A new Rockefeller Foundation-backed survey of 35,000 people in 34 countries found the United States was ranked the biggest threat in half of those countries. One in three people around the world now see the U.S. as a threat, more than China, according to Rajiv J. Shah, the foundation's president.
Shah said the findings mark a sharp reversal from the era when America was admired as 'the last best hope on earth.' He argued that U.S. influence once rested not only on military power but on a global belief in universal human dignity, reinforced by institutions and aid programs after World War II.
The piece points to the Marshall Plan, development aid during the Cold War, and disease-prevention efforts such as GAVI and PEPFAR as examples of how Washington paired hard power with public goodwill. Shah said those efforts helped vulnerable people and strengthened America's hand on nuclear weapons, the dollar and trade agreements.
By contrast, he said recent U.S. policy has relied too much on fear. He cited $38 billion spent on a war of choice that killed 18 U.S. service members and thousands of civilians, while $38 billion was cut from the global foreign assistance budget between 2024 and 2025. He said the result is higher prices, a global energy crisis and lost moral authority.
Shah also said Rockefeller-supported analysis estimates 9.4 million vulnerable people could die between now and 2030 if food security and disease-fighting programs are pulled back, while Boston University researchers estimate more than 700,000 people have already died because those programs were dismantled. He pointed to Kakuma, a refugee camp in Kenya, where 150,000 people abruptly stopped receiving food after U.S. funding to the World Food Programme was halted.
The market lesson is plain: power has a cost when it is untethered from results. Capital rewards clear rules, not drift, and foreign policy is no exception. When Washington spends taxpayer money abroad, the only durable justification is security, leverage, and a system that keeps American interests and American credibility intact.
