress renews it.
So a lot to do and some risk to manage. But still, a happy piece of transatlantic community-building, African/African American business success, and modern black history to record this February.
If AGOA is the foundation of U.S.-African economic relations today, here’s a deep-past predecessor: President Lincoln’s Ambassador to the U.K., Charles Francis Adams (yes, son of President John Quincy & grandson of Founder John) spent most of the autumn of 1862 facing down London Confederate sympathizers and outwitting would-be gun-runners. But he also took a week to inaugurate U.S. commercial diplomacy with sub-Saharan Africa, to join Maryland-born Liberian President Stephen Benson as signatories of the 1862 U.S.-Liberia Treaty of Amity and Commerce. Ambassador Adams’ private diary for that rainy October day (via the Massachusetts Historical Society) shows some emotion:
“I had received this week powers to negotiate a Treaty of commerce with the Republic of Liberia. I notified President Benson of the fact, and he came this day to see me about it. I gave him the form of Treaty he had first sent through me to Washington, modified as it came back to me, both of us be put into shape and executed early next week. He did so. Thus it seems that my name is to be on the first national act recognizing the restoration of the status of the Americo-African to a condition of equality with the White. I think it is an era in our history. We received the mail bags from America and found the news generally quiet cheerful. A long letter from Charles [Charles Jr., then a Union Army Lieutenant] to his mother, giving an interesting narrative of the whole campaign in Maryland, including the two great actions at South mountain and Antietam, which he witnessed. I returned thanks to God for all his mercies, and especially for his preservation thus far safe and well.”
And some then-and-now from Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar:
Dr. King reflects in 1957 on Ghanaian independence, transatlantic parallels between civil rights and decolonization, and the potential African American role in African economic development.
The Ethiopian Embassy recalls the launch of U.S.-Ethiopian trade and diplomacy in the 1903 Commercial Treaty signed by Ohio diplomat Robert Skinner and Emperor Menelik II – “King of Kings” by title, best remembered as war leader and preserver of Ethiopian independence, but also a capable commercial strategist when opportunity arose.
“Commerce between the people of America and Madagascar shall be perfectly free, with all the privileges under which the most favored nations are now or may hereafter be trading. Citizens of America shall, however, pay a duty, not exceeding ten per cent., on both exports and imports in Madagascar, to be regulated by a tariff mutually agreed upon, with the following exceptions: Munition of war, to be imported by the Queen of Madagascar into her dominions, or by her order. Prohibited from export by the laws of Madagascar are munition of war, timber, and cows. No other duties, such as tonnage, pilotage, quarantine, light-house dues, shall be imposed in ports of either country on the vessels of the other to which national vessels or vessels of the most favored nations shall not equally be liable.”
… and U.S. Amb. Claire Pierangelo (2023) applauds Madagascar’s success as an AGOA clothing exporter.
ABOUT ED
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
WASHINGTON — President Trump has fundamentally altered America’s global stance after just one month — alienating key allies, dismantling vital treaties, and embracing America’s adversaries. As the damage unfolds, Democrats must prepare now for the consequences of four years of weakened U.S. leadership.
In response, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) today released “Five Pillars of Freedom: First Steps Toward a New Democratic Foreign Policy,” a report by Peter Juul, PPI’s Director of National Security Policy. The report outlines a principled, proactive, and pragmatic Democratic foreign policy that prioritizes defending freedom, strengthening alliances, and advancing strategic economic engagement in a world reshaped by a second Trump presidency.
“Any Democrat who succeeds Donald Trump in 2029 will inherit a world that is more dangerous, more unpredictable, and more hostile to American interests than at any time in recent history,” said Juul. “This roadmap provides a path for Democrats to rebuild America’s standing, defend democracy, and protect our national security in an increasingly unstable world.”
Juul argues that Democrats must abandon outdated approaches and embrace a bold, forward-looking strategy rooted in five key pillars:
Defending Freedom: America must lead the global fight against authoritarianism and stand with democracies under threat.
Investing in a Strong National Defense: Democrats must overcome outdated skepticism about defense spending and ensure America’s military is prepared for 21st-century threats.
Rebuilding and Strengthening Alliances: From NATO to the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. must repair and reinforce strategic partnerships.
Leading on Economic Statecraft: Free and fair trade agreements with allies must replace Trump’s chaotic, self-defeating trade wars.
Projecting Strength and Resolve: A new Democratic foreign policy must reject excessive caution and be willing to take risks in defense of American values.
Juul warns that a second Trump presidency is already dismantling U.S. alliances, emboldening autocratic regimes, and undermining international institutions that have safeguarded global stability for decades. In his first weeks back in office, Trump has already bullied NATO allies, cozied up to Vladimir Putin, and proposed dangerous policies that weaken America’s strategic position.
Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on X.
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Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org
Come January 20, 2029, any Democrat who succeeds Donald Trump as president must be prepared to confront the very different and much more dangerous world Trump will almost certainly create. The Democratic Party must begin thinking seriously about a new foreign policy approach now — one based on the party’s best internationalist traditions and the defense of freedom worldwide, not fantasies of “restraint” conjured up by progressive isolationists or the timid, managerial approaches of the Obama and Biden years.
