I remember first hearing about USAID – the United States Agency for International Development – back in the 1960s. But I have no recollection of the context or the specific topic. Now that the Trump administration has focused on the agency and its excesses, I wondered what I’d written about it here over the years.
The answer is: very little. Now, of course, it’s very much in the news. Here’s some of the general history, from Wiki. It was established during the Kennedy administration:
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the United States government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $50 billion, USAID is one of the largest official aid agencies in the world and accounts for more than half of all U.S. foreign assistance – the highest in the world in absolute dollar terms. USAID has missions in over 100 countries, primarily in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.
Big. But nevertheless, only a small percentage of the US budget. This AP article – which, surprisingly, doesn’t seem especially biased to me – explains some of the background to the current fight, and indicates what I recall, which is that the amount and nature of the US’s foreign aid has long been criticized:
In the decades since [the USAID’s founding in 1961], Republicans and Democrats have fought over the agency and its funding. …
Today, supporters of USAID argue that U.S. assistance in countries counters Russian and Chinese influence. …
Critics say the programs are wasteful and promote a liberal agenda.
On his first day in office Jan. 20, Trump implemented a 90-day freeze on foreign assistance. Four days later, Peter Marocco — a returning political appointee from Trump’s first term — drafted a tougher than expected interpretation of that order, a move that shut down thousands of programs around the world and forced furloughs and layoffs.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has since moved to keep more kinds of strictly life-saving emergency programs going during the freeze. …
It’s part of a Trump administration crackdown that’s hitting across the federal government and its programs. But USAID and foreign aid are among those hit the hardest.
Rubio said the administration’s aim was a program-by-program review of which projects make “America safer, stronger or more prosperous.”
The decision to shut down U.S.-funded programs during the 90-day review meant the U.S. was “getting a lot more cooperation” from recipients of humanitarian, development and security assistance, Rubio said. …
Republicans typically push to give the State Department — which provides overall foreign policy guidance to USAID — more control of its policy and funds. Democrats typically promote USAID autonomy and authority. …
Musk alleges USAID funding been used to launch deadly programs and called it a “criminal organization.” …
Foreign assistance overall amounts to less than 1% of the U.S. budget.
“Less than 1% of the US budget” is still a ton of money. And the issue is not just saving money, but whether the money is being used for good or for ill. Some of the revelations don’t involve all that much money compared to the entire US budget, but are nevertheless shocking. Condoms for the Taliban? Transgender operas in Colombia? See this for some of the causes USAID has funded.
Here’s some of what Rubio has said:
RUBIO: … [M]y frustration with USAID goes back to my time in Congress. It’s a completely unresponsive agency. It’s supposed to respond to policy directives of the State Department, and it refuses to do so.
The functions of USAID, there are a lot of functions of USAID that are going to continue that are going to be part of American foreign policy, but it has to be aligned with American foreign policy. I said very clearly during my confirmation hearing that every dollar we spend and every program we fund that will be aligned with the national interest of the United States. And USAID has a history of sort of ignoring that and deciding that there’s somehow a global charity separate from the national interest. These are taxpayer dollars. …
… And we owe the American people the assurances that every dollar we are spending abroad is being spent on something that furthers our national interest.
And so far, a lot of the people that work at USAID have just simply refused to cooperate.
Ace has written two lengthy and hard-hitting posts on the subject of USAID and what’s going on at this point: see this as well as this. It’s obviously a huge topic, and I assume I’ll revisit it as time goes on. But it’s become more and more obvious that the agency functions as an employer for an enormous number of leftists in leftist causes.
And here’s an interesting article I discovered in my researching the topic. It’s about aid through USAID to Haiti which, according to the author (who wrote a book on the subject last year), has “circumvented the democratic process, ended sovereignty, undermined local businesses and government, and served more as a benefit to US special interest groups than to the local population.” I’m going to assume that’s often the case all around the world.
Those “special interest groups” are now extremely upset. I assume we’ll be learning more as time goes on.