Can the United States Ever Become a World Leader for Children Again?
…and were we ever one to begin with?
Disclaimer: this piece is very in this essay I will… in style. These are my opinions and are likely imperfect, but take a walk with me.
The United States is struggling with our image as a global leader. With a self-proclaimed nationalist in the Whitehouse (again), with tariffs about to be implemented against our allies, and with last week's public display of Russian propaganda in the Oval Office… that image has never faltered more, at least not in my lifetime.
Addressing all those issues in one sitting would require me to write a novel, but I want to focus on U.S. leadership on the world stage when it comes to kids — in particular how we are failing them.
First, we have to keep talking about Ukraine. Just last week UNICEF released a report showing a 57% rise in child casualties of war from 2023 to 2024, with an average of 16 being murdered by Russian forces every week. In addition to this, 5.1 million Ukrainian children have been displaced from their homes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a father of two, often speaks of his nation’s children and pleads “we must live for the children”. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump and Veep JD Vance are siding with Vladimir Putin, globally recognized bad guy and the man who decided to invade a sovereign European nation out of his own thirst for power. It’s disgusting, it’s un-American, and it is all at the expense of millions of Ukrainian kids who are either living in fear, are homeless, are injured, or have died.
And then there is the unfathomable violence against children in Palestine. I understand this will get me in trouble with some partisan people, but I am an advocate for children, not a politician.
The deaths of children in Gaza inflicted by Israeli strikes, often with weapons from the United States, have been devastating. As of January 2025, an estimated 13,000 Palestinian children have died, more than 25,000 have been hospitalized for injuries, and another 25,000 have been hospitalized for malnutrition.
While I personally feel there were many, many valid criticisms about how Joe Biden handled the conflict and did not put enough pressure on Israel (again, breathe, I’m speaking from the point of view of a child advocate who believes the goal of a global leader for children should be to minimize the suffering of all kids), Trump’s Gaza Riviera madness simply cannot be compared. You can argue that Biden could have done more, but damn you’d have to be off your rocker to claim he was anything like Trump.
Advocating for the obliteration of Gaza, home to 1.1 million children, is diabolical… and the world is disgusted.
And siding with aggressors isn’t the only way Trump’s administration is abandoning kids. The list is honestly exhausting. Look at USAID. Although SCOTUS has temporarily protected USAID disbursement, Trump is attempting to block over four billion dollars in aid directed to children across the world. This is money that supplies lifesaving healthcare, education, and food — basic necessities and aid that have been a cornerstone of American diplomacy and good will for decades.
Finally, and most staggering, Trump’s complete abandonment of children right here in the United States. How can we possibly pretend to lead the free world when we aren’t even investing in our own future? Seriously, Donald Trump is not pro-child. He and his administration are actually taking explicit actions aimed at making kids sicker and poorer.
Decreasing national immunization rates won’t make any child healthier. We were once world leaders in stopping preventable diseases. While the British made the first smallpox vaccines, it was American microbiologist Benjamin Rubin who was able to make an effective and affordable commercial vaccine that was used by the World Health Organization (WHO) to eradicate the disease — and yes, this is the same WHO Trump bragged about abandoning in his Tuesday night speech. Smallpox was eradicated due to American innovation, banishing one of the most deadly diseases ever known to mankind to history books.
American scientists also created the first injectable and oral polio vaccines (Drs. Salk and Sabin, respectively). Without giving you an entire comprehensive history lesson, American scientists also created the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine, the Haemophilus influenzae vaccine, the pneumococcal vaccine, the meningitis vaccines, the HPV vaccine, and more. American innovation in science has rid the world of so much preventable disease, and the Trump administration risks undoing all of that.
Dismantling evidence-based efforts to prevent school violence won’t make students any safer. The United States is a world leader in school shootings. Undisputed. We are the only nation on earth to average more than one school shooting per year… and in 2024 we had eighty-three. Those statistics should seem absurd, because they are! And in the midst of all this, Trump has dismantled the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, and he abolished the first ever School Safety Board aimed at stopping school violence nationwide.
Leaving the Paris Climate Accord and ignoring the climate crisis does not secure our children’s future. The only nations on Earth that are not in the Paris Climate Agreement are Iran, Libya, Yemen… and the United States. While the climate crisis has been accepted as fact across the world, Trump and his cronies are ready to “drill baby drill” and make every penny they can off of our green Earth while they spoil it for future generations.
Raising taxes on the middle and lower classes does not help kids reach their full potential. So much for the price of eggs and gasoline. Instead it’s tariff-palooza, mainly targeting America’s closest friends in Canada & Mexico. Trump says this is a result of past trade deals that were unfair to America, which is weird because Trump himself signed those deals in his first term. Now with tariffs taking effect this week, economists estimate the average family will spend $2,000 more per year on groceries. At the same time, the Trump-backed GOP budget that slashed taxes for billionaires raises taxes on any family earning less than $360,000 per year… aka the majority of American families.
Defunding the largest insurer of children’s health care does not help a single child afford healthcare.
American politicians love to talk about children, but only in the most vague ways. The Harris/Walz campaign was so exciting for me as a pediatrician because their platform had tangible ways to make kids’ lives better. But that was seemingly new, and the country largely ignored it. For now, those days of hope are gone, and it’s time to fight like hell to protect what we can.
Our kids can’t wait a moment longer.