The most striking aspect of President Donald Trump’s dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) isn’t that unsavory aid recipients have misused taxpayer dollars. It’s that anyone is shocked by the revelations of waste, fraud, and abuse. After all, watchdog groups have sounded the alarm for years about misuse of USAID funds.
People shouldn’t just be enraged by USAID’s wasteful spending. They should also focus on what that spending supported—particularly when it promoted terror or aligned with Hamas’s interests.
Rather than being used to provide humanitarian aid and stabilize conflict-ridden regions—in accordance with USAID’s stated goal—American funds have often been funneled into corrupt, Hamas-tied institutions, with minimal oversight. A new multiyear study of USAID by the Middle East Forum identified $164 million in grants to radical organizations, including $122 million to those “aligned with designated terrorists and their supporters.” The MEF also found that “millions of federal dollars have been handed by USAID to organizations directly in Gaza controlled by Hamas, with government officials even visiting Gaza terror proxies’ offices and launching joint programs.”
The money has kept flowing, as the U.S. has distributed $2.1 billion in Gaza since Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages on October 7, 2023. But the warning signs predate October 7. The USAID’s Inspector General—now raising the alarm about Trump’s shutdown of the agency—has consistently voiced concern over lax vetting mechanisms and inadvertent terror funding in the region.
Hellbound and Down 