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Why cutting USAID will hurt American foreign policy
Ian's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take for today on USAID, the US Agency for International Development, which is in the process of being shut down. Nearly all Washington staff have been put on leave, they're closing missions abroad, the State Department moving to evacuate all staff around the world. Why should we care? Does this matter? This agency was set up back over 50 years ago, 1961, by then President John F. Kennedy, and it was meant to coordinate the distribution of foreign aid for the United States all over the world and differentiate that from military support that was provided by the United States.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the US isn't providing charity, that's not what foreign aid is, that it should be providing support for US national interests. And I agree that it should be providing support for US national interest, but it is important to recognize that actually when USAID was set up, it was set up in part as charity, that President Kennedy's position was that the United States had a moral obligation to support poorer people, and poorer countries around the world. They are fellow human beings, after all, and the United States has historically benefited massively from developing resources all around the world, and frequently, the people that lived in those countries didn't get very much as a consequence, and the US has benefited massively, as have other wealthy countries, from industrialization, and putting carbon into the atmosphere that now poor countries can't do because of climate change, and we're saying, "We need to transition," but the US, of course, has gotten the benefits of that historically.
You know, my view is, I'm okay with charity. I actually think that helping save lives with food and medicine for millions of people and especially babies and children. I mean, even if it did nothing for the United States directly, I would be okay with spending some of the money of American taxpayers on that, especially as opposed to say a war in Afghanistan or the latest sort of bomber program that is expensive and more than the Americans need. So, I push back on the US should never do charity argument. But leaving that aside, you don't need that argument to focus on the importance of USAID.
And I want to, before I get into the national interest side, I do want to say I am empathetic with why it is unpopular. Because at a moment when so many average Americans feel like the US government has not taken care of them, and this is why you see so much backlash against all of the illegal immigrants that have not been addressed by administrations for many years, and why there's so much backlash against the US establishment, whether it's Democrat or Republican, in saying, "What about the average working American? What about our healthcare? What about our public school system? What about things that you should care a lot more about than sending aid to brown people around the world?" Which is essentially what USAID is mostly doing. I get that. And in that regard, it's an easy target for Trump. It's a particularly easy target for Elon Musk. I would ask first, "Why tax cuts for and regulations written by billionaires in the United States before poor people and Americans?" That would be my higher priority if I was really, really angry and antagonized by how badly money is being spent in the US. But that's a different story.
The point is you don't need to make the argument of charity. It is very clear that US foreign aid supports America's economic and national security interests. It is growing markets for consumers, for American businesses and products all over the world. The US has the biggest businesses. It has the biggest market. It benefits the most from other countries around the world having more capacity to sustainably consume and engage with those businesses. America benefits in having more health security by containing disease and pandemics because those diseases and pandemics don't suddenly stop at the American border. The US benefits from aid that reduces insurgencies creating instability that leads to more illegal migration all over the world, many of whom ultimately end up in the United States. It creates more economic opportunity and safety and security in origin countries. And that is a carrot that matters. It's not just about sticks. It's a carrot for economic statecraft that gives the Americans more influence as opposed to say the Russians, or more importantly the Chinese.
Because getting rid of USAID and cutting back on all these programs creates a vacuum. And that is an opportunity for adversaries. I've already seen ministers from large African countries who have their American programs getting cut off, reaching out immediately to their counterparts, ministers in China saying, "Are you willing to send in the programs to replace the Americans that are leaving?" And China doesn't have the economic wherewithal, the Americans do, but they certainly will seize opportunities that are economically useful to them, long-term, because they have a much longer-term perspective on these things than a US administration that's gone in four years. So I worry about that.
