Submitted by Rebecca Black, Retired Senior Foreign Service Officer and Mission Director with USAID
Every day brings a new decision by Elon Musk and the Trump Administration about the future for US government assistance overseas and its implementing agency, United States Agency for International Development, USAID. Unless the numerous lawsuits stand, as of Monday all 10,000 USAID employees minus 294 will be fired without cause, aid funds appropriated by Congress are frozen with few exceptions, and the agency is being dissolved, unlawfully as Congress has oversight over USAID by statute and has not been consulted. As a Senior Foreign Service Officer who dedicated 25 years of my professional life to USAID, I am more than dismayed and distressed. Without USAID and its humanitarian and development assistance, the face of the US overseas will be armed force and diplomacy, with diplomacy likely to be transactional. As parents and teachers know, relationships built on force and threats are fragile; trust, empathy, and reliability are far better foundations to build a world friendly to the US.
The reasons for the Administration to dissolve this Congressionally-established agency whose job is to implement, not write, foreign policy, are largely false. USAID is being accused of being “criminal,” “full of radical lunatics”, and committing “fraud”, and wasting tons of taxpayers’ money. The USAID budget is less than 1% of the federal budget, for one thing, hardly significant in the effort to reduce the overall budget. The cases cited of fraud are in fact either actions taken under the previous, lawfully elected Administration’s policies, or in fact made by the State Department, not USAID. For decades, both Republican and Democrat elected officials have supported the core programs of USAID: food to prevent starvation, health services that prevent millions of deaths and spread of disease to the US; preventing trafficking of people; stronger local governments able to finance basic infrastructure like water; education for girls that enables them to have better lives, be better mothers, and knowledgeable citizens. Are these criminal activities?
I have seen how important these programs are, how much gratitude is given the US for providing them, and how much long term imact has been achieved by USAID. In Eastern Europe in the 1990’s we helped newly democratic local governments become effective and responsive, not to what we thought right, but what their people wanted. Poland today has some of the strongest and most efficient municipal governments anywhere, and they still credit the USAID for making it so. In South Africa, HIV/AIDS was beginning its rampage in the early 2000’s; USAID rallied resources to address the many affects until a treatment was found and spread with USG help, reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide. USAID helped community groups in India organize to build toilets and pave walking paths to prevent diarrhea and cholera; in Mali and Cambodia, USAID advice helped improve how reading was taught, dramatically improving literacy rates.
The people making decisions on behalf of the Trump Administration, the DOGE crew, have little or no experience in foreign affairs. Did they realize that Midwest famers count on purchases of their wheat, soybeans, and rice, used to provide life-saving food aid, to keep their farms going? That small and mid-size American businesses working with USAID in health or workforce development or education won’t survive the freeze and reduction of funding? Thousands of American workers are losing their jobs, and not just the professionals and experts. Security guards, clericals, all the people working in supply services that support those professionals will be without income, unable to support their local economies. And the professionals, my former colleagues and friends, who, in contrast to the false statements being made about them, work hard, are dedicated to making the US a trusted and valued partner that is respected, and not condemned, globally, are seeing their life’s work tossed away, as well as their careers, their families having to pack and move mid-school year, with no certain future. Not to mention the thousands of locally hired employees that are being abandoned, the best and the brightest of their countries hired because of their dedication to making their own countries AND the US stronger.
The only bright light is that USAID is finally getting attention and more people understand what it actually does and how much good it has done. I have been so fortunate to have had a career that meant so much to so many people around the world, my inbox has been flooded with sympathy notes. There is still time to stop this erosion of our national security—call your representatives now!
Letter to the Editor: Why it is a Mistake to Dismantle USAID and Foreign Assistance
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Submitted by Rebecca Black, Retired Senior Foreign Service Officer and Mission Director with USAID
Every day brings a new decision by Elon Musk and the Trump Administration about the future for US government assistance overseas and its implementing agency, United States Agency for International Development, USAID. Unless the numerous lawsuits stand, as of Monday all 10,000 USAID employees minus 294 will be fired without cause, aid funds appropriated by Congress are frozen with few exceptions, and the agency is being dissolved, unlawfully as Congress has oversight over USAID by statute and has not been consulted. As a Senior Foreign Service Officer who dedicated 25 years of my professional life to USAID, I am more than dismayed and distressed. Without USAID and its humanitarian and development assistance, the face of the US overseas will be armed force and diplomacy, with diplomacy likely to be transactional. As parents and teachers know, relationships built on force and threats are fragile; trust, empathy, and reliability are far better foundations to build a world friendly to the US.
The reasons for the Administration to dissolve this Congressionally-established agency whose job is to implement, not write, foreign policy, are largely false. USAID is being accused of being “criminal,” “full of radical lunatics”, and committing “fraud”, and wasting tons of taxpayers’ money. The USAID budget is less than 1% of the federal budget, for one thing, hardly significant in the effort to reduce the overall budget. The cases cited of fraud are in fact either actions taken under the previous, lawfully elected Administration’s policies, or in fact made by the State Department, not USAID. For decades, both Republican and Democrat elected officials have supported the core programs of USAID: food to prevent starvation, health services that prevent millions of deaths and spread of disease to the US; preventing trafficking of people; stronger local governments able to finance basic infrastructure like water; education for girls that enables them to have better lives, be better mothers, and knowledgeable citizens. Are these criminal activities?
I have seen how important these programs are, how much gratitude is given the US for providing them, and how much long term imact has been achieved by USAID. In Eastern Europe in the 1990’s we helped newly democratic local governments become effective and responsive, not to what we thought right, but what their people wanted. Poland today has some of the strongest and most efficient municipal governments anywhere, and they still credit the USAID for making it so. In South Africa, HIV/AIDS was beginning its rampage in the early 2000’s; USAID rallied resources to address the many affects until a treatment was found and spread with USG help, reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide. USAID helped community groups in India organize to build toilets and pave walking paths to prevent diarrhea and cholera; in Mali and Cambodia, USAID advice helped improve how reading was taught, dramatically improving literacy rates.
The people making decisions on behalf of the Trump Administration, the DOGE crew, have little or no experience in foreign affairs. Did they realize that Midwest famers count on purchases of their wheat, soybeans, and rice, used to provide life-saving food aid, to keep their farms going? That small and mid-size American businesses working with USAID in health or workforce development or education won’t survive the freeze and reduction of funding? Thousands of American workers are losing their jobs, and not just the professionals and experts. Security guards, clericals, all the people working in supply services that support those professionals will be without income, unable to support their local economies. And the professionals, my former colleagues and friends, who, in contrast to the false statements being made about them, work hard, are dedicated to making the US a trusted and valued partner that is respected, and not condemned, globally, are seeing their life’s work tossed away, as well as their careers, their families having to pack and move mid-school year, with no certain future. Not to mention the thousands of locally hired employees that are being abandoned, the best and the brightest of their countries hired because of their dedication to making their own countries AND the US stronger.
The only bright light is that USAID is finally getting attention and more people understand what it actually does and how much good it has done. I have been so fortunate to have had a career that meant so much to so many people around the world, my inbox has been flooded with sympathy notes. There is still time to stop this erosion of our national security—call your representatives now!