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Does Trump’s Attempted “Dismantling” of Spook-Infested, Regime Change Agency USAID Herald a New Foreign Policy Era?

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Many are celebrating how the Trump administration sent the “Department of Government Efficiency” grim reaper after the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Some believe it is a blow to US meddling and regime change efforts that frequently lead to instability and conflict across the globe. Others are doing a happy dance because they say USAID was wasteful spending on a whole range of items, including liberal-DEI projects around the world.

Could they both end up being disappointed? As Lambert pointed out in his Monday post, “USAID is an agency established by Congress; Elon can’t just abolish it.”  And it looks like the Trump team doesn’t intend to abolish it but rather rehouse and rebrand it.

Let’s first take a look at what’s going on with USAID before turning to any potential larger implications for US foreign policy.

President John F. Kennedy created USAID using an executive order in 1961, and Congress passed the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, codifying USAID as an independent agency. According to Politico, it has more than 9,000 people on staff serving in more than 100 countries, and “the secretary [of state] technically has authority over USAID’s funding, and the two institutions are lumped together in congressional appropriations. But generally, USAID operates without much micro-managing from the State Department…”

In defense of USAID many point to the funds that USAID provides for global programs like vaccination efforts, but we also know that even those are sometimes used as cover for other clandestine activities, such as the CIA effort to track down Osama bin Laden using USAID and Save the Children hepatitis B vaccination campaign in Pakistan. The blowback from the CIA involvement set back vaccination efforts across Pakistan and West Asia and likely led to polio outbreaks across the region. Lee Fang also details how the agency provides backdoor ways for the American government to finance propaganda against American citizens.

The fact is we don’t how often the CIA is using USAID programs to further whatever schemes it has cooked up, but it is clear that whatever USAID’s original intentions and whatever good work it might do in the world, it is also a vehicle for the empire to control, subvert, and orchestrate color revolutions against foreign governments. Here’s a quick breakdown on USAID’s recent role in spreading US influence (and chaos and death) in Eastern Europe:

The agency has therefore helped contribute to countless deaths from Eastern Europe to the Middle East to Latin America and Southeast Asia. I think we can conclude that USAID, while it may offer some worthwhile programs that actually help people, is also a front for the intelligence community’s destabilization efforts which are a scourge on the planet, and it would be the world’s gain to see it dismantled.

Naturally, the Democrats are opposed. They finally roused themselves after Musk said President Trump had agreed to shut USAID down. We haven’t heard a peep about the assault on the National Labor Relations Board, but Democrats are choosing the USAID hill to fight on:

Will they be able to find the time to defend USAID while also staying on their other messages like war with Iran:

And defending the “good” billionaires:

While some legal experts saying an act of Congress is needed to “dismantle” USAID because it was codified as an independent agency by the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, dismantling USAID isn’t exactly what the Trump administration is doing. From Politico:

Two incoming Trump administration officials familiar with the matter said the president’s team is exploring subsuming the agency into the State Department…One current and one former USAID official said the agency is deliberating on whether to fully transfer its financial management system for all its awards, known as the Phoenix program, under the State Department to better streamline the two agencies’ parallel work on foreign aid…

“This idea has been floated by nearly every administration since USAID was established by Congress in 1998,” said Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “I’m supportive of efforts to reform and restructure the agency in a way that better serves U.S. national security interests and will look for ways to do just that.”

That’s neocon Risch who’s fond of the “Russia is a gas station masquerading as country” line and whose donors include Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman, so good to know he and his benefactors are on board.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday that he is acting administrator of the USAID, which might signify that the State Department is going to be taking a more hands-on approach to the agency. Rubio added in a letter to lawmakers that he is delegating authority to Pete Marocco, a Trump appointee who served at USAID in the president’s first term. More from CNN:

Rubio, in a letter to the heads of Congress’ committees on foreign affairs and appropriations Monday, said he had authorized Marocco “to begin the process of engaging in a review and potential reorganization of USAID’s activities to maximize efficiency and align operations with the national interest.”

“The Department of State and other pertinent entities will be consulting with Congress and the appropriate committees to reorganize and absorb certain bureaus, offices, and missions of USAID,” he wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by CNN.