I think that USAID has been America's principle interlocutor with civil society in developing countries. And to the extent that we care about those countries having systems that are more aligned with the values and standards that the United States has historically promoted, then you don't want to undermine that and allow the Chinese to come in, which has very little interest in civil society, indifferent to civil society. It's a source of intelligence for the United States. And we've seen that even if it's sometimes uncomfortable for the local governments who aren't necessarily in favor of that. It is true that all USAID projects are probably not going to ultimately be killed, that the State Department is going to take it over and Marco Rubio has said that, "There's a lot of corruption in USAID, and a lot of this money is misspent, and is spent badly, and breaks executive orders," and I am sure that is true, and I am sure that that corruption needs to be addressed. It wouldn't surprise me. The US is an incredibly bloated government system. But shooting first and asking questions later tends to kill innocencts. And that is of course the approach here. And the reality is, that Elon and Trump and their ability to act and be destructive is much greater than the damage control that the secretary of state can do at this moment. And the State Department just does not have the people or the infrastructure to execute on a lot of these programs once USAID is shut down.
And the message that this is really sending to allies is that the United States is an unreliable partner. You cannot count on it. That what they say to you in one administration is not going to be consistent in a second administration, in a way that is not true with other countries, most other countries, around the world. And so I continue to believe, as I did before Trump was inaugurated, that the US is going to see a lot of wins. A lot of countries are going to bend to his will because he's more powerful and he's willing to use that power directly. But that does not mean that the United States will long-term succeed in a law of the jungle approach, an approach which is all stick and no carrot, even when the stick is very, very big, but you can't wield it effectively for a long period of time. And other countries are learning that carrots are kind of smart. I mean, the Chinese originally perfected the all stick and no carrot approach and then saw that the United States was more effective in a lot of countries because they also had economic statecraft. They also had these commercial levers, and so the Chinese started saying, "Oh, we need to figure out how to deliver aid to a lot of these countries, doesn't have to be transparent, can work right with the governments, but ultimately that's going to give us more influence in these countries." And that is something that President Trump and his administration in the early weeks at least seemed to be jettisoning.
So I think this is Pennywise pound foolish. I think it is short-term beneficial to Trump and will look like a win for him and his base and long-term will undermine US power around the world and will of course make the world a less stable place. So on balance, I think this is a problem. It's not something that I think is going to go well. I would love to be proven wrong. I'll be watching it carefully and I think it's a good thing to be debating.
So that's it for me, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
A view of the USAID building in Washington, DC, on Feb. 1, 2025.
Musk says USAID is being shut down
The website for the US Agency for International Development, aka USAID, went dark without explanation Saturday following President Donald Trump’s freeze on foreign aid and a cryptic post on X by Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “Watch USAID tonight,” he wrote Friday.
Democrats have been warning that Trump was planning to dismantle USAID and fold it into the State Department — a move they say he lacks the legal authority to make. Murphy called it an attempt to “steal taxpayers’ money to enrich [Trump’s] billionaire cabal,” including Tesla CEO and presidential advisor Elon Musk, who has referred to USAID’s potential dissolution as “efficiency.”
Early Monday, Musk announced on his social media site X that he and Trump were shutting down USAID. The White House has not yet responded, and it remains unclear whether Musk or Trump have the legal authority to take such a step.
The funding freeze has halted billions in US-funded humanitarian, security, and development programs around the world. Hundreds of USAID employees and contractors have been furloughed or put on paid leave, and thousands more jobs are at risk.
DOGE data dump? On Sunday, meanwhile, it was reported that the Trump administration has given Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to the federal payments system, which oversees the disbursement of trillions of dollars in government funds, including social security and welfare payments. The system also contains the personal data of hundreds of millions of Americans, raising concerns about potential misuse of the data.A Politically Game-Changing Year for Better or Worse
This week we rolled out GZERO’s Top 10 Political Game Changers of the Year, which you can check out here.
Just hours ago, we named Donald Trump our No. 1 political game changer of the year. Elon Musk, whose net worth just topped a record-breaking $400 billion, is No. 2.
