In the letter, the U.S. government categorically rejected the entirety of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. This wasn’t simply a withdrawal, as from the climate commitments of the Paris Agreement; it was an unambiguous denunciation of the collective ambition to improve the material condition of humanity. American voters, the letter claimed, had delivered a clear mandate in the last election: Their government must put America first, caring first and foremost for its own.

The first week of March featured a moment of dark political comedy worthy of Veep creator Armando Iannucci. In a scene that felt scripted for satire, the United States became the sole nation in the U.N. General Assembly to vote against the establishment of both an International Day of Hope and an International Day of Peaceful Coexistence. More astonishing still was the formal letter read out by Washington to explain its position on the latter resolution.

The first week of March featured a moment of dark political comedy worthy of Veep creator Armando Iannucci. In a scene that felt scripted for satire, the United States became the sole nation in the U.N. General Assembly to vote against the establishment of both an International Day of Hope and an International Day of Peaceful Coexistence. More astonishing still was the formal letter read out by Washington to explain its position on the latter resolution.

In the letter, the U.S. government categorically rejected the entirety of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. This wasn’t simply a withdrawal, as from the climate commitments of the Paris Agreement; it was an unambiguous denunciation of the collective ambition to improve the material condition of humanity. American voters, the letter claimed, had delivered a clear mandate in the last election: Their government must put America first, caring first and foremost for its own.

Yet the justification did not stop at nationalism. It expanded into a broader geopolitical critique. The letter argued that the resolution’s language—specifically, its reference to “peaceful coexistence”—could be read as an endorsement of China’s Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Similarly, the United States objected to the resolution’s phrase “dialogue among civilizations,” interpreting it as a nod to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Global Civilization Initiative.

In effect, the U.S. position framed the resolution as a covert endorsement of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideology and sought to delegitimize the SDG framework by painting it as ideologically compromised. For good measure, the letter added sideswipes against “gender” and “climate ideology.”

While the rest of the world proceeded with the vote, the Trump administration’s intervention laid bare the fact that the apparent consensus around the SDGs—touted since 2015 as a universal blueprint for development—had collapsed.

This blunt-force critique is an embarrassment, and the U.S. cancellation of much-needed aid is a crime against commonsense humanitarianism. But indignation at the Make America Great Again (MAGA) crowd should not be allowed to smoke-screen a broader and more comprehensive failure.

FP Live: Economics columnist Adam Tooze argues in his cover essay for FP’s new print issue that development was always more about power than values. Is Trump’s hollowing out of the U.S. Agency for International Development merely a symptom of the changing world order? Can China fill the gap? How will changing aid goals shift soft power? FP’s Ravi Agrawal hosted a live discussion with Tooze. Watch now.

The broader vision of the SDGs was always a gamble at long odds, and in practice, it has delivered so little that it raises the question of whether it was ever anything more than a self-serving exercise on the part of global elites. For the sake of their own collective vanity, they needed to convince themselves and the world that they had a comprehensive and bold vision. But it’s something else to mobilize and sustain an effort to realize the SDGs.

And this, in turn, reflects a refusal to admit what development actually means or to anticipate how the status quo powers will react once it happens. With hindsight, the SDGs, for all their capaciousness and generosity of spirit, seem like an effort to craft a world organized around a spreadsheet of universal values rather than politics and around a happy blend of public and private economic interests.

This may promise a “better world.” But it is a world beyond conflict and politics, a last gasp of “end of history” thinking.