U.S. Foreign Aid Has Always Been Too Easy of a Target
The headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, which is responsible for distributing U.S. foreign development and humanitarian aid, was closed over the weekend. It has now been folded into the State Department, and its future appears very uncertain. This followed U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order from earlier in the week pausing the disbursement of foreign aid. While exemptions were made for critical life-saving assistance, much foreign aid remains frozen, thousands of aid workers have been laid off, and USAID’s website has been reduced to a single webpage.
In justifying the actions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted that the measures were to ensure that U.S. foreign aid was being well spent, remarking that “The U.S. government is not a charity” and that aid, like all projects, needed to be aimed at making “America safer, stronger or more prosperous.”
The actions against USAID specifically and the targeting of foreign aid generally could be seen as part of the Trump administration’s overall goal of reducing the reach, impact, and size of the federal bureaucracy. Trump seems to want a 19th Century-sized government, meaning small, to go along with his other 19th Century foreign policy preferences, meaning limited.
Even if Trump didn’t hold these broader ambitions for the size and direction of the U.S. government, it is likely that U.S. foreign aid would have been subject to cuts. After all, this isn’t the first time that Trump has sought to cut U.S. foreign aid and development and humanitarian assistance has long been on politically tenuous ground.
Surveys find that the public generally desires a reduction in foreign aid, but this is largely due to a misperception about how much, or more precisely how little, the U.S. spends on aid. Less than 1 percent of the federal budget is dedicated to foreign aid. The USAID budget itself is just under $50 billion, which pales in comparison to the most recent defense budget of more than $800 billion. Stated differently, if the goal is to cut government waste and improve government efficiency, there are other areas more suitable for reduction than aid.
But pointing out the relatively small amounts the U.S. government gives in aid will fail to sway those who see any amount, no matter how small, as too much. The United States still spends in the billions with a “b” on foreign aid and for many that is the problem.
For instance, the prominent conservative commentator Matt Walsh recently called on Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman, a supporter of foreign aid, to “explain in very clear terms why working class American taxpayers should have to pay to fight AIDS in some African country 7,000 miles away?” The perception that the money is largely going thousands of miles away is not wrong, as the top USAID aid recipients in 2023 were Ukraine, Ethiopia, Jordan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Syria. Similarly, staunch Trump supporter Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene asserted back in November that she would like to cut USAID funding for “toilets in Africa” and “all kinds of programs that don’t help the American people.” Former congressman Matt Gaetz, when he was still a key figured in the MAGA Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, introduced a bill to abolish USAID. Most recently, key Trump advisor Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency is the entity that directly shut down USAID, labeled the agency a “criminal organization.”
Giving aid might be what is done by the leader of the free world, but not if that leader would rather be left alone.
These individuals may not be opposed to offering assistance to the needy in other countries, per se. But they are clearly opposed to the U.S. government, and by extension, U.S. tax dollars, being used for that purpose. That sentiment shifts the debate. It’s not enough for aid advocates to point to how little the U.S. government spends. It requires making the positive case for why the U.S. government should spend any dollars, let alone billions of dollars, on foreign aid.
One argument would emphasize how the granting of aid is an effective means of improving U.S. prestige and reputation abroad. Some refer to this as “soft power,” but soft power is more about cultural attractiveness aside from material means. Aid is still material means. But demonstrating a generosity of spirit, having people abroad identify the United States with doing good, could generate the good will needed to help the U.S. garner support for policies that are more clearly in its selfish interests. In other words, aid need not be altruistic.
Indeed, one can go back to the very founding of USAID to see that the program came about from realpolitik considerations, namely the need to counter growing Soviet influence in key developing countries during the Cold War. When establishing USAID in 1961, then President John F. Kennedy spoke to both the United States’ “moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations” as well as “our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom.” If the U.S. was perceived as failing to counter those “adversaries of freedom,” which at the time meant the Soviet Union, then countries around the world could well align with them and against U.S. interests.
One could argue that a similar logic holds today. A key means by which the U.S. could garner support in its “great power competition” with both China and Russia is to be associated with the generosity of providing aid. Aid provides a means of looking like a force for good in the world. The U.S. is now forgoing that opportunity, even if it remains to be seen if and how China will step in the fill the gap left by U.S. aid.
Of course, such a “soft power” argument may not hold sway with those who want the U.S. to play a lesser role in the world. Having prestige and status abroad doesn’t matter if your focus is largely, even exclusively, at home. Giving aid might be what is done by the leader of the free world, but not if that leader would rather be left alone.
Another argument, one that Kennedy also alluded to, is grounded in an ethical consideration: With great power comes great responsibility. Whether the U.S. wants to provide aid or not is irrelevant. It is a powerful nation and, as such, it has a responsibility to help the needy, as well as to defend the defenseless. This is the core idea of a values-based foreign policy, of idealpolitik. Unfortunately, building policy on compassion for the marginalized and destitute, whether domestic or foreign, is not what members of the Trump administration, and even Trump himself, appear interested in doing.
But focusing on Trump’s actions against foreign aid misses a larger point. Arguments for giving humanitarian and development aid, whether based on realpolitik considerations of prestige or idealpolitik considerations of values, have never held much sway in U.S. foreign policy. If they had, the U.S. would likely have long given more than a relative pittance to humanitarian causes. The only difference is that even the little amount that was given is now gone.
Paul Poast is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.