The Myth of American Generosity: How Trump and Musk Are Exploiting the Narrative
USAID is a tiny fraction of the federal budget, so why is this administration wasting its time dismantling it?
The U.S. is the world's biggest humanitarian donor. When Americans hear this fact, they usually have one of two reactions–either pride about their contributions to the world or anger at their tax dollars being sent overseas. No prizes for guessing which button Trump activated with his sudden decision to shut down USAID, fire nearly every single one of its global employees, and close life-saving programs with barely any explanation.
Like so much that Americans are…uninformed about, most don’t know that USAID is actually tiny when it comes to federal spending. We're talking about just 1 percent of the budget, yet this small slice helps millions of people worldwide. And now, it's all coming to a screeching halt: On Friday, nearly all USAID staff globally will be placed on administrative leave, except for a skeleton crew handling critical functions.
USAID has been around since 1961, when President Kennedy set it up during the Cold War. He wanted a nimble way to counter Soviet influence abroad through foreign assistance, finding the State Department too slow and bureaucratic for the job. Congress backed him up with the Foreign Assistance Act, making USAID its own independent agency.
USAID is a mighty machine. Recently, they:
Sent $45 million to help feed Venezuelans through the U.N. World Food Program
Protected the Amazon rainforest and supported Indigenous communities in Brazil
Spent $135 million in Peru helping farmers grow coffee and cacao instead of coca
Provided more than half of all humanitarian aid for the Rohingya crisis last year–about $301 million
USAID is also responsible for PEPFAR–one of the most successful foreign aid programs ever, saving over 25 million lives from AIDS, mostly in Africa. Well, patients are now finding locked doors at those clinics.
The ripple effects are intense—organizations that don’t even rely on USAID funding are starting to panic. An anonymous source at the World Bank in one Asian country office told me that a top official is seriously considering the organization go "social media AWOL" to avoid attracting Elon Musk's attention.
Democrats in Congress and former USAID officials say this whole shutdown might not even be legal. Why? Because Congress created USAID as an independent agency and still funds it. So here is another one of Trump’s “diversions” and a waste of legal energy combatting his grand plans.
Trump and Musk aren't the first to challenge USAID. Republicans have criticized the agency for decades, pushing for more control of foreign policy and aid to be placed under the State Department.
However, the current effort to dismantle USAID seems to be a particular passion project for our billionaire de facto leader. USAID played a crucial role in ending apartheid in South Africa—an outcome that likely wasn’t so favorable for Musk’s family, who benefitted from the system as white South Africans. The Guardian has reported on Musk's "unhealthy interest in genetics" and his backing of claims about a “looming white genocide” in South Africa, even endorsing posts promoting the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory.
As Anand Giridharadas writes, “This imagined threat to white people’s property rights—expressed in language similar to border panic about a supposed invasion—is a longstanding obsession of Trump’s. But beyond him, there’s a group that takes it very personally—the South African oligarchs who dominate our politics, first among them, Elon Musk.”
We all know who pays the price for the ambitions of powerful white men.
LEARN MORE:
A Global Crisis: The Cost of USAID’s Abrupt Shutdown (Global Press)