“USAID may move, reorganize, and integrate certain missions, bureaus, and offices into the Department of State, and the remainder of the Agency may be abolished consistent with applicable law,” he wrote.

What will it look like bureaucratically when the legal dust settles? Project 2025 offers one possible outcome, as Politico describes:

There are multiple ways to let the State Department exert greater control over USAID without necessarily formally dismantling the latter.

One option the administration could pursue is having the USAID administrator also serve as the State Department’s director of foreign assistance. The person who holds the latter role has traditionally worked closely with USAID, and the idea of merging or dual-hatting the positions is suggested in Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation vision authored by many who now work for Trump.

Why Is Trump Going After USAID and Does It Herald a Change in US Foreign Policy?

Mark Ames provides maybe the simplest and most plausible explanation, especially when we consider the above rumblings about folding USAID into the State Department:

Many believe that the changes to USAID herald a new day in US foreign policy. For example, Arnaud Bertrand wrote the following:

While all that would certainly be welcome, here are some reasons to be doubtful.

First, look at what they’re saying. From CNN describing what amounts to a rebranding:

Speaking to the press in El Salvador, Rubio said the “functions of USAID” must align with US foreign policy and that it is “a completely unresponsive agency.”

When asked about the arguments that USAID’s work is vital to national security and promoting US interests, Rubio said, “There are things that USAID, that we do through USAID, that we should continue to do, and we will continue to do.”

“This is not about ending the programs that USAID does, per se,” he said.

This looks more like an attempt to bring under control rogue agencies that were hostile to Trump during his first term in office.

Simultaneously, it could signify a change in recipients of US aid. Here’s Trump on Monday:

“We just want to do the right thing. It’s something that should have been done a long time ago. Went crazy during the Biden administration. They went totally crazy what they were doing and the money they were giving to people that shouldn’t be getting,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

…Pressed about his support for USAID during his first term in office, Trump said he loved the “concept” but not the execution of the agency’s mission.

“They turn out to be radical left lunatics. And the concept of it is good, but it’s all about the people,” he said.

So aid is likely to continue to new recipients abroad once the bureaucracy at home is sorted. I wrote the following back in November and think it still stands:

To be clear, the following is not an argument that Trump represents a unique threat. If anything, his warranted quest for revenge against certain neocon factions and Blob outfits could produce net positives. On the other hand, he is the product of our plutocrat-controlled capitalist system just as Biden, Trump I, and Obama before him. And so short of overhauling the system, the question becomes how will it make use of the Trump administration at this time?

Let’s remember that it was mere months ago that Silicon Valley was largely aligned with the Biden Administration. How quickly things can change.

Tech, finance, government, and Israel are set to be aligned again under Trump, as they are with most every administration. Maybe one difference between Biden and Trump is that we switch out the extreme identity politics for the more old-fashioned religious fanatics:

So in Europe, for example, rather than a Biden administration chummy with Ursula von der Leyen, Olaf Scholz, and Emmanuel Macron we get a Trump administration reorienting all levers of foreign policy towards the likes of Giorgia Meloni, the Alternative for Germany, and other putative nationalists who will be loyal to Trump and are able to rebrand Europe’s vassalage and neoliberalism as some sort of victory against the grating virtue signalling of the Davos cabal while continuing to assist the US oligarchs in the plundering of Europe.

The objective is still American primacy and expansion for American capital.

Any change in marketing is more likely an indication that the plutocrats and their think tanks believe the “woke” empire reached its sell-by-date, and it’s time to rebrand.

More than an acceptance of multipolarity, this is probably more a reflection of disappointment with some of the returns from the Biden administration — especially on the Russia collapse bet. So while the plutocrats might be forced to accept that running an unwinnable proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is stupid strategy, which it is (as well as a human tragedy), and Trump is tasked with getting out of the mess, that doesn’t herald a seachange in how US plutocrats view the world.

Indeed, the Trump administration’s argument seems to be that it has a better way to increase American oligarchs’ returns: pick fights you can win, control shipping lanes, increase plunder of vassals, and perhaps target those members of BRICS that are weaker than Russia and China.

