Trump Throws the Baby Out with the Bathwater in Shuttering USAID - Horowitz

Trump Throws the Baby Out with the Bathwater in Shuttering USAID - Horowitz

In its ignorant, ill-conceived, and illegal effort to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Aid (USAID), the Trump Administration has taken a wrecking ball to American soft power, put the health of millions of the world’s most vulnerable children at risk, and treated honorable public servants who have dedicated their lives to serving our nation in difficult and sometimes dangerous parts of the world with casual cruelty. The Trump Administration put their desire to create the illusion of a large-scale, immediate stamping out of waste and fraud ahead of the personal safety of Americans and their families.

 

Established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 with authority granted to him by the Foreign Assistance Act passed by Congress in that same year, USAID currently devotes more than half of its $40 billion annual budget to health initiatives that are effectively working to curb HIV/AIDs, malaria, tuberculosis, and other serious infectious diseases, as well as providing food grown by American farmers to combat famines that often result from national disasters or wars. USAID, for example, is one of the main drivers and funders of the widely admired President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) initiative.  Created by George W. Bush, PEPFAR “has been credited with saving more than 25 million lives largely in Africa,” reported AP.

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The case for the importance of our nation continuing to supply this kind of foreign aid made by President Kennedy to Congress in 1961 still rings true today: “The answer is that there is no escaping our obligations: our moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations--our economic obligations as the wealthiest people in a world of largely poor people, as a nation no longer dependent upon the loans from abroad that once helped us develop our own economy--and our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom.” declared JFK.

 

As JFK touched on, foreign aid helps expand American influence around the world and counters the expansionist designs of our adversaries. In our day and age, it serves as a bulwark against China and Russia’s determined efforts to expand their spheres of influence, winning hearts and minds for our nation and the democratic values that, at least up to very recently, we have represented. And it does so cost-effectively: USAID represents less than 1% of the federal budget. That is why the Trump Administration taking a sledgehammer to USAID is being celebrated in Beijing and Moscow.

 

None of this, of course, means that every dollar USAID spends is spent well, nor does it mean that the work of the agency can’t be done better. The original impetus for the establishment of USAID was for the United States to streamline and better coordinate various foreign aid programs, as well as better align them with our overall foreign policy objectives.  Conducting a serious review and then implementing with the necessary Congressional approvals efficiencies in how we distribute foreign aid, along with phasing out the funding of programs that are not aligned with our overall foreign policy strategy or the philosophy of the new administration, would have been a constructive way to proceed.

 

Instead, as Elon Musk so pungently put it, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the woodchipper.”  This included the reckless and likely illegal move to immediately cut the staff of USAID from 14,000 to 290 employees and contractors. One consequence of Musk and Trump’s haste to make a splash this way is that the remaining workforce was nowhere near sufficient to provide the oversight required to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, which is an integral component of the ceasefire President Trump played a central role in bringing about.

 

Even more disturbing, communications and support for Americans serving around the world were abruptly cut off in a demonstration of stunning indifference to these dedicated American patriots and their families’ personal safety.  US District Court Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, who on Friday temporarily halted the efforts to fire 2,200 USAID workers and reinstated 500 employees who had already been furloughed, noted that the abrupt administrative leaves implemented for U.S.A.I.D. staff and contractors abroad, “exposed the U.S. workers and their spouses and children to unwarranted risk and expense.”  As AP reported, “Nichols pointed to accounts from workers abroad that the Trump administration, in its rush to shut down the agency and its programs abroad, had cut some workers off from government emails and other communication systems they needed to reach the U.S. government in case of a health or safety emergency.”

 

“Give them bread and circuses,” famously said the Ancient Roman Poet Juvenal. On USAID, President Trump and Elon Musk have served up a full supply of its modern equivalent, sprinkled generously with misinformation, falsehoods, and the cherry-picking of examples.  What they haven’t delivered is a real examination of the agency’s strengths and weaknesses--one that would serve as a sound basis for an improved path forward. That requires recognizing what you don’t know—and caring about the actual impact of your actions on flesh and blood people.

 

The USAID debacle has already set back our nation’s foreign policy and put vulnerable people around the world as well as the Americans serving them at risk.  It is a case study of counter-productive, performative cruelty.   As Elon Musk continues to sweep through other parts of the federal government at Donald Trump’s behest, it should serve as a wake-up call, that it is time for the rest of us to fight back.