Democratic foreign policy would have required a serious refresh even had Kamala Harris prevailed in November 2024. But Trump’s return to the presidency makes matters even more urgent: Unconstrained by more experienced and sober national security voices that understand the value of America’s alliances, Trump appears ready and willing to let his deepest and most destructive foreign policy impulses run wild — as became clear during his first weeks back in office. Long-standing American allies and friends have already found themselves treated as enemies, threatened with and subjected to economic and military pressure, while adversaries and autocrats find themselves welcomed as comrades and given leave to act as they please.
Like prudent military strategists who plan for every possible contingency, Democrats need to prepare for world more hostile to American interests and liberal values than at any point in living memory — and an America much weaker and far less able to defend them. Dictators in Moscow and Beijing will see their power and influence grow, possibly with Ukraine as a de facto Russian vassal state and Taiwan under China’s thumb. Other democracies could well follow America’s example and elect illiberal, far-right governments of their own, a task made all the easier by Trump’s gutting of USAID and the vital support it provides to those fighting for freedom and democracy abroad. NATO and other American alliances may either cease to exist altogether or stumble ahead shadows of their former selves, effectively unable to deter conflicts or defend their members. Future American promises and commitments will lack credibility, particularly when it comes to issues of trade and security.
Indeed, in his first month in office alone, Trump bullied two NATO allies — Canada and Denmark— with threats of tariffs and territorial annexation while sitting down one-on-one with Vladimir Putin’s Russia to discuss the fate of Ukraine. He similarly promised to levy tariffs on Mexico, another neighbor and trading partner, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio falsely claimed Trump’s threats wrested concessions from the Panamanian government over access to the Panama Canal. Trump also publicly backed crimes against humanity when he floated a preposterous scheme to depopulate the Gaza Strip, seize the Palestinian territory for the United States, and transform it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”5 The loud and repeated endorsement of gangster-style extortion, territorial conquest, and rank imperialism by the president of the United States will have lasting and calamitous global consequences.
It will, therefore, not be possible for a future Democratic president to proclaim, as President Joe Biden did, that “America is back” and restore the world as it was before. Institutions and relationships demolished, degraded, and debased by a second Trump presidency, both at home and abroad, cannot simply be resurrected as if nothing had happened over the previous four years. Reconstruction and rebuilding, not restoration and refurbishment, will be the order of the day for any future Democratic foreign policy worthy of the name — and it will need to be done at a moment when America finds itself in its most precarious strategic position since before the Second World War.
So what should a future Democratic foreign policy look like?
First, it’s important to note that it’s hard to predict just how much damage Trump will do to America’s national security and foreign relations over the next four years — making specific policy proposals and positions less relevant than a broader intellectual and moral framework for thinking about foreign policy. Indeed, less than two weeks into his second term in office, Trump and his minions have already attempted to liquidate the U.S. Agency for International Development, purge the CIA and FBI of professional intelligence and law enforcement officers, and gut public scientific research institutions like the National Science Foundation, NASA, and NOAA.
What Democrats need is not a suite of detailed policy blueprints on this or that specific issue, but a general orientation and set of attitudes toward foreign policy — an animating spirit to guide them as they navigate the world moving forward.
That starts with a clear understanding of enduring global strategic realities and abiding American national interests — realities and interests that won’t change no matter who happens to occupy the Oval Office.
As Democratic Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized, the dramatic scientific, technological, and industrial breakthroughs of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century transformed the world in fundamental and irreversible ways.10 From steamships, the telegraph, and internal combustion engines to aviation, the radio, and rocketry, these advances made it impossible for geography to insulate the United States from threats across the Atlantic and Pacific. The political, economic, and diplomatic fate of this vast geographic expanse would now determine and define the sort of world in which America and other nations would live.
These profound changes required Americans to think about their national security in global terms, not just continental or hemispheric ones. As Roosevelt reminded his fellow citizens in his December 1940 fireside chat, “The width of those oceans is not what it was in the days of clipper ships.” Rapid technological progress since the Second World War — jet airliners, nuclear weapons, satellite telecommunications, and the internet, among other innovations — have only made Roosevelt’s central argument more compelling. Today, America’s own safety, prosperity, and freedom remains, as it has for more than a century, intimately and inextricably bound up with that of Europe and East Asia.
This essential national interest in the stability, security, and freedom of Europe and East Asia remains constant and objective; it can be denied and downplayed by isolationists on both left and right, but it cannot be altered, eliminated, or wished away. Now and for the foreseeable future, this interest is threatened by a pair of global gangster powers — Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China — that aim to dominate these two vital regions and dictate their own terms to the rest of the world. In this endeavor, moreover, Moscow and Beijing receive both material and moral support from lesser gangster states like Iran and North Korea. The frontiers of America’s own national security, in other words, now stand at Ukraine’s Dnipro River and in the Taiwan Strait.