Second, it would be quite the shock if Elon “we will coup whoever we want” Musk is suddenly the champion of the US imperialism victims. And the talking points are bogus historical revisionism:

In reality the agency was about spreading freedom for American capital to plunder other nations and took aim at any Marxists trying to prevent such pillaging. And millions of Communists were killed by CIA-backed regimes during Cold War conflicts across the world.

Whatever programs USAID continues with under its new State Department guidance, it’s probably a safe bet it’ll still be working for the likes of Musk and his pals and will continue to try and help coup (almost) everyone they want.

I guess we’ll see. I would love to be wrong.

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60 comments

  1. ciroc

    Interesting…will USAID magically become less of a “criminal organization” once it is integrated into the State Department?

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      1. Starry Gordon

        Maybe they’ll even manage that. I am pretty sure diversity is helpful in con games, for instance. Any organ of the American state is an organ of empire. Diversity has positive value (for rulers, especially) in many areas.

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  2. Louis Fyne

    irrespective of a Normie’s political ideology, USAID turned rotten to fhe core.

    If someone said that Samantha Power was in the mold of the median NC reader, I would think that they were high or a dolt. There is institutional rot in the non-profit international development aid world as well.

    tangent: Lately every time I talk to Mom, she moans about how Goodwill has gone insane with their pricing (and removal of senior promos)….Mom would rather buy new.

    Let’s burn down the village and “year-zero” this thing. not holding my breath obviously.

    DCDems will have their chance toburn down Rubio’s creation….eventually

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  3. DJG, Reality Czar

    This is the most important observation: “We haven’t heard a peep about the assault on the National Labor Relations Board, but Democrats are choosing the USAID hill to fight on.”

    The Republican Party is all about will to power, hierarchy, and tax breaks for the top 10 percent. USAID is being re-branded to ensure that these addictions go international.

    It goes without saying, but let’s say it: As Conor Gallagher points out, “In reality the agency was about spreading freedom for American capital to plunder other nations and took aim at any Marxists trying to prevent such pillaging. And millions of Communists were killed by CIA-backed regimes during Cold War conflicts across the world.”

    Vietnam. Chile. Argentina. Brazil. El Salvador. Indonesia. Guatemala. Hell, even Uruguay (I recall working on an Amnesty International campaign after the U.S.-sponsored coup in Uruguay). Bipartisan efforts, all.

    So now the lid is off the box and the maggots are crawling around, unappetizingly. Sure, many programs have to be salvaged — particularly related to public health. But what is public health in post-Covid, panicked, suspicious, belief-addled U S of A?

    And where are the Democrats? Selling out working people. Trying to make their proxy wars in Ukraine and Palestine seem like the work of liberation. Cheerleading for the FBI. Taking stock tips from Nancy Pelosi.

    If liberals can’t even get it together to defeat sweaty, melodramatic lightweights like Pete Hegseth, what the hell are liberals up to these days?

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  4. pjay

    I think Conor’s take is the correct one. I see very little reason to get my hopes up that Trump or those in his administration (Rubio?) will institute any major changes – at least positive changes – in the way the US deals with the world. The only “redeeming” feature I can see in Trump is his tendency to say the quiet parts out loud, as in his open support for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. At least the world can see what it is up against when that happens. It would also be nice if while the administration was cleaning house it exposed some of our more despicable “deep state” shenanigans to public scrutiny – sort of a “Family Jewels 2.0. I doubt this happens, and if it did it would be a partisan affair to go after some of Trump’s Russiagate enemies, as Conor suggests.

    I also second ciroc’s question above. Is there any reason to think folding USAID completely into the State Department would improve things? Over the last 30 years State has steadily become less an institution for diplomacy and more and more a Ministry of Propaganda. As far as I can tell that is its main function today. This is what needs to be changed. Otherwise it will be business as usual.

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    1. Chris Cosmos

      In embassies USAID and USIS both served as CIA conduits. There is no ambiguity here. Trump, rightly, wants to bring CIA and other agencies to heel. The CIA and the rest of the Intel “community” are their own masters and power centers. Trump, rightly, wants to centralize power and weaken the Deep State which consists of a network of agencies and contractors (who are entwined with them and not answerable to anyone) that mainly run US foreign policy. Trump, rightly, wants to run that policy and USAID is one tip of one spear that needs to be brought to hell and minimum.

