For a certain sort of political leader, there is no easier win than taking an axe to foreign aid. For a start, foreign aid goes to foreigners, to whom supporters of this certain sort of political leader are generally indifferent. While those voters seethe that colossal quantities of their money are shipped overseas, the certain sort of political leader knows that the amounts are, in the grand scheme of things, tiny.

It is unsurprising that the United States Agency for International Development – US Aid – has been an early target of US president Donald Trump, via his hatchet man, Elon Musk. US Aid’s name contains the word “international”, which is nearly as toxic a word in some quarters as “foreign”. It accounts for a rounding error of about $50bn (€48bn), or only a little more than Musk spent on a social-media platform.

Many US voters, however, all but believe that their money is shovelled out of aircraft flying over Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. Polls have found that Americans estimate that about 25 per cent of the federal budget is spent on foreign aid; it is, in fact, about one per cent.

International aid is not charity; it is an investment – and one that pays for itself, time and again. In episode 573 of Monocle Radio’s The Foreign Desk, we spoke to Andrew Mitchell, former minister of state for development and Africa from 2022 to 2024 during the last Conservative government. The UK’s foreign aid, he told us, “makes Britain safer and more prosperous because it makes the poorest and most difficult parts of the world safer and more prosperous”.

Even the most rugged isolationist should be able to absorb this point. It might also be worth considering who is in favour of the US withdrawing from this field; among those offering their congratulations is Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev. If the West doesn’t get involved, then someone else will.

Andrew Mueller is the host of ‘The Foreign Desk’ on Monocle Radio.