The Legacy of the 47th

"You know the excuses: We can't afford foreign aid anymore, or we're wasting money pouring it into these poor countries, or we can't buy friends - other countries just take the money and dislike us for giving it. Well, all these excuses are just that excuses - and their dead wrong." 

-- President Ronald Reagan (1987)

Once again, I find myself quoting President Ronald Reagan. I used to think that I did not agree with anything that the Ol' Gipper used to say or any policy that he used to promote. However, a few weeks ago, I found myself agreeing with President Reagan's views about immigration, along with the contribution that immigrants make to the United States. Now, I find myself agreeing with President Reagan again. This time, the subject involves foreign aid. While President Reagan was speaking about foreign aid generally, I find that his sentiment applies with particular force to the United States Agency for International Development or USAID. 

USAID was established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 with the purpose of promoting international developments and humanitarian assistance.  Of course, there was also another reason for USAID, to enable the United States to exert "soft power" across the world to counter the Soviet Union's growing influence, especially in lesser developed countries who suffered the deprivation and exploitation caused vby decades and even centuries of colonialism. 

For more than 60 years, USAID has had a positive impact in many different ways.  When it comes to health, USAID programs cut the under-five mortality rate around the world by 50% since 1990. In just a period of three years, from 2020 to 2023, programs decreased the annual maternal death rate in certain areas by 40%. USAID preograms have also played key roles in eliminating smallpox, reducing polio, and countering the spread of HIV/AIDs. 

And, when it comes to food, which is the subject of this blog, USAID programs have distributed food to help over 4 billion people. Indeed, in 2022 alone, USAID provide over 4 billion pounds of American-grown food to 58 million people around the world through the Food for Peace program, much of which was further distributed by the United Nations World Food Program. Another USAID initative, Feed the Future, and emergency assistance have saved an estimated 92 million people from dying of starvation over the past 20 years. 

Distribution of food aid by USAID in Cameroon (Source: U.S. Embassy in Cameroon)

USAID played an important role for decades, but it was not perfect. Its programs bolstered U.S. agricultural producers, rather than developing or empowering growers and producers in other countries to better provide for themselves and their communities. Aid programs that helped local producers and workers take care of their families  could create a tax base within the country, providing funds to improve infrastructure and markets. These objectives would help lift entire communities in lesser developed countries out of poverty, as well as bring an end to the continuous cycles of emergencies that trap countries in poverty. 

Rather than improve USAID, the 47th President destroyed the agency, and for no good reason. The President claimed that USAID was run by "a bunch of radical lunatics" as a "criminal organization." None of that true. The 47th President's true objection to USAID is that the agency does not operate on a clear-cut, transactional basis: the ultimatum is not directly stated, upfront, before any assistance is provided. Every assistance "transaction" must be leveraged to coerce significant concessions, like access to natural resources. The focus moves away from the plight of those who need the assistance to the geo-political interests of "a bunch of radical lunatics" working either from a large white house or a building named after the 33rd President, Harry S. Truman.

The cost of destroying USAID for a corporate-style transactional development program has been devastating. Researchers from Boston University and The Lancet estimate that between 600,000 to more than 750,000 people have died because of the dismantling of USAID. That is the equivalent of a city from the size of Memphis, Tennessee (602,184) to Denver, Colorado (734,718). And, the dead are disproprotionally children, perhaps to two-thirds of the total dead. This is, as historian Richard Rhodes has described, "public man-made death." 

Map showing the deaths prevented by USAID programs generally from 2000 to 2021
Source: UCLA Field School of Public Health

And, here is the thing, if you are reading this post anywhere in the United States, Western Europe, Australia, or East Asia (like South Korea or Tokyo), you would have no conception of that toll. I certainly don't as I sit typing this post. But, there 10,000 to 13,000 people who worked for USAID who did understand the stakes. There are countless numbers of people -- those in the affected areas, from Bolivia to Cambodia and many places in between -- who are eyewitnesses to the the death caused by the end of these programs. The death toll will continue to climb, possibly reaching an estimated 14 million deaths by 2030.  That is equal to the entire population of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (14,023,100). 

The 47th President does not care about the consequences. That much is clear. But, we should care, and care deeply. UCLA Fielding School professor James Manko once described USAID in interesting terms: "U.S. citizens contribute about 17 cents per day to USAID, around $64 per year." That is about $5.30 per month, that is less than the cost of one month of Netflix, Apple One, or Disney Plus. Indeed, the entire USAID budget -- $21.7 billion in 2024 -- is dwarfed by the current budget of the Department of Defense, which is $839 billion.  Put simply, the USAID budget is 2.5% of the DOD budget. 

But, this is about more than dollars and cents. It is about who we are. Are we a people so self-interested that we are not willing to demand that our government help people less fortunate, not just here but elsewhere around the world. Many of us make donations to private organizations who provide assistance and run programs in areas that were served by USAID. But, this is not something that the "private sector" should be doing on its own. Governments are supposed to lead, and do so by example. For over 60 years, the US -- through USAID -- did so, albeit in a less-than-perfect fashion. But it still did it. 

Our choices tell us everything about who we are. The current war being waged by the U.S. and Israel costs the United States about $12.7 billion every day. After two days of war, we could have funded USAID. Since February 28, 2026, more than ___ days have passed, which means we could have funded more than ___ USAIDs or equivalent domestic assistance agencies that provide health, nutritional, and educational assistance both around the world. 

It's time to not only restore our country's moral and ethical compass, but to improve on it as well. Hopefully, it is not too late.

PEACE.