USAID: Trojan Horse or Soft Power Foreign Aid?

A tale of two stories

The US is the world's biggest spender on international aid – by a lot. Now, USAID has undergone a financial reckoning, leading to funding being redirected or eliminated, and two different stories have emerged.

One story goes like this: USAID has saved millions of lives around the world through its humanitarian aid. This audit has disrupted critical activities, leaving millions of people vulnerable.

Here are a few things the US taxpayer has been funding: $72 billion around the globe in 2023 alone, funding everything from women’s health in war zones to clean water access to HIV treatments. $45 million to the UN World Food Program. $6.5 billion to the sub-Saharan region of Africa. $79.3 million to India for sanitation, water supply, HIV, TB, malaria, and vaccine programs.

Another story goes like this: the audit of USAID has uncovered massive amounts of waste and an abundance of programs designed to ideologically reshape society after leftist aims. While life-saving humanitarian assistance will continue, the programs aimed at ideologically reshaping societies will end.

Here are a few things the US taxpayer has been funding: $20 million to create an Iraqi Sesame Street TV show. $1.5 million for DEI in Serbia. $70k for a DEI musical in Ireland. $47k for a transgender opera in Colombia. $32k for a transgender comic book in Peru. $2 million for LGBT activism in Guatemala. $2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam. $4.5 million to combat “disinformation” in Kazakhstan. $4.67 million to fund bat virus research at Wuhan Institute of Virology. $7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists to avoid binary-gendered language. $3.9 million to promote LGBT causes in the Western Balkans. $1/2 million to promote atheism in Nepal.

So, which is it? Is the USAID a trojan horse delivering ideological imperialism or a bastion of humanitarian giving?

Well, the true story is both.

For decades as a leftist I critiqued the US for trying to play world police; it gets us more enemies than friends and steamrolls the sovereignty of other nations. USAID was widely known to be part of that game. Twenty years ago, leftists like Naomi Klein routinely wrote essays condemning the politicization of USAID, criticizing it as a tool of American imperialism.

So why is it today that it is the left defending USAID the loudest?

Because the left has reshaped USAID as a tool to push their own ideological influence abroad. No doubt there is genuine worry about humanitarian aid being disrupted, but it is also true that much of the resulting media panic is less about humanitarian efforts being lost, and more about a decades-long ideological project losing its grip. USAID is entangled with foreign policy objectives, regime change efforts, and corruption. It funded a sprawling network of NGOs that prioritized ideological influence over actual aid. Much of its work wasn’t about charity, it was ideological imperialism ensuring that liberal orthodoxy became the default worldview. And far from being welcomed as benevolent American generosity, these efforts were often met with skepticism and hostility by the very communities they claim to be helping – undermining the goal of advancing US soft power. USAID was so loathed by foreign nations for political and cultural meddling that it has been expelled from multiple countries.

So what now?

Well, I’m not a libertarian so I don’t think the ideal government is just one guy in a room muttering about the market fixing everything while society collapses. I want robust safety nets for those in need. I want true humanitarian aid to continue. The extremes of the liberal fringe have weaponized our compassion for so long that at this point we risk compassion fatigue – a dulling of our empathy – which we must guard against.

Americans voluntarily give more money to charity than any other nation, both in total and per capita, but for this to scale the system has to be sustainable – and America’s finances have been unsustainable for years, with *trillions* of improper payments made – including to the Taliban, whoops! If USAID was so indispensable, why was it allowed to become so bloated and politicized in the first place?

I also wonder why no exit strategies were implemented. USAID operated like they would play nursemaid to the world for the rest of time. This is not only a bad use of American taxpayer money, but an insult to the dignity of the people being helped. For example, the US has spent $100 billion fighting HIV around the world, mainly in Africa. This has been going on for decades, much to the dislike of many African activists who say the constant flow of aid undermines national sovereignty and creates a cycle of dependency. African nations have the capability to lead the fight against HIV themselves, in all these decades of assistance the US should have planned for that.

There have been valid critiques of the way USAID’s dismantling was handled. It is easy for me to say that I wish the process could have been done in a painstaking sweep that would have not disrupted any genuine aid while rooting out programs aimed at ideological imperialism. But I have to wonder how much of the potential chaos is the fault of the bureaucracy that was left to operate without accountability for decades.

But there are other critiques that are specious. Here are a few rebukes: The cries of ‘fascism’ are hollow as ever, Trump continues to operate within democratic norms. Trump is fulfilling campaign promises: “Elon Musk will head up a government efficiency department” (Trump, Sept 5, 2024). And if you didn’t object when Biden fired federal employees for not getting a vaccine, you don’t have much standing here. Don’t like billionaires in politics? I agree, but oligarchies are inevitable and these complaints would be more believable if you were also critical of George Soros and Bill Gates. As for those fretting that we didn’t elect Elon, well, we didn’t elect the people minding the books before now or anyone in the bureaucratic establishment, for that matter.

The fact is, this is the start of a potentially pivotal moment in American governance. USAID represents a tiny percentage of the US budget but this could be seen as the first step of a long journey. For years, Republicans and Democrats have quibbled over details while the overall trajectory of US government spending and policy rarely significantly changed – to the detriment of the American people and people around the world. Now, that consensus is being challenged in a way we have not seen in modern history and as the house of cards wobbles we have a chance to build something better in its place.

Painting is The Procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo. Meme by me.