Another Trump administration, another round of directly helping America’s foreign adversaries, dismantling our international relations apparatus, and taking the country to the empire junkyard.
USAID is no angel. Around 2009, USAID used HIV prevention workshops to covertly recruit Cubans for anti-government activities. It also engaged in multiple other covert programs in Cuba to undermine the government. In 2005, USAID used a political reform seminar to benefit right-wing parties over the ruling Workers' Party in Brazil. And in 2008, USAID funded initiatives to undermine Bolivian President Evo Morales.
But these neo-liberal activities are standard fare for US Government agencies. So what is it that caused Adolf-saluting Musk to call USAID a "criminal organization" and send in his DOGE technological Gestapo to digitally seize and beat the agency to death?
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was recently sent down to Latin America by Trump, lived up to his Waterboy nickname when he tried to give a half-assed and clearly made-up explanation. In a nutshell, Rubio claimed that USAID had been lacking transparency with the handling of taxpayer funds and portrayed USAID as a rogue agency that needed to be reined in. What is the support for Rubio's claims of a rogue agency playing God with taxpayer dollars?
In April 2023, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul and Senator Joni Ernst wrote to USAID. Not to complain about a rogue agency that was refusing to be accountable to Congress, but to complain about USAID's failure to take indirect costs in its funding awards seriously. McCaul and Ernst complained that USAID should have been doing a better job negotiating indirect cost rates and that failure to do so was costing the taxpayers. They were troubled that USAID had increased its operations but did not increase the number of staff tasked to review indirect costs. McCaul and Ernst also complained that USAID was not being transparent enough in producing information related to those indirect costs.
Hardly the stuff to justify Musk characterizing the agency as a "ball of worms" and a "criminal organization." And if the idea of a government agency pushing covert neo-liberal activities is grounds to death penalty the agency--well, we might as well shut down the entire federal government.
So what is it that has triggered Trump and Musk about USAID?
Substantively, USAID funds (or funded) programs in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and former Soviet states. The programs in large part promote democracy, human rights, and economic development. Disabling USAID's functions in Ukraine, George and Moldova, for example, would play right into the hands of foreign adversaries looking to undermine Western-backed institutions and to strong arm and take economic and/or political control of those nations.
USAID also plays a major role in stabilizing U.S. allies with economic assistance and governance support. Without that support, those allies become more open to economic pressure, political influence, and ultimately military intervention by foreign adversaries.
USAID also worked to counter anti-Western narratives and disinformation campaigns by supporting independent media and civil society organizations. If USAID is dismantled, foreign adversaries can more effectively push anti-democracy and anti-US themes in countries where the US funds counter-efforts.
USAID also worked with nations to diversify energy sources and reduce dependence on sources such as Russian oil and gas. If USAID were eliminated or controlled, Russia would regain opportunities to increase energy exports in Europe that the US had previously blocked through the work of USAID. Something I’m sure Vlad would love.
Similar opportunities could be created for adversaries such as Russia and China in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Without a doubt, dismantling USAID creates a power vacuum. The power vacuum then creates big opportunities to strengthening the economic, military and political influence of foreign adversaries like China and Russia. Moreover, these countries operate similar organizations as USAID to spread influence around the world. Eliminating USAID eliminates the competition.
I would be able to provide you with sourcing and citations for these assertions, but the data exists on the now-defunct USAID website. And that's precisely the point. How can we know what good the agency did when the facts have now been disappeared and replaced with lies and propaganda being pushed by Musk and Rubio? An existential problem with our digital world that can be disappeared with a click of a button.
More practically speaking, the deletion of USAID is also unconstitutional. USAID was created by President Kennedy pursuant to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (an act of Congress), and was formally recognized by Congress as a Congressionally-created agency in the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998.
In case you don't know the obvious, the president, and certainly not a group of DOGE stooges hired by Musk, cannot simply destroy the agency created by Congress. And yet that's exactly what they did. They also don't have the right to send federal employees home, put them on leave or terminate them and turn off their emails. That's illegal. And yet it's exactly what they did.
The DOGE stooges have acted no better than the mob of people who broke into the Capitol to take a shit on Nancy Pelosi's desk on January 6. The purpose of the destruction of USAID is obvious and clear: it weakens and destabilizes the USA's influence in the world with its allies and friends and directly empowers foreign adversaries like Russia and China.
It's a smash and grab job.