For a future Democratic foreign policy to fully succeed, however, the pursuit of America’s national interest must proceed hand in hand with the pursuit of higher ideals and moral values that represent America at its best — namely, a stalwart defense of freedom and democratic self-government against the depredations of despots, dictators, and international gangsters.
A strong and forthright defense of freedom at home and abroad ought to sit at the heart of a future Democratic foreign policy, serving as its crucial central pillar and main organizing principle. As America learned during the first half of the twentieth century, a world dominated by unfree powers is one that’s manifestly unsafe for the United States. It ultimately remains up to America to defend freedom around the world — there is no other nation or group of nations that can assume the same mantle of moral leadership as the United States or possesses the necessary geopolitical heft. Without a power as strong and influential as America to stand for them, freedom and liberal values will find themselves with no real or effective champion on the global stage. In short, the fate of freedom around the world depends in no small part on America’s own active involvement in the world.
Democrats should also make clear that they want the United States to defend freedom where it already prevails — however incomplete and fragile it may well be in certain places — against bullying, intimidation, and outright invasion by gangster powers like Russia and China. America remains the only nation with the capacity and ability to organize an effective, durable defense of democratic self-government where it now exists against such powers. It’s not some abstract rules-based international order that Democrats want America to defend, then, but actual living-and-breathing societies like Ukraine and Taiwan who wish to live free from the very real threat of military bullying and political domination by their more powerful and predatory neighbors.
Four additional pillars support and flesh out in more practical terms this main animating principle of a future Democratic foreign policy:
Provide for a strong defense capable of meeting present and future challenges.
Alliances amplify American power and help secure American interests.
Free and open trade with friends and allies around the world.
A willingness to take risks and use American power to defend freedom overseas.
Economic policy debates in recent years have increasingly focused on how to better support children and families. One of the central proposals in these discussions is expanding the Child Tax Credit (CTC), which will be a key feature in the current debate over the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This tax benefit helps working parents by providing them with additional resources to cover everyday costs, which can significantly improve the lives of disadvantaged children by meeting their basic needs.
However, while the CTC provides important short-term assistance to parents, it does less to ensure children can access opportunities for long-term success. Many children from low-income families face barriers to building wealth, such as limited income or job opportunities. Additionally, alack of financial literacy often makes it even harder for these children to make informed decisions about managing money, impeding their ability to effectively plan for the future or continue building wealth over time. Together, this combination of limited opportunity and financial capability can trap many Americans into lower economic positions, regardless of their talent or potential.
In a recent report,“Building Opportunity and Financial Capability with Child Opportunity Accounts,” PPI proposed to help increase financial resources and financial capability for children from all backgrounds by establishing universal Child Opportunity Accounts (COAs). COAs would automatically be opened at birth with a $700 contribution from the government, with the government making supplemental contributions depending on household income each year on the child’s birthday up to age 16. This progressive approach ensures that children from families struggling to make ends meet get the most help, while still offering modest support to children born in more well-off households. In addition to the contributions from the government, families are also encouraged to participate by contributing to their child’s COA.
Account balances would be automatically invested in diversified portfolios, growing over time to give each child a financial cushion when they enter adulthood. By the time they reach 18, a child from a low-income family could have tens of thousands of dollars in their account to use for wealth-building activities — including education, housing, or starting a business — and guardrails in place to ensure that the money does not go to waste.
These accounts do not just provide resources for children but also foster the skills they need to grow those resources over time. Financial education resources would be embedded into the accounts and beneficiaries would have to pass an assessment to access their account’s funds before age 25. As children grow, they would learn to manage their own finances and gain more control over their financial future.
To ensure that the burden of rising public debt doesn’t negate the benefit of COAs for young Americans, PPI has offered acomprehensive fiscal blueprint with several policy options to fully offset the program’s cost. One particularly fitting offset included in the blueprint and further detailed in anotherrecent PPI report would be reforming the taxation of inheritances. Taxing the birthrights of the richest 1% to give every child an equal starting point would help create a more inclusive society where everyone, regardless of their background, has access to the resources and opportunities necessary for success. But PPI’s blueprint also offers several dozen potential alternatives if this offset proves politically challenging for one reason or another.
America’s economic future depends on its ability to foster talent, not just in its wealthiest citizens, but across the socioeconomic spectrum. Providing for a child’s basic needs, while important, does little to set them up for success in adulthood. Investing in Child Opportunity Accounts would ensure that every child, regardless of background, has the financial foundation and knowledge they need to pursue their full potential. This isn’t just an investment in individual families, but in our country’s future prosperity.
“Low esteem, little clout” was the shorthand way Jeannie Oaks and her colleagues characterized high school vocational education in their 1992 groundbreaking report Educational Matchmaking. It describes in painstaking detail vocational education’s “failure to deliver either effective or equitable education.”
This year’s National Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month is a time to raise awareness of how vocational education under the banner of today’s CTE has changed since then and how it’s now preparing many different young people for good jobs and career success. Many Americans, including young people, want schools to offer more education and training options like CTE. I have come to call this approach to creating many pathways to careers and opportunity in addition to the college degree opportunity pluralism.
