Posting #37 The story of foreign aid and securing the nation (Part II)

In Posting #36, I outlined the two other components of national security: Defense and Diplomacy. I argued that US national security instead should rely on not just these two components but should include Development/Foreign Aid. Nonetheless, the vast majority of taxpayer dollars are given to Defense and Diplomacy. I conclude that they alone cannot provide the United States the security it needs and its residents expect. Here is how Posting #36 began:

The story: The story we Americans are told now with the “America First” mantra is that foreign aid is unnecessary, frivolous, fraudulent, “criminal,” and wasteful. This story tells us that foreign aid has nothing to do with national security and instead is only a “vanity project,” a way for the United States to feel good about its power-flexing in the world. Instead, we are told, we mustn’t apologize for the power-flexing; we should continue increased funding of the coercive, “warfighting” Department of Defense and we will have all the national security we need.

My take on the story: This story couldn’t be further from the truth.

US national security has three main components which operate for different reasons: Defense (including intelligence), Diplomacy, and Development. The US spends about a trillion taxpayer dollars annually on this priority, but those dollars are disproportionately divided among the three components. This disproportion tells us what is most valued and what is least.

And here is how this two-part posting continues:

Development

The third component of national security is development, also known as foreign aid. The Brookings Institution reports that 20 federal agencies are responsible for delivering US foreign assistance:

The U.S. foreign assistance structure is complex with more than 20 U.S. government agencies hav[ing] a role in providing foreign assistance. The most recent data (2022) shows the principal agency for foreign assistance, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), [is] responsible for some 60% of foreign assistance, followed by the Department of State at nearly 30%, the Department of the Treasury at 5%, the Department of Health and Human Services at 3%, and the Departments of Defense and Agriculture and the Millennium Challenge Corporation each under 1% (emphasis and clarification added).

The entire foreign aid appropriation in the federal budget for 2023 was $71.9B, or 1.2% of the federal budget, and constitutes about 1/13^th of the budget allocated to Defense. This includes extraordinary aid sent to Ukraine in the midst of its war with Russia.

The idea is that development/foreign aid enhances the security of the United States in three ways: first, based on American democratic values, generously offering humanitarian aid to countries needing it; second, by way of the aid, developing long-lasting and meaningful relationships with non-elite residents and citizens (unlike Diplomacy) of the recipient countries while promoting goodwill towards the US; and third, with the aid, simultaneously promoting things like economic prosperity, democratic institutions, political stability, health, literacy, disaster relief, and refugee resettlement, and minimizing the arrival in the United States illnesses such as HIV, smallpox, tuberculosis, malaria, Ebola, and other social instabilities like mass migration, terrorism, and illicit drug distribution.

And it is USAID, responsible for the largest amount of aid distributed, that is under attack by the current Trump administration. The administration doesn’t want to reform the agency; instead, it is demolishing it.

This act of demolition presents a threat to national security.

The issue of foreign aid as a mode of national security has always been debated. As a 2022 CRS report puts it, “Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, foreign aid has increasingly been associated with national security policy. At the same time, some Americans and Members of Congress view foreign aid as an expense that the United States cannot afford given current budget deficits and competing budget priorities.”

This skewed view of where national security taxpayer dollars should be allocated impacts the American citizenry: “Opinion polls consistently report that Americans believe foreign aid is in the range of 25 percent of the federal budget. When asked how much it should be, they say about 10 percent.” In fact, all of the US development/foreign aid is only about 1%. Still, a February 5-6, 2025 poll determined that “89% of Americans say the U.S. should invest at least 1% of its federal budget in foreign assistance.”

But USAID has also always been targeted by American conservatives. NPR reports in February 2025 that there are both supporters and critics of the agency:

Its supporters say it helps save lives, strengthen civil society, assist the needy and promote and preserve democracy, while presenting a gentler version of the U.S. — as a global superpower willing to aid and help some of the world's most vulnerable. A $42 billion soft-power glove, in their eyes, to go along with the Pentagon's nearly $900 billion hard-power fist.

Critics contend that USAID's use of American contractors, and its large bureaucracy means that not enough of the money actually ends up helping those in need. It's also been criticized for what some countries have alleged is a backdoor for the U.S. to interfere in their domestic affairs.

And these critics have a long history of trying to force US development under the umbrella of US Diplomacy.

The Brookings Institution marks, though, how USAID’s developmental mission radically differs from Diplomacy:

USAID’s mission is to advance development, which requires working not just with government but also with civil society and business communities to advance the multiple nodes of economic, political, and social activity that comprise the complex nature of society. Diplomacy tends to have a short time and transactional horizon while development [has] a medium/long-term horizon with emphasis on evaluating the achievement of results, sometimes putting the two missions at odds and limiting their ability to function well in the same organization.

