Development Is Not a Privilege

By Mehmet Enes Beşer

With the “America First” rhetoric back on the world stage, an old unease has come back to global institutions. At its core, this slogan promotes a transactional, zero-sum approach to world affairs—one where one power’s national interest takes precedence over collective responsibility. For the majority of nations in the Global South, this vision is less an issue of ideology; it is a material danger. It risks reinstating a world order where development is not a right, but a privilege reserved for selectively conferring—or withholding—strategic allegiance.

The content of global justice is that all states, wherever they may stand in their history or their economy, stand on an equal footing in being entitled to pursue development, stability, and prosperity. This is a doctrine built into the United Nations Charter and echoed in hundreds of documents, and it is not an ideal—rather, it is constitutional. But in the shadow of economic nationalism and geopolitical containment, these rights are being increasingly usurped. Tariff wars, technology bans, secondary sanctions, and financial isolation are weapons of coercion rather than tools of order.

The “America First” policy, particularly by former President Donald Trump and likely to come back with a second term, prioritizes national economic revival and industrial supremacy over global partnership. Trade agreements are not considered mutual contracts but venues of leverage. Multilateral institutions are scoffed at as constraints, and friends are bullied into going uncritically along behind Washington’s changing agenda. Understandable as a domestic political maneuver, it is not one that leaves much room for equitable development around the world.

For the newly industrializing nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the consequences are severe. Access to markets, finance, and technology—already skewed—is further politicized. Non-aligned or independent foreign policies render countries vulnerable to economic sanctions. Even participation in multilateral arrangements is coming to be made more conditional on ideological homogeneity. The result is a fractured global order in which development is conditional, not universal.

But this course is not only unjust. But it’s something like unsustainable. In today’s interconnected world, beset by challenges like climate change, debt crises, and technological disruption, no country can protect itself from the spillover effect of this “inequitable system”. The pandemic has shown that global health is an integrated, undivided whole. And addressing climatic change will not be possible if any one country pulls out of the equation.. And digital economies, which are so often borderless in practice, are increasingly becoming more and more gated by geopolitical firewalls.

What is required is not a revival of hegemony, but a reaffirmation of justice. Justice in trade implies equitable terms, not tariffs as weapons. Justice in finance implies non-exclusionary access to credit and debt restructuring, not predatory speculation. Justice in technology implies global governance of innovation that avoids monopolies and encourages ethical diffusion. And justice in diplomacy implies genuine dialogue, not coercive alignment.

China and the majority of countries of the Global South have begun to define their global engagement with these values in mind. Whether through South–South cooperation, the shifting focus of the Belt and Road Initiative towards sustainability, or regional blocs like ASEAN and the African Union insisting on policy autonomy, the world is asserting that development cannot be made hostage to the strategic interests of one country.

None of this takes away from the United States’ vital position in global affairs. But leadership is not measured by domination—it is measured by the ability to build equitable systems. If Washington desires world respect, not ressentiment, it must embrace common development goals, not oppose them.

Conclusion

The world no longer operates in Cold War dualities, nor can it sustain an order where the rise of one nation depends on the decline of others. “America First” may win votes at home but forfeit international goodwill—and in doing so, the moral legitimacy of U.S. leadership globally.

Development is not a concession. It is a right. And in this complex, multipolar era, the only lasting order is one not founded on hegemony, but on justice. The question is no longer whether the rest of the world will be dominated by an American system. It is whether America is willing to join a truly inclusive one.