The United States strove for more than 100 years—since we entered World War I in April 1917—to hold its own as leader of the free world. It took Donald Trump precisely one month to abdicate that leadership, destroying everything his predecessors—from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan—had built through two global conflicts, the Cold War and the creation of the post-World War II Western alliance. Trump thinks he is strong and making America stronger. But his bullying of Ukraine and capitulation to Vladimir Putin make us immeasurably weaker—a loss of reputation and power never likely to be regained.
Americans sympathetic to Ukraine have long worried that Trump would turn against the country on the receiving end of Russia’s brutal aggression. But the president’s behavior in the last week stunned even the Trump worriers. His ingratiating overture to the Kremlin, his preemptive giveaways—suggesting Ukraine should cede one-fifth of its territory and renounce joining NATO before Moscow even asked for those concessions—and his administration’s rush to meet a Russian delegation without Ukraine or our European allies, all of that was stunning enough.
But now the American president has sunk to baseless insults, calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “modestly successful comedian,” a “dictator,” and a thief. Zelensky’s measured response, telling Ukrainians that he was counting on their unity and courage and “the pragmatism of America,” showed up the president’s barbs for the schoolyard taunts they were.
From our Budget Breakdown series highlighting problems in fiscal policy to inform the 2025 tax and budget debate.
Congressional Republicans last week took a major step in advancing their legislative priorities last week when the House Budget Committee passed a budget resolution that enables them to make deep reductions in both taxes and spending within one filibuster-proof reconciliation bill. But despite winning Trump’s endorsement over a competing Senate alternative, division has already emerged over the severity of the resolution’s spending cuts. This debate has revealed an uncomfortable truth for Republicans: that tax cuts come with a cost, whether or not they are transparent about those costs.
The House budget resolution originally specified $1.5 trillion in cuts to mandatory spending that the relevant Congressional committees would be required to put in a subsequent reconciliation bill. But to win support from right-wing hardliners in their caucus, House Republican leadership added an amendment to their resolution that set a $2 trillion target for mandatory spending cuts without specifying from where the additional cuts would come. In addition, if Republicans fail to reach this new target, the $4.5 trillion allowance they gave the Ways and Means Committee to pass deficit-financed tax cuts would now be reduced by the same amount by which they missed the new target. In other words, if Republicans want to proceed with their plans to pass a massive tax cut, they’ll need to at least partially pay for it through additional spending cuts.
Many Republicans are simply not comfortable with what it takes to cut $2 trillion from mandatory spending. President Trump has removed many of the biggest mandatory spending programs — including Medicare, Social Security, and veterans’ benefits — from consideration, leaving less than one third of all mandatory spending available for Republicans to target. As a result, nearly all the $1.5 trillion in cuts that the budget resolution identifies are likely to come from vital safety net programs that benefit millions of Americans. Roughly 60% of the cuts specified in the budget resolution could come from Medicaid, a popular program that offers health insurance to roughly a fifth of the nation. Another 22% could come from federal nutrition programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food assistance to 42 million low-income Americans.
And even these cuts — which are $500 billion short of the target — have already run into political difficulties. Several “moderate” Republicans whose districts rely heavily on Medicaid have so far declined to support the resolution out of concerns that the cuts would hit their constituents. With the GOP’s slim House majority, even a few defections could prove fatal for the budget resolution’s chances.
But while they squabble over these spending cuts, neither moderate nor right-wing Republicans are truly willing to confront the deeper tradeoffs needed to reconcile their bill with fiscal realities. Although the resolution now targets $2 trillion in spending cuts, it still adds a whopping $4.8 trillion in new obligations — split between $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and $300 billion in new spending. Whether Republicans are willing to admit it, America will eventually have to pay for the costs of these budget-busting proposals in their entirety.
Enacting huge deficit-financed tax cuts means there is simply less revenue available to sustain the same level of government spending. To correct this deficit, future Americans will be forced to choose between raising their taxes or making even deeper cuts to critical programs. If they opted against raising taxes, the resulting cuts would go far beyond the cuts currently being debated. For example, the current budget resolution contains up to $880 billion in potential Medicaid cuts, which would be a roughly 11% decrease in spending over ten years compared to baseline funding. But to make up for the full cost of what their budget resolution would add to the deficit, Republicans would need to cut Medicaid by 45% instead — nearly half the program’s spending.
That Republicans don’t specify today what Americans will have to forego to pay for tax cuts doesn’t make those trade-offs any less real. Ultimately, the fight about offsets playing out between different factions of the GOP in Congress is not about how much spending must be cut to make their priorities work with fiscal reality. Rather, it’s simply a fight over how much of those cuts to be honest about.
Programs including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP that are able to distribute funding without being subject to the annual appropriations process are considered “mandatory spending.” In 2024, mandatory spending totaled roughly $4.1 trillion, or about 60% of all federal spending.
As President Trump and Congressional Republicans use their slim majorities to try to foist a radical regime change on America, Democrats need to reckon with why they’re watching helplessly from the sidelines.
Having lost control of both the White House and Congress, and with Republicans marching in lockstep, there is little they can do to stop Trump’s drive to monopolize political power and rule by diktat. Only the courts are putting speed bumps in his way.
