Tag: foreign aid

The Trump administration’s decision to decimate USAID, the foreign assistance agency, has sparked a fierce debate in Washington. While Republicans on the hill and in the media have largely directed their ire against the left-wing ideological character of USAID programs, most of their Democratic counterparts have defended the agency on humanitarian grounds. 

The White House, however, has offered the correct, most urgent view: USAID largely fails to advance American national interests, and Washington can no longer afford to spend taxpayer dollars on programs that don’t benefit Americans.

Reasonable people may disagree about the merits of particular USAID programs, but it’s clear that a large portion of funding goes to meddling in the internal affairs of other countries—presented as benign “governance” projects. In fiscal year 2023, $16.8 billion of the total $43.4 billion of USAID obligations were in this category, which has included such projects as bankrolling “independent media” in Ukraine and pouring tens of millions into elections in Georgia. Perhaps these efforts did some good, but the catastrophe that American meddling has helped produce in Ukraine, and the victory of a pro-Russian party in Georgia’s recent parliamentary elections, suggest that USAID can no longer reliably advance U.S. interests in Moscow’s sphere of influence.  

Of course, USAID has also funded genuine humanitarian projects that have saved lives, such as the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). But even commendable humanitarian projects may not be worth the burden they place on the American taxpayer, meaning partisan debate about them is legitimate and indeed necessary. So long as people in North Carolina and Los Angeles are suffering from recent environmental tragedies, sending their hard-earned money to foreign lands does not sit right with many Americans.

Lost in the domestic hysteria of the moment is a more frank consideration of the sustainability of U.S. primacy in a changing global landscape. Washington doesn’t use USAID just to save lives, but also to expand and sustain American power globally. But if the “unipolar moment” is over and the world is now bipolar or multipolar, American cultural influence—sometimes called “soft power”—deserves reconsideration no less than the hard stuff.

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The largest foreign aid agency on earth has, courts willing, abruptly closed its doors in the past week and sent most of its staff home. Finding their virtue has no place to strut its worth, the response of many has been indignation and assurances of retaliation. Many of them had been working from home for years, but now must rouse themselves to show such indignation for being sent (i.e. remaining) home on full pay. Like being told to continue as normal, perhaps, but in a way that exposes uncomfortable realities to those in the community who are actually paying them.

Such cynicism is not the greatest of human traits, and when applied to an entire organization it is unfairly generalizing, but it also has its place. The new government elected by the people of the United States was, specifically, elected to dig into the accounts of large government bureaucracies and address a perception of profligate use of taxpayers’ money. Taxpayers who, mostly, get paid far less than the bureaucrats they are funding. Perhaps unusually, the elected government rapidly set about keeping some of its promises, co-opting a prominent private person (as they had also promised) as an agent to help drive the inquiries. Much of the current surprise, perhaps, arises from an elected President keeping some promises. Annoying as this can be, it is also how democracy is supposed to work.

Much is being made of evidence that USAID had been pushing ideology over need, such as stoking coups in democratic nations or supporting children’s programs that encourage ‘non-traditional beliefs on gender in conservative cultures. Concern is also correctly levelled over apparently reckless funding of bio labs in poorly controlled environments. People will argue on whether such cultural colonialism and risk enhancement are in US taxpayers’ interests (it depends on how you perceive humanity). 

However, it is also important to reflect on how USAID addressed its supposed core function of supporting development and healthcare for the benefit of those in less fortunate countries. This can be considered in America’s interests because a more stable and prosperous world is good for trade, and/or because Americans are humans and there is a moral imperative to care for those less fortunate. Though some have contrary or isolationist views on this, Americans as a nation are generous givers, and this is roughly why most thought USAID was supposed to exist.

For the past 5 years, the staff of USAID has, as a team, supported policies that they knew would impoverish over a hundred million people, push up to 10 million more girls into child marriage, and drive up child deaths from malaria and malnutrition. 

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