On USAID

Alan Cai

February 7, 2025

Earlier this week, Elon Musk, head of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, announced the intended dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development or USAID, a government agency with a budget of over $40 billion tasked with overseeing and executing US efforts at foreign aid and development distribution worldwide. According to Wikipedia, USAID accounts for more than half of all civilian aid provided to foreign countries by the United States and is one of the largest such departments globally.

The move to shutter the agency, established through an executive order in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy following the passage of the Foreign Assistance Act, came in light of the Trump Administration’s temporary freezes on many government expenditures, including on almost all foreign aid. After the administration laid off nearly all of the agency’s staff, the American Federation of Government Employees successfully petitioned for a preliminary injunction against the government’s actions, halting the layoffs. Although the merits of US intervention in some countries are debatable, the lives of the civilians are not, and the fact that the American government has even considered dumping decades of carefully curated relationships with civilian communities around the globe not only serves as a testament to the extreme inconsideration our national leaders demonstrate but also sends a terrifying and inaccurate message to the rest of the world: you are pawns in our game and we will discard you at the nearest political inconvenience.

America is respected by other countries not solely because of our wealth, military might, or supposed status as the “land of opportunity.” Children wake up on the other side of the globe with heartfelt reverence for the red white and blue because they understand that beneath the shining armored cloak of Lady Liberty lies a chest of honor, dignity, and charity. No matter how much blood civil wars shed, how terribly countries’ economies collapse, or how much their political systems regress, mothers still pray for a better future for their children because they know there is one for them in America; America cares about them. How will the millions of citizens around the world maintain their admiration for our flag if we can not even protect the most powerless?

We must not burn these invisible bridges that bond our nation with the world for the aid that flows from our pockets does not simply cure the sick and help the needy — it serves as a constant reminder of America’s position and its benevolence. If Trump is going to make America great again, he must not start by tarnishing our international reputation. It shouldn’t take a labor union for the government to recognize that its actions have gone too far. We must reinstate and resume the full functionality of USAID as soon as possible to ensure that the damage to our name is minimized.