Democrats, yoked to the status quo, are extraordinarily unpopular. Less than a third of Americans view the party favorably, while 57 percent disapprove. Independents are even more likely to express negative views. During the Biden years, Republicans also erased the Democrats’ longstanding advantage in party registration.
Progressive activists nonetheless are pressuring party leaders to make a show of resisting the Trump-Elon Musk blitzkrieg on the federal government. This is tricky: Democrats are duty-bound to speak out against Trump’s unconstitutional usurpation of legislative power. But they must also avoid falling into the trap of defending a federal bureaucracy most Americans believe is badly broken.
WASHINGTON — As debates over diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) continue to divide the nation, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) has released a new report, “A Way Out of the DEI Wars,” authored by Richard D. Kahlenberg, Director of PPI’s American Identity Project. The report examines the flaws in existing DEI programs, the illiberal backlash against them, and outlines a new, unifying vision for promoting equal opportunity and civic belonging in American institutions.
PPI, the think tank that helped Bill Clinton successfully reposition the Democratic Party at the political center 35 years ago, is now calling for Democrats to abandon unpopular and divisive DEI policies. The new report argues that while the goals of diversity and inclusion are laudable, the current approach has fueled political polarization, alienated working-class voters, and curtailed freedom of thought in schools and colleges.
In place of these policies, which PPI says are tearing the country apart, the report calls for a return to the foundational principles of historic civil rights and civil liberties movements: treating people as individuals rather than members of racial groups, fostering open debate instead of ideological conformity, and providing real pathways to social mobility for economically disadvantaged and working-class Americans of all races. The proposed framework, “Integration, Equal Opportunity, and Belonging,” offers a pragmatic alternative to both DEI excesses and the Republican response, which has often been equally illiberal, marked by sweeping bans on discussing race and punitive measures against higher education.
“DEI, as currently implemented, has alienated working-class voters, enforced ideological conformity, and too often ignored economic inequality,” said Kahlenberg. “At the same time, the backlash against DEI has frequently veered into book bans, limits on free speech, and attacks on diversity itself. This report charts a third way — one that promotes opportunity and integration without ideological coercion or racial preferences.”
Key findings from the report include:
The Failure of DEI Bureaucracies: Many DEI initiatives rely on race essentialism, ideological litmus tests, and enforced conformity, rather than fostering genuine inclusion and opportunity.
Illiberal Backlash: While DEI’s flaws are real, the response from some conservatives — including bans on discussing race, ideological purges, and book restrictions — threatens academic freedom and democratic norms.
A New Path Forward: PPI proposes replacing divisive DEI policies with “Integration, Equal Opportunity, and Belonging” — a framework that respects diversity while emphasizing shared American values and economic opportunity for all.
The report argues that both Democrats and Republicans must move beyond the current DEI wars. Instead of entrenching racial preferences or banning discussions of race, policymakers should embrace policies that expand economic opportunity, promote free speech, and foster a common civic identity.
“Americans overwhelmingly support fairness, free expression, and opportunity,” said Kahlenberg. “What they reject are programs that treat people as members of racial categories rather than as individuals, or efforts to erase discussions of real inequities in our history. Our approach recognizes both the need for inclusion and the importance of shared American identity.”
In the face of growing attacks on democratic values, increased polarization, and declining patriotism, the American Identity Project aims to help educators teach young people the anchoring shared values that define what it means to be an American. Read more from the American Identity Project at www.progressivepolicy.org/project/american-identity-project/.
Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on X.
Donald Trump’s second act as president has begun with so many unthinkable policies — from seeking to eliminate birthright citizenship guaranteed in the Fourteenth Amendment to pardoning January 6 rioters who attacked police officers — that it is tempting to assume that his moves to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies can easily be dismissed as wrongheaded.
The manner in which Trump has gone about his assault on DEI further enhances the impulse for Democrats to push back very hard. After a tragic airplane crash, at a moment when the president
should have been consoling the country, Trump cast blame on DEI policies despite lacking any evidence. The administration also hired an acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy who wrote in October, “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.” As outlined below, Trump issued anti-DEI executive orders that were vague, and his purge of DEI staff in the federal government swept up some people who had merely attended DEI sessions. He has targeted for elimination not only racial preference polices, but also President Lyndon B. Johnson’s requirement that, before firms evaluate candidates in a race-neutral fashion, they engage in outreach efforts to make sure a diverse group of applicants are aware of opportunities. Trump has claimed to defend “merit” and then appointed cabinet members who are utterly unqualified. In short, if one wanted to find someone to make a principled case against DEI excesses, it is hard to think of a worse candidate than Donald Trump.
Furthermore, it is enticing to defend current DEI policies because the goals are noble. America’s ability to draw diverse populations from all over the world is undoubtedly one of the country’s great strengths, the nation’s “superpower.” Genuine equal opportunity and nondiscrimination are cherished values. And educational institutions and employers should foster inclusive environments that are welcoming to people of all backgrounds. Thought of in those terms, lower-case diversity, equity, and inclusion values can be considered outgrowths of the nation’s heroic civil rights movement.
