Western engagement with the Global South is retreating across aid, peacekeeping, mediation, and migration. Although most visible under Trump, the trend extends across rich democracies. Development aid has fallen, UN peacekeeping has shrunk, and migration policies have tightened. Driven by slow growth and nationalist politics, this inward turn will not solve Western problems but will shift the costs onto the world’s poorest. The text argues that Western engagement has delivered real benefits and remains necessary.

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