Donald Trump posted on Truth Social last week that USAID’s spending “IS TOTALLY UNEXPLAINABLE…CLOSE IT DOWN!”
Hmm. Maybe I can explain.
Eleven years ago, I visited a USAID water project in Senegal that supports the country’s efforts to achieve universal access to water and sanitation. In Rwanda, I visited a huge solar array that provides power to its capital city, Kigali.
In 2023, USAID spent $44 billion, leveraging a 3-to-1 match from private sources and other countries. Some of that money fights malaria and other diseases, saving lives by providing something as basic as mosquito nets in countries like Tanzania, Zanzibar, Madagascar, Liberia, and Nigeria.
These are but a few of the countries that will be screwed by the elimination of USAID. And I haven’t even begun talking about us. Aid is one of our most valuable forms of soft power. It builds good will. It combats extreme poverty and hopelessness, two of the biggest contributing factors to young men becoming terrorists—terrorists who might not like us very much after we stop supplying basic necessities.
And when USAID buys products to give away, where do you think they come from? American farmers and processors. Last year, USAID spent $70 million buying commodities from Minnesota companies.
But Trump and his buddy, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, have essentially chosen to shut the agency down—and instead spend all or most of the as-of-now unspent $8 billion on tax breaks for their friends and other billionaires.
Midwest Values PAC believes this is not just insane, but immoral.
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P.S. China and Russia are licking their chops to come into these countries and backstop our commitments to developing countries, which were heretofore in our corner.
