USAID is All But Dead

The writing was on the wall, almost as soon as President Trump took office. USAID was in his sights early on, and he couldn’t have picked a better, more blatant demonstration of government waste, abuse and fraud. USAID’s abuses were so outrageous that it was difficult to understand the protests that arose when their mismanagement was discovered. But we could count on the Democrats to ignore the huge abuses and focus on the humanitarian causes of the agency. Jeremy Konyndyk of Refugees International described the actions of DOGE in this way:

‘They're trying to eliminate the agency,’ Konyndyk said. ‘They have announced no plan and given no rationale — they're just taking everything down,’ Konyndyk said. ‘They're trying to do it behind the scenes rather than openly,’ he said, so they don't have to ‘defend what they're doing’ in announcements to the public. The consequences of a diminished or erased USAID would be dire, Konyndyk said, noting that one key component of its programs is keeping outbreaks and epidemics from reaching U.S. shores.

To be generous, Mr. Konyndyk’s remarks were disingenuous on almost every count. Musk set out to do a 90-day review of the agency’s operations. To say that they gave “no plan and given no rationale” is absurd. I guess he missed the announcements by Trump and Musk to root out waste, fraud, and abuse (which were rife in USAID). Nearly every day there have been postings on the results of their investigations. This is a partial list.

The review of their work has been mostly completed:

Whatever USAID was or wasn't meant to be when President John F. Kennedy created the program by executive order in 1961, it effectively is no more. Wall Street Mav reported on Sunday that the White House intends to ‘eliminate roughly $60 billion in foreign aid spending and terminate 92% of grants issued by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).’ ‘The figures were included in a State Department memo detailing the results of a 90-day review of US foreign aid ordered by President Trump,’ which identified ‘nearly 15,000 grants and targeted almost 10,000 for elimination — the majority of which were issued by USAID.’

How did the agency morph into such a despicable and outrageous agency? Here’s what one skeptical writer said:

Oh, spare me the sob stories. Of the $4 billion earmarked for Haiti, almost half of it never went much farther than the D.C. beltway. More than half went to ‘other.’ About 2% went to Haitian firms. Six houses were built. There's a case to be made that charitable people like us should help feed the hungry and provide disaster relief to those who can't afford it. But USAID ain't it.

You won’t be surprised to learn that George Soros was in on the scam:

Back in 1988, George Soros's Open Society Foundation (OSF) helped establish the East-West Management Institute (EWMI). Exactly how isn't well understood, so I asked both Grok and ChatGPT to look into it for me. Neither LLM was able to come up with much but they both described the relationship as ‘opaque.’ Fine, whatever — Soros can do what he wants with his money. Except that over the last decade or two, EWMI received an estimated $270 million in tax money, largely through USAID, with another $90 million on tap. What does EWMI do with your money? That's none of your business. Your tax dollars go — or rather, went — to a Soros organization that does what Soros wants. You just get to pay.

As programs began to shut down, the direst consequences were predicted:

‘Any type of communicable disease, I think we will see rage rampant. I think we will see increased conflict in the world. I think we will see increased terrorism in the world. And so, I think, the implications are going to be really dire in terms of the instability that this creates in already very unstable regions of the world,’ said Jocelyn Wyatt, CEO of Alight, an international organization that provides food, medicine and services for refugees in 20 countries around the world.

Ms. Wyatt, unlike some administrators, was willing to acknowledge that their future will be difficult, but unlike other organizations, they will survive:

Despite the turmoil of the last few weeks, she was reticent to speak publicly out of a concern that her organization and the clients they serve, could be impacted and retaliated against. She said she understands the new administration's push to evaluate taxpayer spending and foreign aid and that she was prepared to undergo an evaluation of their organization and make sure it aligned with Trump's American First foreign policy.

It’s tragic to witness these self-inflicted wounds that USAID is responsible for. Although they did provide some important programs, their negligent and irresponsible decisions regarding many programs were highly partisan and inappropriate. Many of the left-wing programs they sponsored would have contradicted the values of the countries where they worked; they were determined to meet their own political agendas, and many countries went along because they expected the U.S. to be honorable and helpful.

Since much of the funding has been canceled, any worthwhile programs will probably be folded into the State Department, where it properly belongs.

What do you think about this situation?