Having returned to the President’s chair on January 20 and signing a spree of executive orders since, Donald Trump, along with billionaire friend and advisor Elon Musk, moved to freeze all foreign funding for 90 days. The ramifications of this stop-work order were far-reaching, affecting countries as diverse as Syria, Thailand, Ukraine, and South Africa, where the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the country’s premier humanitarian aid agency, was actively involved.
Not stopping at that, the U.S. President, along with Mr. Musk, who heads the newly formed Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE), has sought to tighten the choke-hold by trimming the USAID’s 10,000-strong workforce to a mere 294 — a move temporarily put on hold by a court on Friday.
In between, senior officials at the USAID were placed on leave following a run-in with Mr. Musk’s DOGE — an organisation whose ambit of power remains sketchy — after it sought access to sensitive information. The USAID’s website went dark, and its Washington office was locked, leaving employees to protest outside.
The original plan of the Trump-Musk duo for the USAID involves shutting it down, a position previously stated by the Tesla founder. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You have got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair,” Mr. Musk was quoted as saying.
The next best outcome would be the absorption of the USAID into the U.S. State Department — a move driven by Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s takeover of the agency’s Acting Director role after accusing it of ‘insubordination’.
Allegations galore
To justify their actions, the trio has said the USAID’s functioning did not align with the President’s ‘America First’ policy.
A statement put out by the White House has criticised the agency’s $1.5 million grant to an LGBTQ group in Serbia and $2.5 million assistance to an electric vehicle manufacturer in Vietnam.
Separately, Mr. Trump has levelled allegations of corruption against the USAID. He also accused the USAID of shipping $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza where they were being repurposed as bombs. A Guardian fact-check report found that the U.S. did not ship contraceptives anywhere in West Asia except for Jordan.
However, the fact of the matter is that the U.S. remains the largest contributor of the foreign aid, despite that amount not being the highest in terms of the fraction of a country’s annual budget (0.6% of $6.75 trillion). The USAID is the primary source of that assistance. Of the $68 billion spent by the country on international aid in 2023, the USAID accounted for $40 billion.
The agency has operations in 130 countries. It takes care of the education of schoolgirls in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan while monitoring the Ebola outbreak in Uganda. It is also responsible for PEPFAR, an HIV/AIDS control programme that began under President George W. Bush in 2003 and is credited with saving more than 20 million lives in Africa.
Of late, the agency’s primary focus has been Ukraine where it buys produce from farmers and sells it in other parts of the world; it also provides prosthetic limbs to soldiers. It boasts a famine prevention programme that can predict crises in regions. In India, the agency works in areas such as health, education, sanitation and environment.
Soft power
The USAID was established in 1961 by Democratic President John F. Kennedy during the Cold War era to counter Russian influence. While it functioned under the State Department initially, Congress made it an independent agency in 1998. Hence, experts say, the power to dissolve the USAID wrests with Congress.
The U.S. has benefited from this independent stature for it could maintain bridges with non-friendly nations such as Iran and North Korea, where the agency undertook humanitarian work. However, the public in the U.S., mainly Republicans, have always sided with slashing foreign spending.
As Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump chip away at the USAID with the acumen of two businessmen, ‘cutting costs and trimming the flab’, experts say China will step in to fill the void left by the agency. But China’s priority has so far been ‘visible programmes’, or infrastructure projects it undertakes in the form of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). These can never supplant the USAID.
Sadly, the price for the Trump administration’s domestic interests end up being paid by the deprived people across the globe.
Published – February 09, 2025 01:51 am IST