Still, some prominent conservatives have argued in support of USAID, contending that USAID counters Russian and Chinese influence. (Both countries plus Iran applauded Trumps’ destroying USAID.) Republican Senators Tom Cotton (Arkansas) and Marco Rubio (Florida) have both supported the organization in the recent past. Cotton observed in 2021 that “agencies like U.S.A.I.D. are ‘strategic instruments to beat China’ in a global competition for influence” and Marco Rubio—now the Secretary of State and acting administrator of USAID—noted in a 2022 letter to the Biden administration that “the agency is ‘critical to our national security’ and a powerful tool to ‘counter the Chinese Communist Party’.” Former Florida Republican Representative Ted Yoho—who describes himself as coming to Congress explicitly to undo foreign aid—published an essay in Time on February 13, 2025 entitled “I Came to Congress to Gut Foreign Aid. I Was Wrong.” And California Republican Representative Young Kim “wrote on X on Saturday [February 1, 2025] that reforms to USAID ‘must be done with precision and care so that America’s standing and ability to project soft power are maintained abroad’.”

Furthermore, high-level military supporters of USAID make the efficiency and relative cost of the agency their point. The former commander of US forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, extols USAID’s ability to prevent conflict as being better than “the deterrent effects of [a] carrier strike group or a marine expeditionary force.” And, as former Defense Secretary Robert Gates put it, “Development is a lot cheaper than sending soldiers.”

But it would be useful to have some context for USAID’s existence.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) was founded because Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, “which mandated the creation of an independent agency to focus on development separate from politics [State Department] and the military [Defense Department]” (clarification added).

Consequently, President Kennedy issued an Executive Order to establish this independent agency. Reportedly, Kennedy “wanted a more efficient way to counter Soviet influence abroad through foreign assistance and saw the State Department as frustratingly bureaucratic at doing that.” Moreover, on founding USAID, Kennedy stated that the agency should be populated by Americans with expertise different from those inhabiting the State Department: “The program requires a highly professional skilled service, attracting substantial numbers of high caliber men and women capable of sensitive dealing with other governments, and with a deep understanding of the process of economic development” (emphasis added). Kennedy also stressed that USAID would conduct long-range projects, as opposed to those State Department short-term, crisis-driven, reactive, “piecemeal” projects “hastily designed to match the rhythm of the fiscal year.” In 1962, Kennedy chided those in Congress who wanted to cut USAID’s funding: “This program is just as important as our national defense.” In the same year, while speaking to a group of overseas USAID mission directors, Kennedy made the replacement of hard power with soft explicit: “And as we do not want to send American troops to a great many areas where freedom may be under attack, we send you.”

In 1998, through the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, Congress legally confirmed that USAID is an agency independent of the State Department. This is a law and only Congress can undo it.

USAID has its own budget and its own director who, like the Secretaries of Defense and State, is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. According to a pre-Trump inauguration Congressional Research Service report, for the 2025 fiscal year USAID was appropriated by Congress a total of $45.56B, (a 35% decrease from the previous year), which amounts to less than 1% of the total federal budget, and 1/19^th of the 2025 Defense Department appropriation.

Following the Trump inauguration, the illegal demolition of USAID, and the announcement that the new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, would be the administrator of USAID monies, the budget for the State Department magically climbed exponentially for 2025: from $18.78B to $57.2B.

Meanwhile, the SpaceX company of DOGE head Elon Musk—he who is demolishing USAID with Trump’s permission—benefited from a USAID grant “to provide 5,000 Starlink satellite internet terminals to the government of Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.”

So what?

This act on the part of President Trump is not only a violation of the law, but it is also politically vindictive. In a WBUR public radio station interview about the ending of USAID, host Meghna Chakrabarti adds the following:

Well, on January 28th, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told CNN that USAID had been in the administration's sights for a very specific reason.

STEPHEN MILLER: We looked at USAID as an example. That's 98%, 98% of the [USAID] workforce either donated to Kamala Harris or another left wing candidate. (clarification added)

The administration’s demolition of USAID is not about national security or inefficiency or fraud and waste, or even about the national debt. Instead, it is about wreaking vengeance, aka “owning the libs,” and exercising illegitimate power.

This is strongman stuff that endangers us all.

Others are of the opinion that this is a ploy by the Trump administration to privatize development:

The [Wall Street] Consensus reimagines the role of the state as a facilitator of private investment through various subsidies to investors that are often described as “derisking.” Development is no longer a public good to be directly financed by states, but a market opportunity to be unlocked through the alchemy of public-private partnerships (PPP) into “investible,” privately-owned projects.

