[Salon] How to Cause Innocent Deaths, Save Little Money, Betray Our Legacy and Help Our Adversaries



https://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2025/08/the-destruction-of-usaid/

The Destruction of USAID
By W. Robert Pearson - August 2025

How to Cause Innocent Deaths, Save Little Money, Betray Our Legacy and Help Our Adversaries

The final destruction of USAID by President Trump in early July 2025 is the greatest strategic surrender of global American influence in the 80 years since the end of WWII.

Millions of Deaths – Microscopic Budgetary Gain

A June 30 article in The Lancet, among the oldest and most prestigious British medical journals dedicated to scientific research, estimated “that over the past two decades, USAID-funded programmes have helped prevent more than 91 million deaths globally, including 30 million deaths among children. Projections suggest that ongoing deep funding cuts—combined with the potential dismantling of the agency—could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million deaths among children younger than 5 years.”

Founded in 1961 by John F. Kennedy, the organization represented the depth and breadth of much of America’s soft power for 64 years. It was specifically designed to show that America had a side other than its military strength. It was founded to demonstrate the values of American life and the desire to extend benefits to other countries cooperating with us.

According to reports of funds requested, USAID asked for $19.6 billion in 2021, $27.7 billion in 2022, $29.4 billion in 2023, and $32 billion in 2024. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the federal government spent $6.8 trillion in 2024. The USAID budget of $32 billion divided by 6.8 trillion was 0.00470588235% of the federal budget.

If the federal budget was 1 dollar in 2024 the USAID budget was 4 tenths of 1 penny. If we look at just the interest on the national debt to be paid by US taxpayers in 2025 based on Congressional Budget Office projections, the total will reach $952 billion in 2025. By this measure, the USAID budget of last year could fit nearly 30 times within the amount of interest to be paid on the national debt this year. While we actually don’t know yet how much the whole federal government will spend this year for a number of reasons, we do know the national debt is projected by some to grow by as much as $4 trillion to $5 trillion over the next decade.

The American people have been conned for decades over the issue of peaceful assistance overseas. Senators and Representatives have campaigned back home about “waste” in Washington, often citing “foreign aid” and promising to clean it up. More than occasionally, they have waved the red flag of foreign aid waste to distract attention from their own spending on new programs that ballooned our national debt. As a result, out there in the vastness of public opinion in America, “foreign aid” became for many a dirty word and an image easily manipulated.

It is no surprise therefore that Americans generally think that 25 percent of the federal budget goes to foreign aid when it is less than 1 percent. The Trump administration knew this arithmetic yet deliberately set out to destroy an organization using the lies of waste, fraud, and mismanagement. On the level of ill-conceived decisions with consequential and dangerous short and long-term results, shutting down USAID wins the prize.

Serving in Ankara as ambassador, I learned an excellent Turkish proverb: “It takes a master architect to build a beautiful mosque; it only takes one man with a pick to destroy it.” That is precisely what the Trump administration has done – one arrogant, wholly uninformed, unaccountable, non-government private entrepreneur billionaire with no government experience shattered an American masterpiece.

On February 3, 2025, Elon Musk said he had spent the weekend feeding USAID through the “woodchipper” rather than going to “some great parties”. Elon Musk’s dismantlement of this jewel of American diplomacy and progress gained him and Trump nothing. The claimed misuse of money was based on data falsified by Musk’s group itself. In the end, Musk fell far short of his promise to cut the federal budget by more than one third. And for that, he made rubble of USAID. Bill Gates pulled no punches over Musk’s wreckage of USAID – in an interview this spring, he said Musk was “killing the world’s poorest children”.

USAID’S Legacy Mirrors the American Experience

There was no reason to destroy USAID. It was the window to America for millions of people around the world. The cancellation of thousands of projects, millions of medications, and enormous cuts in humanitarian nutrition will wreak havoc on the most vulnerable people on earth, especially on children and pregnant women.

The good USAID did in the administration of the funds they have been given is immeasurable. As the CEO of an international humanitarian NGO based in Washington, I had responsibility for programs from the State Department and USAID that taught freedom of the press, fostered international educational exchanges with teachers and health experts, instructed community leaders from former Soviet republics on democratic process, supported stronger refugee programs in the Middle East, and boosted democratic systems in eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America by developing future leaders.