Having said all that, it would be an enormous mistake for Democrats to launch a strong defense of existing DEI programs whose means to achieving positive goals are deeply problematic. To begin with, Trump has laid a political trap. He would love nothing better than for Democrats to spend a lot of time and energy supporting politically toxic DEI policies that have alienated large numbers of voters, especially those from working-class backgrounds.
Moreover, on the merits, many DEI policies and practices in education and employment have become frighteningly illiberal and stand as a counterpoint to the historic fight for civil rights. At their worst, DEI policies have promoted mandatory ideological indoctrination about how people should think, backed up by an enforcement mechanism to make sure students, educators, and employees suffer consequences if they don’t adopt the “right” views. Too many DEI programs have oversimplified complex controversies into Manichean struggles between “oppressors” and the “oppressed,” and have advanced race essentialist thinking that equates skin color with certain sets of values. These poorly thought-out programs have been shown to sow division and resentment, and they have promoted a troubling victim mindset that is disempowering to the very populations DEI is aimed at assisting. DEI programs have often pursued rigid equality of racial group results by fiat, imposed illiberal loyalty oaths in college faculty hiring, curtailed free speech rights, and denigrated merit. With a singular focus on race, they have too often ignored pressing issues of economic inequality and the benefits of ideological diversity. They have diverted precious resources, often proven ineffective and counterproductive and, in some cases, fed antisemitism. For all these reasons, these policies, often enforced by coercive DEI bureaucracies, have hurt Democrats politically, particularly among working-class voters, and helped to fuel Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
In turn, Republican responses to DEI, including Trump’s, have often themselves been exceedingly illiberal. Bans on DEI in states such as Florida and Iowa, have trampled on academic freedom by barring professors from discussing certain forbidden topics. In some red states, anti-DEI policies have led schools to pull books from libraries, including volumes about Roberto Clemente, Anne Frank, and Ruby Bridges. Reducing access to these materials is a close cousin of the “book bans” that authoritarian countries have implemented. In some states, such as Texas, educators cannot teach topics that might cause “discomfort” or arouse feelings of guilt among some white students. Some anti-DEI policies have taken on a punitive approach toward higher education generally, which Vice President J.D. Vance has described as “the enemy.”6 Finally, some right-wing attacks on DEI look suspiciously like assaults on the goal of diversity itself. Whereas conservatives used to oppose racial preference programs but support efforts to uplift economically disadvantaged students of all races, some now claim that even race-neutral programs are a form of “proxy discrimination,” if racial diversity is one of their goals.
When both sides in the DEI wars suppress free speech and try to police how citizens think, what is the way out? This report lays out a completely different vision that would end troubling DEI bureaucracies and replace them with new forms of civic education that seek to bring people of different backgrounds together and emphasize what they have in common as Americans. New policies would benefit economically disadvantaged people of all races, including those whose prospects have been stunted by the economic legacy of racial discrimination. The animating vision of these policies would embrace the wonderful diversity of the United States and honor people of all backgrounds as fully American but also recognize that the genius of liberal democracy is to transcend tribalism to create a shared American identity centered around fundamental principles.
FACT:Foreign aid spending in 2023: 0.15% of GDP and 0.7% of the federal budget.
THE NUMBERS: In 2023 –
U.S. GDP
$27,721 billion
U.S. federal spending
$6,135 billion
U.S. Agency for International Development budget
$43 billion
WHAT THEY MEAN:
Here’s Herbert Hoover arguing for food aid to Germany in 1920 as head of Woodrow Wilson’s post-WWI European famine relief program:
“No matter how deeply we may feel at the present moment, our vision must stretch over the next hundred years and we must write now into history such acts as will stand creditably in the minds of our grandchildren … Twenty million are starving. Whatever their politics, they will be fed.”
From this start, American foreign aid programs have lasted for the hundred years Hoover imagined. The large mile-markers — the Marshall Plan, John F. Kennedy’s creation of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 1962 (the agency now under mysterious attack from the Trump administration), and the second Bush administration’s launch of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Millennium Challenge Corporation — highlight a steady national commitment spanning lots of projects, long hardship-post and conflict assignments, some ideas that didn’t pan out, and many successes.
