Silence in the hurricane

"Other than China's Cultural Revolution, history offers few parallels to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency's assault on the state", the Financial Times wrote. In the light of the power grab in the USA, we are at a loss not only for suitable comparisons, but at times also for words; let's have a try with pop culture: "I came in like a wrecking ball" (Miley Cyrus).

It is pointless trying to keep an overview of all that has fallen victim to the wrecking ball. Let us therefore select something that gets little coverage in Switzerland, although it could have major implications here at home: pausing enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the US anti-corruption law. It is only thanks to the application of that law that we know the meaning of cash in Baar, which is that up until 2016, there was a counter at the Glencore headquarters where staff members could collect bribes. And thanks to that enforcement, Glencore was fined USD1.1 billion after admitting guilt. In the absence of this menacing posture by the "new sheriff in town", there is great temptation to revert to tried and tested practices in commodity trading. This would have catastrophic ramifications for the poorest countries and their people.

Yesterday’s foreign policy and "business as usual"

To continue with the pop culture theme, what prevails in Switzerland is "The silence of the lambs" (Director Jonathan Demme). Of the seven lambs to be more precise. It took almost two months for anything to be heard from Berne: "The Federal Council takes the geopolitical situation seriously", followed immediately by: "Switzerland's foreign policy has not changed". According to media reports, the Federal Council had before it a discussion document that was believed to address the USA's withdrawal from the WHO, the UN Human Rights Council, and the Paris Climate Agreement; it is understood that it also covered the implications of the ending of USAID payments. Yet the official statement made no mention of this, with the Federal Council opting instead for "business as usual", and attempting the Swiss variant of "the art of the deal": "Switzerland's strategy must be to keep the doors open to the EU, the USA and China." (State Secretary Helene Budliger Artieda, Director of State Secretariat for Economic Affairs).

While the dismantling of the world's largest development agency constitutes a hurricane in the Global South, in Switzerland it is still just a gale. Where is the political outrage? Vitally important projects by Swiss development agencies worth CHF100 million can no longer be continued. Nothing will be the same as before: "If this is the beginning of the end of aid, we should focus on structural transformation", writes Heba Aly, the Canadian-Egyptian former CEO of the New Humanitarian online portal. "Fairer trade, debt and tax policies can address the drivers of inequality." That is now the crux of the matter. And for Switzerland this means anything but business as usual.