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."
Trump seriously wasn't wasting time, was he? That 90-day review he ordered had to have started nearly two months before he was sworn in — or just days after defeating Kamala Harris on Election Day. Either that or his 90-day review was completed with DOGE-like efficiency. My guess is the latter because can you even imagine anyone in the still-extant Biden administration going along with a Trump order before he was sworn in? Hell, his own administration barely cooperates with him now. They don't call it "the Deep State" for nothing.
Whatever the case, the White House isn't messing around with these cuts: Reuters reported today that Nicholas Enrich, USAID's acting assistant administrator for global health, released a seven-page letter complaining that "political leadership" — the Trump administration — "had made it impossible to deliver lifesaving humanitarian assistance around the world."
"Twenty minutes later, Enrich sent another email, which was also seen by Reuters, that he had 'just received notification that I have been placed on administrative leave, effective immediately.'"
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.
How did we get here?
Ostensibly created as an international development agency (it's right there in the name), USAID quickly morphed (some would say it was from the start) into an off-the-books intelligence operation and, from there, into a multibillion-dollar slush fund for the well-connected whose finances were already very highly developed.
To call the relationship between USAID — i.e., your tax dollars — and the Democrat-Media Complex "incestuous" would be an insult to people with only two grandparents.
🚨MSNBC Host Jen Psaki’s sister worked for nearly a decade at Population Council International, a recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars from USAID.
— Natalie Winters (@nataliegwinters) March 3, 2025
The group even lists USAID as one of its official partners.
Why does Jen never disclose this!? pic.twitter.com/9GxbaEtwWU
Population Council is involved in "Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights, and Choices, Adolescents and Young People, Gender Equality and Equity, Climate and Environmental Changes." In other words, your basic To-Do List of progressive causes from abortion to "climate"-inspired socialism paid for in part with $24,607,344 tax dollars. The group's website fails to list any of its principal officers, who I'm forced to assume are well-paid.
Let's dig a little deeper for our next example.
Back in 1988, George Soros's Open Society Foundations (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
Giving money to billionaires to thwart the popular will in this country hardly sounds like "international development" to me. Unless, that is, you're talking about the postmodern version of "international Communism."
Those days are over.
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