US cedes ground to China with ‘self-inflicted wound’ of USAid shutdown, analysts say

China’s President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump in 2017. Analysts say the sudden shutdown of USAid provides Beijing with a ‘perfect opportunity’ to increase its own global influence. Photograph: Andy Wong/AP

Donald Trump’s shutdown of USAid has already had disastrous effects on humanitarian aid and development programmes around the world, but it has also ceded ground to the US’s chief rival, China, analysts have said.

The result of the sudden 90-day suspension of USAid funding – which accounts for 40% of global foreign aid – has been chaos: employees locked out of offices, humanitarian shipments left to rot, and lifesaving assistance stopped. Around the world, development programmes previously assisted by the USAid are panicking, warning of disastrous risks of escalating famine, death and disease.