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      1. Michael Fiorillo

        Trump wants to get back at those factions in the National Security State that undermined him during his first term, and replace them with the sh*^heel college libertarian yes man-types who gravitate to him. Punto finito.

        To think that he wants to “weaken the Deep State” is contrary to his inclinations and behavior, and strikes me as extremely optimistic at best, naive at worst.

        Anything he does to disengage from Ukraine is as Conor says, a grudging recognition by the Overclass to cut losses and move on. Trump, with his history of screwing people over, is just the man for turning his back on “our Ukrainian allies.”

        Whatever he does there, a humbler geo-strategic footprint and willful diminution of US imperial reach under Trump is not in the cards.

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  5. JohnH

    USAID, along with its grantee, the National Endowment for Democracy, were ground zero for regime change and color revolutions, often tightly aligned with the CIA. Given the urgency Trump felt in quashing USAID activities, you have to wonder whether the color revolutions were getting too close to home.

    Let’s not forget that many suspect that the CIA was involved in the JFK assassination. If that is true, it is not at all far fetched to think that their successors might try it again. In the case of the JFK assassination, Alan Douglas, the CIA Director fired by JFK in 1961, went on to serve on the Warren Commission, quite possibly even taking the role of directing the coverup, if there indeed was one.

    How else would you explain the urgency and high priority that Trump felt in dismantling the agency?

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    1. Yves Smith

      First, it was not Trump but Musk as part of DOGE.

      Second, Europe of late has been a focus of US regime change operations: Ukraine. Hungary (failed efforts to defeat Orban). Bulgaria (failed efforts to defeat Lukashenko). Georgia. Romania. Moldova. The US was no doubt backing opposition to AfD in Germany.

      The EU has been trying to get Twitter to adhere to various EU disinformation standards, which are clearly intended to limit the reach of populists, often demonized as far right. Musk supports the AfD and Orban, to much explosion of heads in Brussels and other capitals. The EU had threatened big fines and/or barring Twitter in the EU (I confess to not checking on the latest state of play).

      So this is Musk kneecapping the regime change operation so as to promote the odds of politicians aligned with him elected.

      Third, Kennedy created USAID. And I have never heard anyone suggest that USAID does wet work. I have heard from someone with many Global South diplomatic connections that is it widely believed in those circles that the CIA relies heavily on Mossad for that (with examples of particular assassinations cited).

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      2. AG

        >”The US was no doubt backing opposition to AfD in Germany.”
        I have no proof but I doubt it.

        (Correctiv is well enough embedded with German ruling elites. With or without US State Department or NED. I´d rather assume they didn´t do anything. And on a broader scale they would know that their meddling in Syria et al. would rather increase AfDs visibility. If there had been real attempts to destroy the party it could have been pulled off.)

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        1. Yves Smith

          Let us put this another way: Given that we just found out that the US spent $41 million in itty bitty Georgia trying to influence its elections (not clear if over time or just the last one), it seems hard to believe that the US was not trying to influence elections in Germany, including related to trying to tamp down support for AfD. Look at the US/Anglosphere media faithfully amplifyies the claim that AfD is “far right” and even Nazi-affiliated, as oppose to, say “right wing nationalist” or “right wing populist”.

          Mind you, trying to exert influence does not necessarily mean that the US has succeeded.

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    2. Otto Reply

      Allen Dulles was the CIA chief fired by JFK as part of a plan to break the CIA into a million pieces over Bay of Pigs. USAID was so new at the time, it’s unlikely the CIA had fully infiltrated it. As Yves notes, USAID didn’t get involved with wet work. For that, the CIA had executive action plans like ZR/Rifle and more.

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    3. JohnH

      USAID was the first shoe. Today the second shoe fell: Trump offered CIA employees a buy-out. Since the CIA has managed to stifle effective oversight, I would expect those departing to be obligated to disclose the operations they and those around them were involved in.

