Trump and Musk’s battle towards the company ought to be opposed on precept. However we are able to’t overlook that USAID has been a damaging arm of American imperialism for many years.
Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) speaks at a rally exterior of the US Capitol in assist of USAID in Washington, DC, on February 5, 2025.
(Nathan Posner / Anadolu through Getty Photographs)
Earlier this month, congressional Democrats held one among their first main protests of the brand new Trump period. Distinguished Democratic lawmakers rallied exterior the shuttered headquarters of the US Company for Worldwide Growth (USAID), which is within the strategy of being decimated by Elon Musk and President Donald Trump. The politicians railed towards Musk’s efforts to take away virtually all the company’s staffers and denounced the takeover of the federal authorities by a single non-public citizen.
However as they rushed to USAID’s protection, the Democrats additionally inadvertently highlighted an uncomfortable reality concerning the company: that, for many years, it has been a vital arm of American imperialism that always serves as a instrument for regime change, election interference, and the destabilization of nations around the globe.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, as an example, boasted that USAID “fights terrorist teams all throughout this world,” chases China across the globe to verify it doesn’t “monopolize contracts for vital minerals and port infrastructure,” and “helps freedom fighters” wherever they might be (and nonetheless the US defines that time period). Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, in the meantime, called the hassle to close down USAID “an absolute reward to our adversaries, to Russia, to China, to Iran and others.”
Samantha Energy, the previous director of USAID, additionally laid naked how the US weaponizes humanitarian help by masking its strategic pursuits with the rhetoric of altruism. In a latest New York Occasions op-ed, Energy acknowledged that the company has “generated huge shops of political capital” within the nations the place it really works and makes use of its leverage to bolster American monetary pursuits, like serving to a US firm “enter a brand new market.” New Jersey Senator Andy Kim, a Democrat who as soon as labored for USAID, was much more blunt. “USAID isn’t charity,” he wrote in a post on X. “It’s a international coverage instrument with bipartisan origins that’s vital on this harmful world atmosphere. Gutting it means gutting our means to compete and hold America secure.”
To be clear, Musk’s try and destroy the company isn’t trigger for celebration. Musk and Trump’s assault on USAID, and the federal forms writ massive, is illegal and undemocratic. Lifesaving applications around the globe have been thrown into chaos, together with well being and HIV providers and practically half a billion {dollars} price of meals help that’s now prone to spoilage. The Trump administration can be planning to soak up the company into the State Division, which might be far worse. (These strikes are already facing a series of legal challenges.)
Musk has tried to justify the crackdown from a number of totally different angles, pushing conspiracies, deceptive claims, and outright falsehoods. He has referred to as USAID “a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America” and a “felony group.” He lied about Energy’s wage on the company and falsely claimed that USAID funds Politico. At one level, Musk even boosted a put up calling the company “essentially the most gigantic world terror group in historical past,” showing to seek advice from USAID’s well-documented function as a automobile for regime change and political interference.
However this isn’t a principled anti-imperialist reckoning. In 2020, Musk declared in a since-deleted tweet: “We are going to coup whoever we wish! Cope with it,” referring to the US-backed coup towards Evo Morales in Bolivia—a rustic wealthy in lithium and different minerals important to the manufacturing of Musk’s electrical autos.
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However all the identical, there isn’t any purpose to blindly defend USAID.
It’s no secret that the company is an extension of America’s aggressive international coverage. It was first created by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to counter affect from the Soviet Union through the Chilly Warfare. Within the a long time since, USAID has played a key role in efforts designed to crush socialist actions, foment regime change, and safeguard US company pursuits worldwide. It has additionally been remarkably ineffective at precise growth. Most USAID spending goes strictly to American firms or sources, and never native organizations, which actively undermines growth in these nations and retains the susceptible depending on the US. The US authorities can be identified to make use of the company to fund and disguise its propaganda shops overseas. In 2010, for instance, USAID reportedly led a venture to secretly create a “Cuban Twitter” geared toward stirring unrest to set off regime change.
The US incessantly condemns teams just like the Houthis, who’ve accused the US and Israel of utilizing humanitarian help as a canopy for espionage, attacking help convoys, or blocking humanitarian entry. However how can Washington declare the ethical excessive floor when its personal officers are proudly admitting that its help applications are strategic instruments somewhat than purely humanitarian ones? If US help is usually a computer virus for broader geopolitical ambitions, then it’s cheap for any international authorities to be skeptical of US-linked help applications. The second the US overtly ties help to mineral extraction, political manipulation, and its world energy performs, that help ceases to be benevolent in any significant sense.
The Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace, a DC-based suppose tank, lately revealed a piece on the “heartlessness” of the Trump administration’s upheaval of American international help. But in making their case in protection of USAID, they affirm what critics of US international coverage have lengthy argued.
“The concept U.S. international help has been some form of pageant of beneficiant charity disconnected from U.S. pursuits is laughable,” wrote Thomas Carothers, director of Carnegie’s Democracy, Battle, and Governance Program. “Simply take a look at the record of the largest recipients of U.S. aid—it’s no coincidence they’re virtually all safety companions or nations of safety concern.”
He’s proper. And whereas it’s necessary for folks to face towards Musk and Trump’s unlawful assault on the federal government, it’s equally necessary to not fake that these establishments are beacons of decency. We have to transfer past these simplistic binaries and push for a mannequin that rejects each Trump’s fascism and the type of imperialism that has outlined USAID for therefore lengthy.
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