President Donald Trump’s war with Iran is producing one of the fastest-moving global supply shocks in recent memory. The consequences are already reverberating around the world, from farms in South Africa to factories across Asia to gas stations in the United States and beyond. Sadly, Trump’s withdrawal of both U.S. leadership and investments from multinational institutions will hamper the response to these transnational crises, with devastating and long-lasting impacts worldwide. It doesn’t need to be this way. The Trump administration can—and should—end its illegal war with Iran. The longer the war goes on, the worse the damage for our economy, for partners and allies around the world, and for millions who will be pushed into acute hunger as a result of the administration’s actions.
The Strait of Hormuz has long been viewed as the world’s most critical energy corridor, but its role as a lifeline for food production is equally consequential. Beyond oil, the strait carries roughly 20 to 30 percent of global fertilizer exports, including ammonia, urea, and other inputs essential for agricultural production. Because nearly half of global food production depends on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, sustained disruption threatens food supply and could drive up grocery costs for consumers around the world.
Since the war began, shipping through the strait has been reduced to a mere “trickle,” according to The New York Times. Strikes on commercial vessels and the threat of sea mines have made maritime insurance prohibitively expensive, forcing rerouting and delays. The World Food Program (WFP) described the resulting disruption as the most significant supply chain shock since COVID-19, with shipping costs rising by up to 20 percent and delays of 10 or more days becoming routine.
This crisis is unfolding against an already fragile backdrop. Meteorologists warn that a powerful El Niño event could emerge later this year, bringing drought and crop failures across key agricultural regions. The convergence of climate shocks, fertilizer shortages, and energy price spikes risks tipping an already strained global food system into a full-scale crisis.
Stoking acute global hunger
Even before the war began, global hunger was at alarming levels. More than 670 million people—about 8 percent of the world’s population—were experiencing hunger, with famine conditions concentrated in crisis hot spots such as Sudan, South Sudan, Gaza, and Yemen. Since 2020, the number of people experiencing catastrophic food insecurity has increased by 65 percent, driven by overlapping pressures from climate shocks, economic instability, and the lingering effects of COVID-19. The war’s disruption threatens to dramatically worsen those figures. The WFP warns that if the conflict persists through June and oil prices remain high, an additional 45 million people will be pushed into acute hunger—bringing the global total to a record 363 million people.
The WFP warns that if the conflict persists through June and oil prices remain high, an additional 45 million people will be pushed into acute hunger—bringing the global total to a record 363 million people.
While American consumers are already feeling the burden of rising prices, the most severe impacts will fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable. Countries heavily dependent on imported goods are especially exposed to supply shocks and price volatility. Across sub-Saharan Africa and India, farmers entering planting season face the prospect of reduced or unavailable fertilizer, threatening crop yields and increasing the likelihood of prolonged food shortages. David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee, called this disruption a “food security timebomb.”
A compounding global health crisis
The same supply chain disruptions strangling food systems are now threatening medical supply chains, driving up the cost of lifesaving humanitarian operations and putting millions at risk. Within two weeks of the start of the war, more than 50 emergency supply requests to the World Health Organization (WHO), affecting 1.5 million people across 25 countries, had already been disrupted as airspace restrictions blocked the WHO’s global logistics hub in Dubai. The WFP is facing emergency surcharges of $2,000 to $4,000 per container as vessels are rerouted thousands of kilometers around Africa. And UNICEF vaccine shipments are being delayed by more than 10 days—which, in fragile health systems, can mean the difference between containment and outbreak.
The Gulf region also serves as a critical transit hub for pharmaceuticals, meaning its disruption sends shocks well beyond the conflict zone. Humanitarian centers across the Middle East, Asia, and Africa fear they will run out of basic medications—with particular urgency around expiring malnutrition treatments with limited shelf lives. Sudan, entirely dependent on imported medication, could see more than 90 primary health care facilities left without essential supplies. Even South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare urged medical providers to refrain from stockpiling syringes and IV bags, while the United Kingdom could face drug shortages within weeks.
This is precisely the kind of global health emergency that demands coordinated international action, yet it is unfolding at a moment when the resources and institutions required for such a response have been deliberately weakened.
The erosion of the global humanitarian architecture and the costs of retreat
What makes this moment especially dangerous is that the war is not only generating humanitarian shocks but also actively degrading the capacity of nations to address their economic and security needs. Before the conflict began, countries were already navigating a severe global debt crisis, with dozens of low- and middle-income countries carrying unsustainable debt burdens that left little room to absorb external shocks. The war is now compounding that fragility. Middle East economic growth is projected to slow from around 4 percent to just 1.8 percent this year, directly attributed to the disruptions in infrastructure and key energy supply routes. More than 32 million people are now at risk of slipping into poverty, and the International Monetary Fund warns that any further escalation could trigger a global recession.
