The startling images from the earthquake in Myanmar were about as dramatic as it gets in exposing the effects of DOGE’s pummeling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Global media was filled with photos of brightly clad Chinese and Russian search-and-rescue teams combing through the rubble to locate buried victims. American flags were largely absent.
This display of what it looks like for America to retreat from a strategically important country was the latest chapter in two months of tumult and recrimination surrounding USAID and foreign aid. As a former Republican official at USAID, it is clear to me that the counterpunching has become counterproductive. The foreign aid debate needs what our computers require when gummed up: A return to basics, a factory reset.
For reasons symbolic, tactical, political and vindictive, USAID — the federal agency that battles diseases in Africa, feeds the hungry and improves their crops, promotes literacy and battles extremism in 90 of the world’s poorest counties — found itself first in DOGE’s crosshairs. The agency woke up in early January at ground zero in the culture wars and a victim of President Trump’s executive order conveyor belt. “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Elon Musk tweeted.
The ensuing months have not been kind to USAID. Its staff have been massively furloughed. Its offices were unilaterally shuttered, without so much as a “by your leave” to Congress — even USAID’s logo was ignominiously chiseled off its headquarters at the Ronald Reagan Building. And the agency has been paralyzed, unable even to respond to such dramatic events as the Myanmar earthquake.
Surprisingly, since USAID is a relatively obscure agency, with way less than 1 percent of the federal budget, the pushback against DOGE was substantial. Indeed, I marveled at how the agency’s victimization garnered levels of attention seldom encountered in the course of its important work in obscure settings far from America. Rare frontpage coverage, investigative reporting, congressional rallies and an outpouring of support from citizen groups ironically benefited USAID’s public reputation.
The administration’s attempts to portray USAID as a “rogue” agency focused on a “woke,” ideologically driven agenda generally backfired. Research revealed that Musk’s tiny list of Biden administration-mandated, oddball transgressions amounted to less than one-tenth of one percent of USAID’s budget. Many of the eccentric projects DOGE “uncovered” were not even part of the agency’s portfolio.
Full-throated allegations of “waste, fraud and abuse,” it turned out, did not yield a single damning indictment. More than 99 percent of USAID’s work in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East was exactly what the taxpayers and Congress expected.
After the Trump administration’s assaults on USAID, and pushback from its allies, where are we today? Well, a lot of vituperation has built up in the system, with astonishingly little serious analysis by Congress or national security leaders.
The administration is proposing to unilaterally fire almost all USAID staff, and has promised to terminate more than 80 percent of USAID’s overseas projects. Many senators and representatives are pushing back against this unconstitutional dismantling, resulting in hundreds of confirmations frozen in the Senate. Court actions, threatened and filed, abound. Inflammatory rhetoric in Washington, and unnecessary human suffering overseas, are the order of the day, while peer competitors such as China take advantage of American gridlock, as in Myanmar.
It is clearly time for a reset. It’s time to clear away the chaotic politicking of the past 90 days — chainsaws and all — and begin a systematic examination of what our nation demands of its foreign aid program.
The timing for a reset is propitious. Musk’s riotous acolytes have mostly moved on to other victims, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio is firmly in charge at the State Department. He is assembling a professional team to examine how U.S. foreign aid should be organized, and what role USAID should play. The furor of the past several months has, if anything, crystalized awareness that America’s foreign aid “soft power” is critical to national security. If Rubio offers a bipartisan hand to protesting members of Congress, hearings could launch the serious inquiries the times demand.
And the public policy issues abound. The administration has raised a fair question about whether foreign aid projects cannot be better aligned with national priorities. How can humanitarian and security dynamics be reconciled? To which countries should our nation target foreign aid? What role should the private sector play? How can the U.S. move countries from aid recipients to being aid donors, as USAID helped do in the case of South Korea?
Let’s stop the nuttiness and diatribes over USAID and foreign aid. The stakes are too high and the risks of sustained mutual bludgeoning in Washington — while China watches and benefits — are too profound. For USAID and the foreign aid debate, it’s time for a deep cleansing breath and a factory reset.
Jim Kunder served as a deputy administrator at USAID during the George W. Bush administration and worked at the agency under three Republican administrations.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( USAID went into the woodchipper, and we’re all paying a price )
Also on site :
- Child star Sophie Nyweide was pregnant when found dead at 24 as cause of death remains under investigation
- Taylor Swift Just Lost a Highly-Coveted Title
- Ukraine’s Easter tantrum: guns, gold, and guilt – Kiev’s loudest lobbyist demands salvation at the EU’s expense (again)