Last year, USAID oversaw a $35.4 billion budget supporting countries from Ukraine and Kenya to Jordan and Papua New Guinea, with the largest share going to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, and other lines supporting nutrition, humanitarian relief, primary education, economic growth, clean water, and more. The administration’s attempt to dismantle the agency seems to rest on three arguments: claims of “fraud,” which appear to have no basis at all; the assertion that development and humanitarian relief are fiscally unaffordable (not correct, see below for some financials); and an argument that money doesn’t always go abroad but is at times spent in the United States. Here’s a look, through the lens of USAID’s current work in one country:
Malawi, a landlocked African nation of 19 million people west of Mozambique and Tanzania, is one of the world’s seven most “rural” countries (82% of Malawians live on the land). It is also one of the world’s seven poorest countries, with an annual per capita income of $600. USAID’s program here, at $243 million in 2024, has two main focuses:
HIV/AIDS: About half the Malawi budget, $143 million last year, goes to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention via PEPFAR grants to support health education in high school, clinic support and medicine supply, and prevention of new infections in early childhood and children. Over PEPFAR’s 20 years, Malawi’s HIV positivity rate is down by nearly half, from 13.1% to 7.1%. Sample from USAID grantees Ana Patsogolo Activity, whose work concentrates on education, awareness, and financial support for orphans, girls, and young women:
“Ana Patsogolo Activity (AP) seeks to bolster HIV prevention by decreasing young women’s reliance on transactional sex, strengthen their self-efficacy, independence, and decision-making, and serve as a bridge to wage employment or self-employment pathways for adolescent girls and young women. … APA’s enhanced package includes targeted content and strategies, namely: financial literacy for youth; voluntary savings and lending associations (VSLAs) [fpr youth] able to be employed and earn income; and locally based skills training in collaboration with rural community development agents and artisans. To support girls who are too young to engage in technical training or internships (i.e. the 10 – 14 age band), their caregivers are linked to VSLAs to improve household financial stability.”
Agricultural Development: Many Malawian smallholder farmers, formerly tobacco growers, are trying to diversify into healthier crops as worldwide smoking rates fall. “Feed the Future”, an agricultural development program run by USAID in partnership with the Department of Agriculture and other agencies, is helping them develop (or more accurately revive) a local Malawi peanut industry, with nuts destined in part for local sale and in part for export to other African markets. Some USAID money for this project does indeed go to Americans at home – for example, to scientists at the University of Georgia – and for good reason.
Georgia is a state especially renowned for peanut farming. A USAID grant supports work at the Peanut Innovation lab to help aspiring Malawi peanut growers solve two problems: productivity and safety. Malawi grows peanuts on 363,000 hectares of land, about the same as the U.S.’ 421,000 hectares, but gets only 381,000 tons of peanuts out of it — barely a fifth of the U.S.’ 1.9 million tons. Meanwhile, Malawi soil is unusually rich in an unpleasant substance called “aflatoxin” (a fungal chemical that raises the risk of liver disease), making its peanuts’ safety less reliable. USAID’s grant to the university helps apply Georgian farming techniques and science to both:
“Researchers in Malawi and the U.S. are working together to study the effects of pre- and post-harvest interventions in increasing peanut productivity and reducing aflatoxin contamination. Interventions being evaluated include planting and harvest dates and better row/plant spacing, improved disease and pest management, and several drying and storage options. Researchers are also examining the levels of aflatoxin and microbial contamination in locally produced peanut products, an area of high concern for both local and international markets. Trainings for local producers, often women, aim to lower contamination levels and support the production of peanut products at much higher quality and food safety standards.”
Over the past seven years, this work and a similar soybean program with research based at the University of Illinois, has reached 565,660 Malawians, doubling income for the farmers in the program. And since 2020, a separate program, Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation, has been training Malawian officials and logistics professionals in port and customs, both to move crops out of the country to markets more easily and to facilitate the imports — machinery, fertilizer, pest control — that can help them find markets and buy useful inputs more cheaply.
In sum: In Malawi, USAID money aims to keep girls safe and improve the livelihoods of very poor farmers. More generally, PEPFAR operates similar programs in 55 countries, and Feed the Future in 20. To the criticism that this sort of work — aflatoxin research, peanut pest management, health education for rural girls — is “fraud”: obviously not. On the claim that it’s unaffordable: U.S. GDP is $28 trillion, and grows by about $2 trillion a year in nominal terms, while the overall U.S. budget is now about $7 trillion and rises by $200 billion to $300 billion a year because of rising retirement, health, and interest spending. The USAID budget is stable and appropriated, about $0.04 trillion a year. By way of analogy, at 0.15% of GDP it has an impact similar to that a $120 movie-and-ice-cream outing might have on a median-income $80,610 family: not nothing, but fully affordable and not the cause of family financial trouble. And if some of the money supports research and employment in Georgia: why would that be bad?
As with anywhere in government, aid projects should be well-designed, expenses controlled, and results more important than hopes. But none of this can justify abandoning a century of American commitment to the sick, the poor, and people in distress. Put another way, as Mr. Hoover hoped, the famine relief program in the 1920s did, in fact, embody both practical ‘acts that stand up creditably’ to later scrutiny and a larger “vision” that continues to inspire a century later. The work of USAID staff on the ground on PEPFAR health support, in Feed the Future Innovation Labs, on economic growth, democratization, humanitarian relief, and more, is in that tradition. It, too, will stand up creditably in years ahead. Those trying to tear it down won’t.
FURTHER READING
Hoover looks back on the beginning of American humanitarian aid, 1914-1920.
… the National Archives reviews his Belgium relief program.
… and a century later, foreignassistance.gov tracks modern USAID and other agency spending levels, agency responsibilities, and projects.
Malawi background:
The University of Georgia’s Peanut Innovation Lab explains the Malawi peanut program.
