By Kanji Usui
I don't usually like posting current events on social media, but this one has had such a significant personal impact on me that I felt compelled to address it.
Many of you may have already seen it since GACKT posted about it on X, but I'm referring to President Trump's closure of USAID (United States Agency for International Development).
To explain what USAID is: it's the U.S. government agency equivalent to Japan's JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency), and it manages bilateral aid that the United States provides internationally.
From my personal experience, when I was working as an environmental assessment specialist dispatched by JICA in East Timor, I had the opportunity to observe USAID projects. While I can't go into specifics, they were large-scale undertakings, and we actually benefited from outcomes of USAID's work.
My impression at the time was that USAID was held in high regard even by other aid organizations, including JICA. So learning that it's being shut down came as a tremendous shock to me. It seems the international development community worldwide is in a state of panic.
This is a textbook point, but there's a concept called the "interdependence model"—the idea that countries around the world are deeply interdependent through trade and other mechanisms, and that building peaceful, stable relationships leads to one's own stable development.
I understood this model to be the theoretical foundation for international cooperation, but this recent development has made me feel that these very premises are beginning to crumble.