      “Trump and his allies have claimed at different points that intelligence officers at the CIA have been part of a “deep state” determined to undermine him, and some critics have described the deferred resignation program as a purge – something Trump officials have denied.”
      https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/politics/cia-workforce-buyouts/index.html

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  6. hoki_haya

    Tie it to Trump’s ‘plan’ for Palestinians. Just written, from northern Armenia, a few minutes before seeing Conor’s essay:

    I’ve sensed a kind of unspoken but palpable feeling on the ground here throughout the day, “If he’s willing to do that to the Palestinians, then no wonder America didn’t lift a finger for Artsakh, and what will eventually become of all of us?”

    As an American guest in this land, to which I owe so much of my ongoing education, I feel I have to answer for it – firstly, this ‘plan’ is impossible on prevalent surface and subtle levels. This is where ‘thinking as a pragmatic businessman’ falls short when dealing with historical, intersocietal and geopolitical realities. Hopefully alternate solutions will correct it, tho in America it remains nearly forbidden to contradict Israeli aims and means, no matter who’s in the Oval.

    I have no problem whatsoever with going after USAID, NED, hopefully IRI and some others – I welcome it and advocated for it – but if the succeeding plan is to do away with less visible skullduggery in favor of more blatantly trying to perform social engineering on a massive global scale, then our problems increase exponentially.

    The mere pursual of the idea sounds alarms in many quarters. He’s right that the way things have been cannot continue, but appeasing Israel and attempting to enforce mass migration is fraught with recklessness, hubris and naivete.

    What European settlers did to the indigenous Americans is certainly a mentality, consciously and subconsciously, still in existence. No country has been in violation of international law more than Israel – uphold and enforce those laws. If not upheld, it only encourages more devastation.

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    1. Camacho

      American guests are those that are running Armenia into the ground. I hope these events help Armenians realize that sooner rather than later, and take a page out of the Georgian book.

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  7. Not Moses

    Like with most of Trump’s big, beautiful ideas and proposals, chaos reigns supreme. Consider Trump’s announcement of his intention of taking over Gaza to develop the beach front property, while displacing almost two million people. If that sounds beyond absurd, so are his other initiatives, including the remake of USAID as proposed. Trump’s visceral instinct all around is revenge and personal economic benefit. No matter how you paint Trumpism, it’s not about improving the much-needed government functioning.
    At the outset, the challenge are the people he’s selected for the job. By all measures, the appointees are individuals with little to non-existent expertise. If the goal is the remake of a very complex bureaucracy, then at minimum there has to be subject matter expertise, experience running large organizations. Communication with the country. Pity the DOD.
    USAID can very well be a front for CIA-run nefarious initiatives, but to broadcast to the country’s enemies and competitors, a) that the country is and has been running illegal operations, hurts the nation’s future. b) the haphazardness and haste of Elon Musk’s access to people’s private information is criminal. Particularly as Musk has made his fortune by trafficking on people’s personal information. What classified information is Musk expecting from USAID, and for what purpose?
    Lastly, the South African billionaires around Trump are people who opposed the end of apartheid and have declared that only white men can be trusted with serious responsibilities. This where we are headed, and it’s a loser.

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    1. Chris Cosmos

      Little or no “expertise”? The point of the Trump regime is to remove the stooges who systematically betray the country with their imperial dreams (and their corruption) and replace them with smart human beings who are NOT part of the System or at least not completely. Let’s be clear here, the menace to the world and to the citizens of the US is the Federal gov’t not Iran, China, or Russia. Maybe, after the dust clears the truth will come out more dramatically than it has. The PMC/Democrats, of course, who live in the illusion that the US is a moral force for good want to remain in fantasy land–I get it. Unfortunately, the University education they received taught them that thinking and examining problems form all directions is verboten.

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      1. Mikel

        The menace is the big donors AND the govt officials they bought.
        Musk doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the American people – just how much he can skim.

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    2. marku52

      A commenter over at Ian’s begs to diffier. He points out that Trump has almost perfeictly impoemented Ian’s own “How to do a sucessful revolution”.

      T has been planning this for years. LIke it or not, he has been highly sucessful so far.
      Control the media? Get finance on your side? The military? And now the intel agencies?