A USAID grantee through PEPFAR, the Ana Patsogolo project, works to prevent HIV/AIDS infections in orphans, children, and young women, operating in Botswana, Uganda, and Eswatini as well as Malawi.
The Democratic Voice of Burma records a quiet tragedy at the Umpiem Mai refugee camp just west of Myanmar, after a USAID-supported clinic had to close two weeks ago. Having lost access to her oxygen supplies, 71-year-old Pe Kha Lau died three days later.
A state-by-state look at USAID links to American businesses, universities, charities, and volunteer groups.
The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler dismantles the White House’s shoddily cherry-picked justifications for cutting USAID.
And the Center for Global Development’s Charles Kenny has both backstory on these particular projects and the larger picture.
ABOUT ED
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
WASHINGTON– As Germany prepares for its snap federal election on February 23, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) has released a “German Election Preview,” authored by Claire Ainsley. The report provides a deep dive into the electoral landscape, key policy debates, and the broader lessons for center-left parties globally.
The election marks the first since Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) won the Chancellery in 2021, ending years of Christian Democrat Union (CDU) dominance. However, as Germans return to the polls, the CDU is poised to reclaim power, while the SPD struggles in third place behind the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has doubled its support since 2021.
“The German election is not just a national event — it has global significance,” said Claire Ainsley, Director of PPI’s Center-Left Renewal Project. “The SPD’s difficulties mirror the broader challenges for center-left parties in balancing economic credibility, climate ambition, and voter concerns over immigration. Their experience provides crucial lessons for Democrats in the U.S. and Labour in the U.K. as they navigate similar political headwinds.”
Key findings from the report include:
A Weakened SPD and a Surging Right: The SPD’s coalition with the Greens and Free Democratic Party (FDP) has fractured, following economic stagnation, unpopular climate policies, and a contentious debate over immigration.
CDU’s Dilemma: If the CDU wins, it must decide whether to maintain Germany’s long-standing firewall against cooperating with the far-right AfD, and balance political risk by forming another three-party coalition.
Economic and Climate Challenges: Germany’s strict “debt brake” has constrained public investment, while the handling of climate policies has fueled voter backlash and who pays for climate ambitions.
Immigration as a Defining Issue: Immigration has overtaken the economy as voters’ top concern, with a YouGov poll showing 80% of Germans believing migration levels have been too high in the past decade.
The report argues that the SPD’s struggles highlight a larger challenge for center-left parties worldwide: the need to deliver tangible economic benefits to working people while avoiding policies that deepen voter alienation.
“With working-class voters moving away from the center-left in multiple democracies, leaders must focus on delivering real results — whether on economic security, immigration, or energy affordability,” said Ainsley. “Otherwise, these voters will continue to look elsewhere, as we’ve seen in the U.S. and across Europe.”
After the U.S. navigated its own electoral challenges in 2024 and focuses on the future, PPI’s report offers critical insights into how progressive parties can adapt and rebuild durable political majorities.
PPI’s project on Center-Left Renewal was launched in January 2023 to catalyze and create a renewal of the center-left, sharing ideas, strategies, and research around the world. Since its inception, the project has facilitated a shared exchange between center-left parties, contributing new ideas and analysis designed to further the prospects of the center-left. The project’s outputs are shared by PPI here: www.progressivepolicy.org/project/project-on-center-left-renewal/. Sign up to our project mailing list at info@ppionline.org.
Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on X.
On 23 February 2025, Germans will head to the polls in the first federal election since Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) came from third to first to win the Chancellery in October 2021, following the departure of Chancellor Angela Merkel and a long period of Christian Democrat Union (CDU) dominance.
In 2021, the SPD became the lead party in a coalition government with the Green Party and Free Democratic Party (FDP), agreeing on an ambitious government programme based on their ‘four missions for the future’ outlined in the SPD’s winning manifesto.
Yet Sunday’s election looks set to provide a very different outcome, with the CDU back in pole position, and the ruling SPD trailing in a low third with the Greens just behind them in fourth. Second place in the polls is the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right challenger party that has doubled its support since the 2021 federal election, when it came fifth with 10% of the vote.
As attention turns to this historic election, what might we expect from the results? And what lessons can center-left parties elsewhere draw from the German experience?
The Trump Administration’s move to cut overhead funding for National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants will have a devastating effect on research universities and hospitals around the country. It’s a misguided attack on a key part of the innovation system that helps propel U.S. growth.
But it’s important to be wary of government actions that affect other parts of the innovation system as well. One key area is whether the Trump Administration continues to pursue antitrust actions against tech companies, which are essential pillars of innovation investment. Alphabet spent $95 billion on R&D in 2023 and 2024 alone, Meta spent $82 billion, and Apple spent $61 billion.
In a 2022 report done for PPI’s Innovation Frontier Project, Sharon Belenzon and Ashish Arora of Duke University observed: “Antitrust regulations that reduce the size and limit the scope of tech firms weaken their incentives to make the large-scale, long-run investments in science and technology, vital for national security and economic prosperity.” That’s a lesson that policymakers of all political persuasions should take to heart.
