Bangladesh, Sept. 23 -- When US President Donald Trump announced the sweeping dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) earlier this year, few imagined that one of the casualties would be an animated Ukrainian dog. Yet the abrupt cancellation of Patron the Dog, a childrens cartoon designed to educate youngsters about the dangers of land mines, has become an emblem of how Washingtons reorientation of aid priorities is reverberating in unexpected ways.

The series, which premiered on YouTube, featured a cheerful Jack Russell Terrier named Patron – Ukrainian for “bullet cartridge.” Based on a real-life bomb-sniffing dog from Ukraines State Emergency Service, Patron had become something of a national...