Don’t lament the death of USAID 

In one of the most unexpected moves of President Donald Trump’s new term, his administration and Elon Musk’s Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE) have gone after the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), targeting it as part of their plan to shrink the federal government. USAID, according to their now shut-down website, “is the United States’ government agency that leads international development and humanitarian assistance efforts to partner countries.” Musk and Trump want to shut down the agency for its alleged “waste and abuse,” costing the government too much money on foreign aid furthering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) projects and other radical, Marxist ideas. Meanwhile, Democrats have come out in arms against this, defending USAID as a great tool for helping the masses worldwide in their struggles. What is lost in this conversation right now is any amount of truth over what USAID does, and the reality is that none of it is good. Although Musk and DOGE have their own disingenuous reasons why they’re taking action, ultimately the end of USAID is an end to one of the most sinister political tools of American imperialism.  

To give some more context, USAID was first created in 1961 as a method of countering the Soviet Union during the cold war, following up on the legacy of the Marshall Plan. It is a shining example of what is known as “soft power,” which means methods of control or influence which don’t involve guns or economic sanctions. Former USAID staffer and current U.S. Senator Andy Kim put it very clearly in a recent tweet where he said, “It’s a foreign policy tool with bipartisan origins that is critical in this dangerous global environment.” So, it’s important to not misunderstand USAID as a charitable organization with selfless intentions. This is plain business through and through. When the US has an economic, militaristic or political goal in an area and needs help carrying it through, that’s where this organization goes to work laying out the red carpet. 

In practice, this involves the subtle coercion and destabilization of countries around the world. For example, in 2010, USAID was exposed as having funded a project to create a new social media site in Cuba with the hopes of toppling the government there, according to the Associated Press. It went on to admit to this shady tactic after it had failed, defending it as a necessary measure. Just three years later the same office within USAID that carried out this plan was also found to have directly funded opposition groups in Venezuela as part of a larger strategy to undermine and eventually overthrow President Hugo Chavez. These are drastic examples, but not at all a misrepresentation of the full extent of this organization’s history. In fact, it only lends more credence to countries such as Mexico, Bolivia and Kenya, whose leaders have called out the organization, or altogether banned it from within their borders, for allegedly attempting to disrupt their domestic politics. Overall, this seems more like activity from the CIA, FBI or some other espionage agency, but instead they come from a group which puts forward a public image of being benevolent and generous. This is plainly and grossly misleading, and all the more dangerous because of that. 

As a journalist, it’s also impossible to talk about this subject without mentioning the use and control of media in USAID’s political machinations. In the weeks since the organization’s doors were shuttered, media organizations all across the globe have fallen into chaos because they just lost one of their biggest donors. Since about 1980s, USAID has been heavily funding news places across the world, and in the most recent year they have direct cash flow into 30 countries. However, they have also become the primary backer, to the tune of almost $500 million since 2008, to Internews, the world’s foremost NGO in the area. It’s also worth noting that the current CEO of Internews literally worked for USAID for five years. So, directly and indirectly they are holding up journalistic organizations across the globe. Yet, it’s really the scale which is the scary part. In Ukraine, for example, 90% of the media organizations across the entire country survive almost entirely due to grants from Internews, with some having 80% of their yearly funding coming from the organization. According to one independent journalist in Ukraine, Tanya Lukyanova, this has led to radio silence on stories which the US government would prefer not to be published. Now, this is not just an issue in Ukraine, but a worldwide problem that is not being addressed. All these efforts are claimed to be in the name of raising up “independent journalism,” but it’s incredibly hard to see how companies who cannot survive without US would be unbiased in reporting on information relevant to international politics. If any other country had this much influence, the American government would promptly deem them state-media and ignore their reporting as propaganda. The disingenuous double standard is apparent and, again, dangerous. 

Now, it’s important to also address the actual aid that USAID does put out, because it’s not as though all their money just goes to covert operations. Yet, it’s in this area that, unsurprisingly, USAID is quite bad at its job. As of a 2019 self-evaluation, they found over 40% of their projects achieved only half of expectations. This organization is so poorly run that even over half of the reports on project impacts weren’t of enough quality to be able to base conclusions off of, further preventing them from improving the benefit of their money. It’d be easy if this was an accident, but evidence suggests otherwise. Simply, aid is not meant to last or impact. The money poured into countries only ends up in the hands of local people and organizations about 6% of the time, instead overwhelmingly going to American contractors and groups that get brought in to do the work. This creates the effect of a simple drug addiction, wherein the impact only lasts so long as USAID allows it to and causes drastic withdrawals the moment grants are taken away from a place. Locals are not empowered to make changes in their own community, but instead at the whim of foreigners. This is further supported by a Harvard study from 2006 looking at the correlation of aid given and United Nations Security Council seating from 1946-2001. In this study the amount of aid was overwhelming and closely tied to the time in which a target country spent on the UN security council and dropped off once they lost their spot. Thus, leading to the conclusion that the aid was meant to coerce these countries into obedience when they incidentally had power that the US wanted to control.  

The point is that while politicians on a national scale are debating and playing with the future of this organization, ultimately neither can exactly be trusted with what they say. USAID is not a Marxist group seeking to implant DEI across the globe as some would say, but it is also not the kind benefactor of the impoverished and needy as others would put it. The reasons that Musk and Trump have to shut down this organization ought to be investigated, and surely are part of a dangerous game themselves, but it’s not right to blindly defend this organization which has caused so much harm across the globe for 80 years.