David Lammy has warned that Donald Trump’s cuts to foreign aid could see China fill the void in Africa.

The US president ordered a 90-day freeze on all foreign aid days after his inauguration and is planning to lay off almost all staff at the US Agency for International Development (USAid).

Mr Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, unfavourably compared Mr Trump’s plan to the decision by Boris Johnson to close down the Department for International Development (DfiD) in 2020.

DfiD, which was responsible for delivering foreign aid, was merged with the Foreign Office to create the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Speaking on a visit to Kyiv, Mr Lammy told The Guardian: “What I can say to American friends is it’s widely accepted that the decision by the UK with very little preparation to close down DfiD, to suspend funding in the short term or give many global partners little heads up, was a big strategic mistake.

“We have spent years unravelling that strategic mistake. Development remains a very important soft power tool. And in the absence of development… I would be very worried that China and others [would] step into that gap.

“We were hugely critical of the way that the last government handled the decision. So I would caution US friends to look closely at what went wrong in the United Kingdom as they navigate this decision.”

China has significantly expanded its presence in Africa in the past decade through its Belt and Road Initiative, a $1 trillion (£800 billion) programme aimed at boosting its influence.

Beijing has hailed the programme as a success but critics warn it is a debt trap for the 65 nations involved, while there have also been concerns about corruption.

USAid staff purge

The Trump administration has unveiled plans to lay off nearly all staff working for USAid.

Fewer than 300 workers of the current 8,000 direct hires and contractors worldwide would be left working for the agency as part of the new government’s efforts to dismantle it.

The 300, along with an unknown number of 5,000 locally hired international staffers abroad, would run the few life-saving programmes the administration says it intends to keep going for the time being.

It was not immediately clear whether the reduction to 300 would be permanent or temporary, potentially allowing more workers to return after what the Trump administration says is a review of which aid and development programmes it wants to resume.