Status Quo No More: How the New Administration Can Prevent and Resolve Conflict

Centering peacebuilding and conflict prevention in U.S. foreign policy and assistance is not just the right thing for the incoming Trump Administration to do—it is the smart, strategically sound, and cost-effective thing to do. Every dollar invested in conflict prevention saves $16 that would otherwise be spent on expensive humanitarian or security responses. Peacebuilding’s inherent multisectoral, coordinated, and crosscutting approach results in more informed, evidence-based, and fit-for-purpose interventions that address the underlying drivers of violent conflict, violence, and insecurity. The previous Trump Administration made important strides by signing into law the Global Fragility Act (GFA) in 2019, along with other key laws that elevate conflict prevention and peacebuilding in U.S. foreign policy and assistance. By picking back up this mantle, the incoming Trump Administration has an opportunity to reduce and prevent violent conflict, violence, and fragility, stabilize rampant insecurity, and build sustainable peace at a time of record-breaking global conflict. However, to do so, the Trump Administration must ensure robust implementation of their laws and strategies, which requires changing the way the U.S. does business and prioritizing conflict prevention and peacebuilding. Such an approach can help the U.S. outmaneuver its geopolitical competitors, save American taxpayer money, and build a cadre of long-term allies and partners to advance U.S. interests and security globally. 

Widespread violent conflict and fragility represent one of the most complex, urgent challenges facing the new Trump Administration. Today, there are more active conflicts than during World War II. In 2025, an estimated 305 million people will need humanitarian assistance due to violent conflict, weather-related and environmental emergencies, and other crises. The peacebuilding community is navigating a dramatically evolving conflict landscape, with declines in social cohesion and trust, environmental degradation, and rapid technological evolution driving unrest. In 2023, violence cost the global economy $19.1 trillion, approximately 13.5 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP). Even when the U.S. is not directly involved in responding to a crisis or instability, these phenomena cost the U.S. money and administrative resources. Furthermore, global fragility and conflict benefit U.S. competitors, which seek to take advantage of instability to serve their political and economic interests.

The Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), a membership network of 225+ organizations working in 181 countries to build sustainable peace, developed the recommendations below to outline key actions the new Trump Administration can take to meet these challenges while simultaneously advancing U.S. national security and economic objectives. AfP identified both thematic and country/ regional priorities in close consultation with its members and key partners in the peacebuilding field. AfP’s priority recommendations should be considered non-exhaustive and were included herein based on a litany of criteria, including expertise, experience, and engagement of AfP and its members, issues or contexts the U.S. has historically played a role, and opportunities for positive U.S. impact or influence. Recognizing the myriad issues and contexts that could have been addressed, AfP encourages the new Trump Administration to center conflict and atrocity prevention across every sector, effort, and country within its foreign policy and assistance.

Specifically, AfP recommends that the new Trump Administration prioritize:

• Implementing peacebuilding and prevention-oriented laws, strategies and policies;

• Advancing locally-led prevention and development;

• Leveraging conflict prevention to advance U.S. interests in strategic geopolitical competition;

• Preventing and reducing global violent extremism;

• Advancing digital technologies to build peace and reduce and prevent instability and violence;

• Preventing, reducing, and mitigating environmental threats impacting conflict-affected and fragile states;

• Promoting democracy, human rights, and good governance in fragile states and backsliding democracies; and

• Enhancing support to the United Nations and other multilateral institutions to promote international cooperation and partnership on peace and security.