Not only is this demolition illegal and shortsighted and endangers the US, it also seems to be what is known in soccer as an own goal: when a player accidentally scores a goal for the opposition. Yes, in the “America First” ideology, millions of human beings abroad don’t matter and we should not share our wealth with them. None of these 230 USAID canceled programs with in-country partners running them are of concern: HIV prevention among millions of Africans, resettling of Iraqis and Afghans who helped in American wars there, developing climate adaptation strategies in developing countries, helping Vietnamese impacted by the US dropping of Agent Orange during the American war there, advancing health reforms in Ukraine, expanding electricity access in Uganda and Nigeria, creating jobs for women in Egypt, solidifying management of infrastructure and local governance in the West Bank and Gaza, and preventing gender violence in Guatemala.

And these are only the first canceled contracts, leaving unpaid bills and fired-without-warning staff. An additional “800 contracts and grants [are] under consideration for cancellation ranging from climate change to public health to economic development.”

But this ideology of “America First” can’t—or won’t—account for the own goal part of this demolition. Business Insider reports that the demolition “has [widespread] implications for US farmers, furniture makers, airline carriers, and hundreds of other US organizations that sell products or services to the government agency. In fact, USAID rules require a range of purchases—including food, vehicles, pharmaceuticals, and plane tickets—to prioritize US vendors.”

Here are some examples of the own-goals scored against the United States by the Trump demolition of USAID:

Not only does the destruction of an independent agency cause 10,000 Americans working for USAID to lose their careers and have their lives upended, the demolition also impacts the field of development globally, another own goal. For instance, “Australian overseas aid programs could shut, causing ‘unnecessary deaths and suffering’…[leaving] a chasm that could be filled by China.”

Many American companies which implement USAID’s contracts are also injured by the demolition. In 2021, 86.4% of USAID’s contracts were with American-based companies, including Chemonics International, DAI Global, Deloitte, and RTI International. They are suffering unpaid invoices in the millions and millions of dollars and are laying off staff. A state that voted for Trump, North Carolina, fifth among states receiving USAID development dollars, is suffering statewide job losses in global health, furniture-making, higher education, small businesses, farmers, researchers, medical professionals, and biotech companies.

(Full disclosure: one of my three adult children works for an implementing partner whose programs funded by USAID were canceled, bills unpaid, and staff laid off. Or as the British put it so quaintly: are made redundant.)

Farmers are critically damaged by this demolition of USAID, as the US government purchases about $2.5B of corn, rice, wheat, vegetable oil, sorghum, peas, and soybeans from American farmers to ship—on American vessels—around the world. Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin farmers were among those selling their crops to the program, as were farmers from Ohio. With contracts canceled, they are unlikely to be paid for their products. With the demolition of USAID and no one to load or unload the ships, these foods now sit in ports around the world, rotting.

Christian organizations also have received USAID dollars and have not been spared the demolition. World Vision, International Justice Mission, Samaritan’s Purse, and Catholic Relief Charities—the largest USAID recipient in 2024—are all desperately impacted. They see the demolition as a “profound betrayal of what they consider a sacred vocation.” “Who can read the words of Jesus Christ and think this is OK?” one member asks. “That is baffling to me. If we say that we are pro-life, we cannot be OK with this [decimation].”

Latino evangelicals, who also voted for Trump, are perplexed by the demolition of USAID and its “inconsistent message” on immigration. “If we’re concerned with immigration, shouldn’t we also be concerned about how foreign aid helps people stay in their country and flourish?” a Latino evangelical pastor asks. “If it’s true that the administration is worried about violent criminals, why did they [Trump] pardon over a thousand people who acted violently in the Capitol?” he continued.

And British podcaster Rory Stewart called Roman Catholic Vice President JD Vance’s comment about “ordo amoris,” which to Vance explained the demolition of USAID, “a bizarre take on John 15:12-13—less Christian and more pagan tribal. We should start worrying when politicians become theologians, assume to speak for Jesus, and tell us in which order to love.” In a letter to US bishops subsequent to Vance’s statement, the Roman Catholic pope rebuked “ordo amoris,” explaining that “Catholic charity isn’t just a series of concentric circles extending from the individual to family, friends and fellow citizens and ultimately the world, but it is centered on human dignity with a special concern for the poorest.” And now, US Catholic bishops have sued the Trump administration for withholding funds for refugees.

To repeat: the disproportionate allocation of national security taxpayer dollars tells us what is most valued and what is least. Apparently, rich elites who benefit from big-dollar allocations to Defense and Diplomacy matter more.

And the Trump administration demolition of USAID is not only a violation of law and of ethics and of so-called efficiency measures, it is also a violation of the values that Americans expect of their government and of the national security the federal government takes an oath to provide. We cannot build national security out of the US Military alone, no matter how many dollars we give it or how much technologically advanced weaponry it buys. Witness the American wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq where, using high-tech weapons, Americans were fighting against impoverished, lightly armed people…and we lost.

With the Trump demolition of USAID—and of the federal government writ large—the United States no longer can be trusted, so that Americans’ security abroad and at home is endangered.