      And if you go for the King, you must kill the King? Killing USAID defunds a ton of Dem causes, and probably a campaign finance funnel as well. Donate millions to a fine sounding NGO, and have the employees fund back to Dem campaigns? And now it turns out that USAID was funding Politico? The outlet they used to discredit Hunter’s laptop?
      The Self Licking Ice Cream Cone….
      https://www.ianwelsh.net/is-trump-running-a-coup/

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      1. Neutrino

        Then, purely by happenstance, Politico can’t make payroll. /s
        Who else publishes on the CIA USAID dole? For example, looking at you, Bill Kristol.

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  8. t

    The objective is still American primacy and expansion for American capital.

    Henchmen gonna hench as long as there’s a paycheck.

    Do people imagine goons are putting boots on necks and toppling democratically elected administrations for thei own amusement?

    Good billionaires is the clue. No one in power is opposed to any of this, although it might be easier if we didn’t waste money on birthing centers and treating infant diarrhea.

    Reply ↓
      1. griffen

        The notion of a good thinking billionaire is really the best way to think this through…It is welcome to understand it directly from the newly installed chair of the DNC.

        Example 1. Federal Reserve policies and US Treasury supported just those good banks from failing in 2008 to 2011. Nevermind those ex Wall Street and others that had been employed by the securities and investment industry, now employees in the Obama administration term 1…

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  9. Carolinian

    Good article and thank you. It looks like Trump is giving the game away with the Gaza shocker so worst case scenarios must be entertained.

    Reply ↓
  10. Wukchumni

    If Trump announced that he was going to throw spaghetti against the wall and then monetize it as SpaghettiCoin, the sad part is it wouldn’t be all that shocking.

    Reply ↓
    1. TomDority

      Huck Finn to Jim re Henry 8th In Adventures of Huck Finn
      Here I substitute Henry 8th for Trump
      S’pose he opened his mouth –- what then? If he didn’t shut it up powerful quick he’d lose a lie everytime.

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    2. duckies

      No Trump throwing spaghetti in Gaza, because starving locals might eat them and stay a bit longer. Also, no walls left. Sorry for the dark humor (aka too soon).

      Reply ↓
  11. Dr. John Carpenter

    Good article. I think Trump is all but telegraphing his issue isn’t with what’s being done, it’s that the wrong people are doing it. Rehousing, rebranding (is there another meme name they can reapproporate?) and restaffing seem the most likely outcome.

    Reply ↓
    1. flora

      I think the problem is the agency clearly used its tools to meddle in US elections and foreign policy through foreign cutouts. Weaponized politically within the US, in the interest of Wall St. and big money instead of a particular party, not simply against foreign countries. That’s a very big problem.

      In other news, CIA offers buyouts to all employees.
      CIA sends ‘buyout’ offers to entire workforce
      https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/politics/cia-workforce-buyouts/index.html

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      1. hk

        I was honestly hoping that Tulsi Gabbard would have thrown Benett’s question back at him: Are Clapper and Brennan traitors, yes or nor, senator? Are you a traitor against the American people, yes or no? That’s not a hard question. Hurry up. The American people are watching and waiting for an answer. Not that she’d have said anything of the sort if she wanted to be DNI, but someone should have said that out loud somewhere.

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        1. hoki_haya

          Amen.

          We’ve yet to see how much she’s conformed, or how highly her ideals were held and how that would translate to policy. I remain naive, american, and optimistic.

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    2. Chris Cosmos

      And who are the right people? I don’t get this support here for the ancien regime. You want to continue to be ruled by a state apparatus that is, as should be obvious by now, deeply negative and corrupt?

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  13. hk

    I would imagine that whether this heralds a new era depends on what one expects out of this “new era.”

    If anyone expects US is going out of the empire business at all, or that we are motivated by some kind of principle, that would be wrong.

    However, I do think this means that MO of US empiring is changing in a very fundamental way, to a less “drug-addled” version. My hunch, based on what I know of at least some USAID operations that I have seen relatively closely (as in what I know of friends/close acquaintances who worked at USAID) is that many of them are not just “spooky,” but they actually believe in what they are doing. I think true believers are the most dangerous lot: they believe that their “god” will forgive them for doing crazy stuff because they are doing the right thing in the big picture sense. In any operation of import, these people ought to be thrown out as quickly as possible. The consequence of the reorganization will be that empire business will be more measured, pragmatic, and cynical. I personally think that is an improvement.

