USAID's Demise Was Long A GOP Fantasy

Now It's Our Global Nightmare

The Trump Administration’s decision to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) isn’t just an attempt to find savings out of a bloated budget - it’s the culmination of a decades-long conservative fantasy: to strip American foreign policy of its most humane, effective, and visionary arm. And now, today, that fantasy has become a harsh reality.

For me, this is personal. My first job in government was at USAID. It was a place filled with Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, like myself, who were dedicated to promoting global peace while advancing American interests and values.

Now that is gone.

Terminating USAID will harm, if not potentially kill millions; will cost us far more in blood and treasure than it saves in dollars; and it will serve as a gift to our global adversaries like China, Russia, and Iran. That’s not just bad policy. That’s sabotage.

Since USAID was founded by President Kennedy in 1961, it has been a beacon of American idealism, pragmatism, and influence. It’s the agency that builds schools in Afghanistan, delivers HIV medication to Sub-Saharan Africa, supports civil society in Ukraine, and funds food aid in the Horn of Africa. For the cost of less than 1% of the federal budget, it has prevented wars, fostered democratic transitions, saved lives, and expanded American global leadership.

So why eliminate it?

Because for decades, the far-right of American politics has viewed development aid not as a strategic asset, but as an ideological nuisance. From Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-NC) railing against foreign aid in the 1980s to the Tea Party scorning multilateralism in the 2010s, there’s been a steady drumbeat coming from the far-right: retreat from the world, slash the foreign aid budget, and reduce American foreign policy to nothing more than military might.

Donald Trump, with his America First mantra, Project 2025 playbook, and DOGE implementation, finally gave that movement its sledgehammer.

But here’s the reality: USAID isn’t just a “nice to have” moral gesture. It’s a core component of our national security. Ask any four-star general. The Pentagon has long acknowledged that development and diplomacy are the first lines of defense, with the military as a last resort. As General Jim Mattis, former Defense Secretary under President Trump, put it bluntly: “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.” The same goes for USAID.

Without it, we will pay more. Not just in lost influence, but in crises that spiral into conflicts. Refugee flows will increase. Global health threats will fester. Environmental degradation will accelerate. Extremism will find more fertile ground. Alliances and partnerships will fray. We’ll trade early prevention for late-stage intervention - at a far higher cost.

That’s exactly what our adversaries want.

Beyond USAID, our assistance programs overall are being dismantled, handing a strategic victory to Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran. China has already been filling the global health vacuum at the World Health Organization, stepping in with needed funds when we’ve stepped away; expect this dynamic to accelerate. Russia is exporting its influence in fragile states through disinformation while we eliminate democracy support around the world; expect this dynamic to accelerate. Iran represses its people and shuts down communications with the outside world while we eliminate the Voice of America’s Farsi service, ensuring Iranians don’t understand our recent actions; expect this dynamic to accelerate.

This isn’t just shortsighted. It’s foreign policy surrender.

USAID is also one of the few instruments we have that aligns our values with our interests. In new democracies, it supports independent media and anti-corruption reform. In regions at risk of famine, it prevents humanitarian catastrophe. In post-conflict societies, it stabilizes the peace. These are the building blocks of a safer world. Gutting USAID won’t just shrink our footprint - it will destroy the scaffolding of peace and progress that we spent generations constructing.

And let’s be clear: this didn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s the predictable endpoint of a conservative worldview that has long equated engagement with weakness and aid with waste. It’s rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of American power - seen not as a tool to help and inspire, but only as a tool to coerce.

There was a time - a brief moment - when conservatives raised their hands in support of development assistance, particularly during the Bush Administration. But those days have long passed and now the Republican Party is the party of USAID’s dismantlement. It must find a way back to the patriotic bipartisan ethos that it once had if we as a country are ever again going to show an outstretched hand to the world.

This is a defining moment. We have now borne witness to an ideological crusade gutting one of America’s most valuable agencies and the work it advances. For those of us who care about America continuing to have a role on the world stage that promotes both our interests and values through non-military means, we must find new ways to support the remnants of a decimated American foreign aid infrastructure.

Because if we don’t, the world won’t wait for us to come back.