The Trump administration tore down USAID before figuring out what it actually did.
Because USAID was shuttered so quickly and with little warning, lots of people traveled for desperate medical care or food, just to find the USAID location shutdown. Lots of people died.
The State Department has not released the data needed to see how many people died.
Marco Rubio used to say if you want to know how important USAID is, just travel to Africa and see the many lives of children saved at relative low cost by the American taxpayer. Such people are less likely to be radicalized or become anti-American. Yet, Rubio didn’t, or couldn’t, save USAID under the Trump administration.
DOGE bros were uninformed and just smacked the table and yelled at people. Some of them thought USAID mostly did abortions. USAID doesn’t do abortions. DOGE tore down USAID because Elon Musk demanded it.
When it comes to understanding government policy, Elon Musk is incompetent and his actions have killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Musk claimed that if USAID activities could even send him flimsy evidence that they were doing something useful, DOGE wouldn’t cut it. But Musk’s and Trump’s DOGE cut USAID programs that in total saved half a million to one million preventable deaths a year.
The head of USAID during W Bush’s presidency says that the idea that USAID is a Marxist organization is ridiculous. He said that while he was head, he moved the organization to the right and focused on free market reforms, and when Obama came in, he moved it to the left; the career people do what the people at the top tell them to do. Trump just came in and destroyed it.
People are dying because they are not getting medicines that U.S. Aid used to bring them. Many of these medicines were already donated, but they go expired because U.S. Aid, who would be delivering them, was gutted by Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE.
“The lawsuit filed by USAID employees and contractors argued that Musk and DOGE are wielding power the Constitution reserves only for those who win elections or are confirmed by the Senate.”