Keir Starmer’s announcement that the UK will cut foreign aid in order to fund more defence spending seems like smart politics. With the US’s commitment to European security in question, it is clear that European countries, including the UK, need to spend more on defence. The US president, Donald Trump, with whom the prime minister is meeting on Thursday, has long called out Europeans for free-riding on America’s security guarantee. Credible promises of more British defence spending (including on American kit) may also deter Trump from introducing tariffs on UK imports.Building up the UK’s and Europe’s defence capabilities comes with a hefty price tag, and finding the money is tricky. The UK economy has weak growth prospects, and Labour has made a pledge not to increase taxes “on working people”. This leaves budget cuts in other areas as the only approach. The government seems to have decided that cutting foreign aid may be the least painful option for voters. Want more politics coverage from academic experts? Every week, we bring you informed analysis of developments in government and fact check the claims being made.Sign up for our weekly politics newsletter, delivered every Friday.Foreign aid has generally been seen as an area of government spending which has relatively weak groups of domestic supporters. Charities and companies that directly benefit from aid spending through government contracts are a smallish group, and many receive funding from several sources. Hostility to aid among the general public is relatively high. According to a 2024 survey by the British Foreign Policy Group, 46% of Britons surveyed thought that UK aid should not return to its previous high of 0.7% of gross national income (GNI), or should be cut even further below the 0.5% at the time of that survey. A frequent argument made by successive British governments is that aid, by targeting poverty and conflict, can address the root causes of migration. The public, however, is sceptical about aid’s ability to reduce irregular migration or make the UK safer. Read more: Why many policies to lower migration actually increase it Although Labour voters are more positive about aid’s benefits, it is unlikely that the government would see any major electoral harm from reductions to the aid budget.Where aid is really usedWhile cutting aid may be a smart move politically, it will have longer-term consequences for the UK’s global influence and its ability to achieve positive change in the world. Many charities were quick to point this out, arguing that it will hurt the lives of the poorest across the world.Aid is now set to shrink from 0.5% of GNI to 0.3%, which implies the UK will still have a substantial aid programme. On average, rich countries spent 0.37% of their GNI on aid in 2023 – not much more than what the UK will spend now. In practice, however, 23% of the British aid budget in 2023 was made up by Home Office spending on housing refugees in the UK. This is unlikely to decline quickly, even though the government has said it aims to reduce it. A further 34% consisted of contributions to multilateral organisations like the United Nations and World Bank. While there is scope to cut some of this, large savings are difficult without the UK leaving some organisations.Given these two fixed items, very little will remain for “genuine” development programmes in partner countries – the kind of funding that is actually visible as UK aid. Read more: The UK spent a third of its international aid budget on refugees in the UK – what it's paying for, and why it's a problem Such a small genuine aid programme will undoubtedly mean lower development impact and lower British influence. But the UK’s standing and soft power, particularly in poorer countries, was already in tatters well before Starmer’s announcement. The merger between the Foreign Office and Department for International Development in 2020, followed by budget cuts and the re-allocation of aid to the Home Office, has destroyed the UK’s reputation as an “aid superpower” and champion of the global poor. Across-the-board cuts have even devastated programmes which the UK has declared as priority areas, such as support for women and girls. Some would argue that after these cuts, the UK did not have much of a reputation left to lose. But this story of UK aid is not unique. Indeed, the world has entered a new era of aid fatigue. The populist right portrays aid as wasteful and ineffective, as shown by the Trump administration’s dismantling of the US Agency for International Development. Read more: USAID's freeze has thrust the entire global aid system into uncertainty Many Africans see aid as a neocolonial enterprise aimed at spreading western ideologies, a sentiment often echoed by the progressive left. Western countries themselves are increasingly open about their selfish reasons for providing aid, such as boosting business, while many non-western donors have emerged as alternatives.It is not a surprise that the west’s influence in the world has waned, as evidenced by its failure to build a global anti-Russia coalition following the invasion of Ukraine. The UK will need to adapt to these realities. Designing a smarter and highly targeted aid programme, perhaps from the ground up, is now more important than ever to rebuild Britain’s reputation.Balazs Szent-Ivanyi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.