Though many claim otherwise, last week’s televised and unprecedented Oval Office clash did not signal a new insistence on transaction politics or recognition of American greatness.  Instead, President Trump’s performance (and VP Vance’s, if not the broader US government’s) shocked by laying bare a demand for politics as transaction and genuflection.  Gone was the facade of values, ideals and wink-wink partnerships.

Minerals for protection – humanitarians have seen this before. Nonetheless, as the US government pops one normative bubble after another, this disruption creates both urgency and opportunity to explore humanitarian action from different perspectives. Humanitarians should take note. Here are three areas to focus on.

A call for principles?

My first instinct – almost a genetic predisposition – is to launch an impassioned call for a renewed commitment to values and principles, distinguishing our humanitarian character from the base self-interest of material gain. However, the call for principles can veer into self-serving supremacy (even if I remain convinced that humanitarians should prioritize implementing the principles, values and ethics they have enshrined).

Too often, humanitarians wield the principles as tools of transactional self-interest. They have used neutrality and independence to stall localization or have invoked neutrality as a talk-to-the-hand insistence upon silence on Gaza. This crude instrumentalization not only undermines a genuine embrace of the principles but also invokes counterarguments for the blockage to be removed altogether. Many humanitarians now argue that neutrality should be cast out. This dynamic creates an uneasy politics of strange bedfellows, where humanitarians angrily critique Western states for abandoning their own principles (e.g., IHL prohibiting the deliberate slaughter of civilians) while simultaneously deciding that they, too, possess the power to dismiss principles when they constrain ‘right-thinking’ ambitions.  

Is there room for a middle ground? A liminal space to be carved out from current practice? One that transcends supremacy, othering and finger-pointing? One that resists both righteous indignation and corporate algorithmic amplification of our extremities? The former Red Cross official Alisdair Gordon-Gibson outlines just such a place to begin exploring those questions.

Framing is reality (How Zelensky missed his chance to play ball)

In arguing for Ukraine’s survival, President Zelensky mistaken believed the transaction at hand involved Ukraine’s minerals for future U.S. commitments. But as a natural Repo Man, Trump was not looking to establish a quid pro quo, he was calling in a debt, and the goon squad came to play.  In his view, Ukraine already owed the minerals to the US for past services rendered.  Zelensky should have expressed gratitude and, in keeping to the rules of the game, demanded the U.S. thank him and the Ukrainian people.  In Trump’s house, transaction must be met with transaction; charges of ungratefulness should be countered with the same.

Zelensky could have taken cues from our sector. InterAction reminded us how the U.S. government’s foreign aid spending is transactional, a downpayment on advancing U.S. policies and interests overseas.[1]  Put bluntly, Trump was reneging on an established bargain. This is not about defending freedom or American values – secondary commodities to President Trump. Instead, Zelensky should have used the Oval Office to remind the U.S. government that Ukrainians have done more to weaken archrival Red Skull than the USA’s Captain America has managed in decades.

Ukraine’s sacrifices – spilled blood and treasure (along with significant contributions from its allies) – have served the West by (i) depleting the Russian army , forcing it to rely on convicts and North Koreans mercenaries, draining Russia’s treasure and tarnishing Putin’s strongman image, and (ii) weakening Russia’s global capabilities and influence, as seen in Syria, where its ally collapsed, costing Russia its strategically vital important Mediterranean base. Put a number on it. How much should Americans pay for services rendered?  Of course, beyond the thought exercise, the question of brute power imbalance remains, as today’s news makes clear.

Reframing beyond the usual borders?

As a sector we have dragged our countless feet on reform. As for transformation, asking the sector to lead foundational change is like asking the clergy to dismantle a religion. Nonetheless, some have advocated for tearing it all down, clearing the forest (though not overnight) so that humanitarianism can be replanted. The rapid collapse of Western institutional funding, spearheaded by the demise of USAID, has expanded discussions of reimagining humanitarian action beyond the usual reimaginers. Are we in a pivotal moment – what consultants like to call an inflection point?

How and what are we going to think and do differently?  What might this reframing look like?  

Some of these discussions have been ongoing – calls to head back to basics, rethink our relationship with the climate and environment (e.g., Humanitarianism 2.0), embrace mutual aid, or let go of power. Yet, these conversations produced small-scale change (just enough to release pressure without shifting the status quo?) or never move beyond the conference panels.  What about a new lens: transaction?

Does the concept of transaction offer useful scaffolding for rethinking humanitarian action in significant ways?  Some might argue that the transactional nature of foreign aid, even if masked, has always been ‘hiding’ in plain sight – a jobs program to assuage guilt, project soft power and maintain the status quo. However, transaction could offer a fertile perspective, surfacing how aid is rooted not in charity but in mutual self-interest. As I’ve written before, humanitarian aid delivers to me, and much more than a job.

We need to talk about this from an ethical perspective: the role played by humanitarian action as the personal champion of my self-image. […]  Among other traits, this is my self-curated individuality and selflessness – my ‘sacrificing’ a more common career that would have brought far greater financial reward.  But how can it be selfless if it goes so far to defining my self?

Looking at mutual self-interest at the sectoral level, British thinker Randolph Kent has argued crisis response will increasingly require a diverse array of actors, from humanitarians and the private sector to the military, social network systems, and numerous governmental and intergovernmental bodies. This paradigm shift demands a move away from weak and narrow hierarchical coordination toward an understanding of how “interdependence and mutual self-interest” may lead to more effective collaboration.

---

[1] As others have noted, given the purpose and principles of humanitarian action, InterAction’s argument produced an own goal.  Hence my shameless milking of it two blogs in a row.