Countries that might otherwise have invested in food security, public health, or social protection are instead contending with currency depreciation and shrinking fiscal space—a vicious feedback loop that can stoke greater state fragility and conflict. And yet, at precisely the moment when the aid and prevention architecture is needed most, it is being systematically dismantled.
Over the past year, the Trump administration has shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), terminating 83 percent of programs in an agency that’s estimated to have saved between 2.3 and 5.6 million lives per year over the prior two decades. The administration also ended funding for WFP emergency programs, ordered a near-total freeze on foreign assistance, and is planning to gut the Food for Peace program—the largest U.S. overseas food assistance program to combat global hunger. Meanwhile, resources that could mitigate humanitarian crises are sitting idle—or, as Semafor recently reported, being siphoned away to fund Trump’s pet projects. Congress already appropriated $5.5 billion in humanitarian assistance for fiscal year 2026, yet those funds sit unspent in the State Department as the emergency escalates.
Official development assistance from donor countries fell by 23 percent between 2024 and 2025, with the United States alone responsible for three-quarters of that decline.
The U.S. retreat has not happened in isolation. New Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data confirm the scale of the retreat: Official development assistance (ODA) from donor countries fell by 23 percent between 2024 and 2025, with the United States alone responsible for three-quarters of that decline. Other major donor countries are following suit. In Europe, some of those cuts now reflect a more explicit political tradeoff: Governments are shifting scarce fiscal resources from aid to rearmament.
In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the increase in defense spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2027 would be financed in part by cutting ODA from 0.5 percent to 0.3 percent of gross national income (GNI)—a stark sign that humanitarian and development budgets are being squeezed by the new security environment. Germany, the world’s second-largest aid donor, slashed more than 70 percent of its humanitarian budget since 2022. Twenty-six of the 38 OECD members shrank their aid budgets in 2025, with all five of the world’s largest donors simultaneously pulling back for the first time in history.
The result is not just a funding deficit but a coordination failure. Multinational responses are slower, less predictable, and less capable of scaling to meet rapidly evolving crises. Compared to the early, robust mobilization seen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the aid response to Iran has already been slower, reflecting both diminished capacity and an impetus to prioritize security over aid.
See also
National security must include human security
The Trump administration’s cuts to humanitarian aid, food assistance, and global health come at a time when its war in Iran is fueling the very crises that this assistance is meant to mitigate. Meanwhile, the administration is seeking massive increases in the Pentagon budget, requesting $1.5 trillion—the largest increase in history outside of funding for ground wars. This shift reflects a disproportionate movement of resources toward defense and responding to conflict and crisis after they start, rather than investing in durable solutions to prevent insecurity, or “preventive defense.” The Trump administration’s approach is costly, both from a moral and economic perspective: Reductions in lifesaving assistance mean more people will die around the world, and the American taxpayer will pay far more on military spending in the future, as hunger and health crises lead to new potential conflicts, than on cost-effective foreign assistance today.
While a comprehensive national security strategy undoubtedly requires a strong and capable defense, a key component of that strength is proactive prevention. Spending on health systems, including in local vaccine production, disease surveillance capacity, diagnostics, and early warning systems can reduce long-term risk factors that drive insecurity and conflict spillovers. It is a form of preventive defense, as it reduces the probability and cost of future crises. Better yet, these investments create virtuous cycles, where citizens are not only able to live healthier, safer, lives but are also able to participate in their economies, generate economic growth, and contribute to their societies. Indeed, some assistance programs are even estimated to represent tenfold returns on investment.
The global hunger and health emergency unfolding right now around the world is the direct, foreseeable consequence of a war of choice waged without a plan for the humanitarian fallout. Its effects will be measured not only in higher prices but in deepening food insecurity, preventable disease, and avoidable civilian harm on a global scale. These crises represent a dire moral and economic cost—and risk a less stable, less secure world for years to come.
Conclusion
The path forward demands urgent, collective action. First, the Trump administration must end this needless, illegal war—and with it, the deliberate dismantling of the multilateral aid architecture that has made both the United States and the world less safe and secure. Second, global partners must reverse the dangerous trend of global aid cuts and recommit to multilateral cooperation as the foundation of a stable international order.