Let’s do a quick detour on that just to get some sense of proportionality: How much is $400 billion? It’s bigger than the nominal GDP of Musk’s birth country, South Africa, as well as countries like Belgium, Portugal, New Zealand, and Qatar (net worth and nominal GDP, of course, are not directly comparable measures but are used here to illustrated the scale of Musk’s wealth).In fact, his net worth is higher than the nominal GDP of all but about 40 countries in the world, but that’s not even why we chose him as a top game changer of the year. Musk’s crucial help in electing Trump, the influence of his social media platform, X, in the culture and political wars around the world, and his breathtaking innovations in space, electric cars, tech, and AI were all factors.
But something both Trump and Musk said this week about foreign aid merits inclusion in our game-changer discussions.
As the Assad regime dramatically fell this week, President-elect Trump declared, “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT.” An aversion to foreign intervention and an America-first isolationism is not a surprising stance from Trump, and it’s one many Americans support. But Musk, who Trump tapped to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, went even further: He expressed support for former Rep. Ron Paul’s desire to eliminate all US foreign aid. “Here’s an easy one for @DOGE !” Paul posted on X. “ELIMINATE foreign aid!”
Musk posted a reply: “Ron is not wrong.”
Musk’s partner in DOGE, Vivek Ramaswamy, picked up the baton, saying: “It’s an oxymoron that represents a waste of taxpayer dollars, but the real problem runs deeper: Americans deserve transparency on opaque foreign aid.”
There is a big difference between transparency in foreign aid and the elimination of it.
Transparency on all government spending is a net good, especially when it comes to foreign aid, so no issue there. But would eliminating foreign aid really save US taxpayers a material amount of money and make the world a safer place?
Again, some proportionality is in order.
The US budget in 2024 was about $6.75 trillion — roughly $1.8 trillion more than it collected in revenue, which is why there is such a structural deficit problem. But how much does foreign aid contribute to that? Only about $70 billion. That is less than 1% of the budget.
Some more perspective. After World War II, the US spent about 3% on the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe, which led to the longest era of peace and prosperity in world history.
That’s important because Musk and Ramaswamy are playing off the perception that foreign aid is a major drain on the US taxpayer. The truth is, if you run the newly minted DOGE and are looking for savings, foreign aid amounts to the old pennies you find between your couch cushions.
Where does US foreign aid money go?
According to a Brookings report, the US spends about 25% on humanitarian aid, like helping countries during earthquakes and disasters, and 65% on development aid, like food, education, and medical programs to stop the spread of disease. The smallest part is spent on security and helping governments in allied countries stay stable. It is one of the United States’ most fundamental expressions of soft power, and in a global world where viruses, climate change, and migration issues are all serious cross-border threats, this is a low-cost insurance policy.
Foreign aid is distributed mainly to US government agencies and nonprofit organizations. About 20% goes to multilateral organizations like, say, the UN. Some does go to foreign governments like Ukraine, and there is waste and some corruption, but overall, it is highly regulated, especially when dealing with a country with high levels of corruption.
“Accountability of U.S. economic assistance is high — the U.S. imposes stringent, some would say onerous, reporting and accounting requirements on recipients of U.S. assistance, and the General Accounting Office and agency inspector generals investigate possible misuse,” according to the Brookings Institution.
What harm could cutting it cause?
Eliminating foreign aid will produce negligible economic savings for the US economy but consequential negative results on US public safety.
Power abhors a vacuum, and if the US does not support governments or areas that are in crisis — like Syria — someone else will, like Russia, China, or Islamic State.
Closing your eyes to the global neighborhood won’t make global troubles go away. It simply limits Washington’s ability to prevent them from growing into genuine threats that will have to be dealt with one way or another. And worse, it cedes global influence to bad actors that will, eventually, also threaten US and Western stability.
A dramatic turn to US isolationism in a world of crisis would be a troubling, game-changing trend that would only make the US more vulnerable.
Elon Musk is the richest man in history and he’s in charge of government efficiency. He may cut many parts of government, but foreign aid is not the place to be penny-wise and policy-foolish.