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    1. aleph_0

      “The consequence of the reorganization will be that empire business will be more measured, pragmatic, and cynical.”

      I mean, we’ve seen Trump in power before. I really don’t think you get to use the word measured or pragmatic about the broad-daylight assassination of the generals of other nations.

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      1. hk

        We’ve also seen Trump shake hands with Kim Jong Un. He is capable of doing things a lot more level headed than the rest. We shall see how things unfold.

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        1. aleph_0

          While I give him credit for the summit, it ended with threats and sanctions so judging by outcomes, I wouldn’t count that as a point for measured after all was said and done.

          While the future is unknown, we do have a pretty good idea of the man.

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  14. AG

    “Rebranding USAID” – case in point – Bernard at MoA makes the same argument:
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/02/thoughts-on-musks-raid-of-usaid.html#comments

    “In their current configuration USAID and NED are under institutionalized congressional oversight. Taking away their independence by putting them under executive control will increase the White House’ power. Neither is likely to completely stop their dirty work but it will become more difficult to detect and expose it.”

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  15. AG

    Larry Wilkerson with Danny Haiphong reminded of the fact that almost all of the money funneled through USAID was for American based entrepreneurs affiliated with US Congress.

    p.s. is there a comprehensive chart which reveals what percentage of USAID did do good work (was there anything???) and how much was the bad shit. – 0.1 vs. 99.9%?

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  16. Aurelien

    For a very good analysis of USAID in Africa, with lots of charts and tables showing where the money goes (often to HIV-hit countries), and by an African scholar, look at
    https://www.africanistperspective.com/p/american-aid-cutsdisruptions.
    It also has some withering comments about aid dependency.
    You could write reams about the wider issues here, of which Trump’s decision is only a small part, but very briefly:
    After the end of the Cold War aid agencies moved from doing practical stuff (health, agriculture) increasingly into “stabilisation,” “conflict prevention,” “democracy promotion” and the like against a background of rather Fukuyama-ist naivety. After the disappointments of the 90s, the idea grew up that we should look at the “underlying causes” of conflict, which were of course interpreted by every organisation in ways that suited its agenda. It was argued that not just poverty and inequality, but human rights violations, unrepresentative political systems, militaries with too much power, marginalisation of women and other groups, inadequate justice systems and many other things were “causes of conflict:” I was never much convinced, but of course you can’t easily prove these kinds of assertions wrong, and a massive bureaucracy and consultancy industry developed around them. Whilst I’ve observed a lot of cynicism on the part of contractors, the aid agency staff around the world tend to be true believers, and often have substantial political and media support. The aid agency staff are recruited from the PMC and share their liberal normative view of the world, sometimes to frightening degree. For them, issues like homosexual rights are non-negotiable, and they will fund any such project with a flag on it, whether or not the tiresome locals object or not. The result is that in many countries aid agencies, wielding their sizeable budgets as a weapon, are often completely at odds with the local political system and indeed local people. They therefore recruit and work with foreign educated locals who share their convictions, or at least pretend to.

    This is in turn because aid agencies have gone off on their own and in many cases conduct what amounts to their own foreign policy, generally ideologically determined, often by creating a network of NGOs and consultants which is difficult to penetrate and often quite powerful. The major donors (Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and others) all do this in different ways. This has created a lot of problems: in the UK, DFID was pretty much out of control, and was brought back inside the Foreign Office so that it didn’t work at cross-purposes with the country’s foreign policy. The same kind of thing is obviously happening here.

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    1. hk

      This fits with what I’ve seen. I worry less about USAID as spooky organization than it being a crazy rogue crusader cult that operates on gov’t money in alliance with other dangerous types in spook agencies, media, and NGO universes that appeal to clueless PMC types. I don’t expect things would be “better,” but I’ll take cynics over fanatics.