In the game of global influence, the reality of seeing American and non-American colleagues working together on projects that build respect and influence for America around the world has added immeasurably to America’s strength, safety, and prosperity. In Ukraine, we transformed the Soviet-style national library system into democratic community centers to serve the local people. I especially recall a project in Moldova which put windows in a school where kids for years had shivered in windowless classrooms all winter wearing every stitch of clothing they could.

We’ve shared experiences with people all around the world. In journalism, we taught freedom of the press in Mozambique, Liberia, Rwanda, and even to high school students in China. In Rwanda, we worked to reconcile bitterly divided and traumatized communities. To that point, a young development officer in a discussion group one day told us that her mantra was Psalms 85:10: “Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Our goal, she offered, was to bring mercy to the reality of truth and commit to what was right– strengthening communal peace. Americans were there to help people who had been through trauma in country after country to trust in themselves to build better futures.

Helping others is a legacy of the American experience. Frontier life demanded cooperation and mutual support to build educational and religious institutions, effective governance and community security. In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830’s extolled the charitable spirit of American culture. Charity and helping others abroad to help themselves is a direct result of the original fabric and pioneer spirit of America.

That legacy and spirit has remained as a cornerstone of a benevolent American presence globally. After WWI, the US played a major role in humanitarian relief and rescue efforts to address widespread starvation, displacement, and disease affecting millions of civilians, especially in Europe and parts of the Middle East. The Americans supplied food and medicine to millions of people in over 20 countries and specially focused on children’s welfare. After WWII, the Marshall Plan pumped billions of dollars into countries destroyed by war, stimulating the global economy’s recovery and protecting the global economic and security system that precipitated an unprecedented 70 years of expanding global prosperity.

Thus, for well over a century, helping the world’s countries has been at the core of the American identity. This is who we are and who we always will be. Nothing has better represented this legacy than USAID. When the current darkness has passed, I believe the generosity of America will return to the world stage once again.

Our Adversaries are the Winners

The disappearance of USAID is a strategic gift to China. In international affairs there are no empty seats. China just sat down in the seat the US vacated. Now, China will ramp up its decades long campaign to win over the so-called “Third World” to be its ally in weakening the “Colonialist West.” Russia’s penetration in Africa already promotes the alleged failure of democracy. Moscow offers force and graft to replace democracy.

Over the next generation or two, the population of Africa will grow rapidly, and people will demand better lives – as they deserve. Whether these countries can stabilize their societies and deal with threats such as terrorism and warlords is not clear. We have a fundamental interest in Africa’s economic, social, and political success – not just in the resources of the continent. The same is equally and obviously true for South America, where China is now the continent’s major trading partner.

Do we realize that pulling back from benevolent engagement and focusing on an aggressive economic strategy is alienating people in precisely the places where we need to be welcomed? Where will we be with Africa and Latin America in 50 years? Are we looking at America First or by neglect and diplomatic blindness China First?

There is no doubt that the presentation of America seemingly at its worst will produce a reaction globally. Regional combinations and choices that minimize the risk of doing business with the US will be on more agendas. There is deep truth in the homily that to have a friend you must be a friend. Controlling by imperial power and bettering every opponent for one’s own benefit is not an enduring path forward.

The New York Times on June 22 reported on the frantic effort from many directions since February to save USAID programs. There is no official public record of programs saved, in limbo, unfunded, or under review despite the enormous interest. It’s as if the US government acted on USAID like a bureaucratic Guadalupe River to destroy everything in sight, and now people are looking at the resulting destruction, debris, and heartache to see what pieces might have survived. Disorganized government reactions, excuses for acting too fast or too slow, a lack of information about how projects were linked, and other steps too amateur and thoughtless to begin to justify decisions show up throughout the process. With the State Department in the process of announcing its own major cuts, the absence of competent decision making and planning will only grow in scope and consequences.

President Trump speaks nearly every day in one place or another about how much he wants to end wars and the suffering of war. Why is it that deaths from malnutrition, disease, famine, and social breakdown are not an equal priority? They are to the countries involved. It is a shame that a Secretary of State with such great experience, a former strong supporter of American soft power, now is denying that people will die with the disappearance of USAID.

Is it possible that at some point there will be a recognition of the value of USAID to millions of people and to America’s own national security and influence in the world? But for now, people are already dying, and the memories of those deaths will continue to pile up at the doorstep of our country.



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