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      1. hk

        PS. AJP Taylor had a witty remark about people looking for “underlying causes”: to paraphrase, every auto accident was caused by the invention of the internal combustion engine (or wheel?) and the desire of people to get to places faster. I suppose these will lead to “deep sounding” and technically correct answers about why “accidents” happen, but would be absolutely useless in understanding why a particular accident happened or how to prevent new ones (but perhaps justify insane ideas? Reeducation camps to convince people that wanting to get to places is immoral? Ban on wheels? To be honest, some of the ideas currently being peddled don’t serm too far from these.)

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        1. AG

          >”Reeducation camps to convince people that wanting to get to places is immoral?”
          Would make for a great comedy or short story.
          Walter Kirn would love it.

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    2. AG

      Indeed, I see, it is a huge subject.

      p.s. this thought just because I happened to re-watch the odd Le Carré adaptation”Constant Gardener” on Netflix:

      I remember in the 1990s, and early 2000s, cinema was offering tales on these various forms of cynicism that you describe. Interesting that the rise of “Third World” cinema brought about a change in the attitude of the domestic productions on these issues that got more streamlined and a-ligned with their Western supporters. Compare the last 20 years of movies that touch on this compley foreign aid, Third World etc. with the 1960s-1980s. Not only had of course the films´ style aka so-called “film language” been “industrialized” and standardized, it also purports the same messages. If there is mockery of NGOs at all today, you will find them in sitcom. It´s very sad actually how serious and self-righteous the realm of fiction has become – it used to be the last space for liberty, but now our fantasy too is being colonized and controlled.

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  17. Glen

    I agree with Mark Ames. This is a consolidation of power to prevent things like Russiagate, and to punish those that did Russiagate. To assume it signals a significant change in policy is getting a bit out there.

    I expect we will see changes because we went from Biden to Trump so priorities might shuffle around, and it’s notable that Trump is now going after supposed ALLIES rather than powerful BRICS nations, but I don’t know yet if that signals a significant shift in policy or just a more personal taste for sucker punching those that have criticized the President in the past.

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  18. AG

    Almut Rochowanski on USAID for JACOBIN:

    Western-Backed NGOs: A Hollow Version of Civil Society

    By Almut Rochowanski

    Donald Trump’s moves to dismantle USAID clearly aren’t driven by fears of infringing on other nations’ sovereignty. Still, we should recognize that Global South NGOs’ reliance on Western donors hinders the growth of self-sustaining civil societies.

    https://jacobin.com/2025/02/western-ngos-funding-civil-society

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  19. ChrisRUEcon

    I’ll take Mark Ames’ tweet over Arnaud’s.

    If #RussiaGate was an external manifestation of “our (US) oligarchs don’t like their (Russian) oligarchs”, then #TrumpDOGEGate is merely the internal manifestation of same – Dangerous Oligarchs Grabbing Everything for team red, versus “Benevolent” Oligarchs Giving Us Scraps for team blue.

    2020’s Bidenism persists: nothing will fundamentally change.

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  20. David in Friday Harbor

    Wonderful post and comments.

    I completely agree that we need a thorough housecleaning in Washington DC. The open question is whether cleaning the house with fire is a good idea in winter.

    Also, am I the only one who remembers what the CIA’s Project Phoenix was in Vietnam? That the “streamlining” of USAID was given the same name gives me the heebie-jeebies…

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  21. steppenwolf fetchit

    Here is an opportunity for China to increase its soft power by a huge degree. Just ask various governments what type of birthing-center, infant diarrhea treatment, AIDs drugs funding and provision, etc.
    are defunded in their countries along with all the regime-change design-engineering projects . . . and provide immediate replacement funding for all-of and strictly-only the birthing-center, infant diarrhea treatment, AIDs drug provisioning, etc. programs.

    China will get lots of credit and lots of appreciation. And if all those governments were quietly forced to permit the regime-change design-engineering funding in order to get the humanitarian assistance, they won’t have to permit the regime-change funding to enter their countries anymore, because they will be getting the humanitarian assistance from China.

    I hope some Chinese personnel from the “Department of Winning Friends and Influencing People” are reading this comment, in case it has any value. And if it does not, they can have a good laugh anyway.

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  22. Frank Avellone

    For insight into USAID misbehavior in the Middle East, esp. Syria, see Max Blumenthal’s 2019 book The Management of Savagery.

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