USAID inspector fired after revealing nearly $500m in food aid was about to spoil
USAID inspector fired after revealing nearly $500m in food aid was about to spoil
Report from inspector general’s office criticized Trump administration’s attempt to drastically cut USAID
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Tens of millions of real live human beings who depended on the $40 Billion in USAID, for safe food, clean water, and medications have already started dying, literally all around the world. The death toll is going to be astronomical.
But we saved money, right?
This is going to sound terribly cold but why is the US the only country capable of stepping up to help these failed states feed their own citizens? Isn’t any other country helping? And why is it falling solely on the US instead of an international consortium?
The United Nations collectively runs a lot of aid programs. The EU and China also independently run aid programs. The US is far from being the sole provider of aid.
Multiple countries provide aid, but all these programs always operate on tighter budgets than they would like. So a big contributor suddenly pulling out is going to leave gaps that are hard for other groups to fill on short notice. Even if the US needs to reduce aid spending to balance the budget, it should be done gradually with coordination of other groups to best preserve coverage. Acting impulsively leads to suffering that could potentially be avoided with a more level-headed change.
To be fair, the intention of this is not to balance the budget. I think you nailed the motivation: acting impulsively to lead to suffering that could be avoided.
It is an incredibly fair question, and part (not all for sure) but part of the reason is the United States offered, both because it's a traditionally liberal Democracy, but also because it's wanted to project the soft power, that comes with donating Billions in aid to nation which it hope will look upon the US favorably when it come to Trade & Security negotiations. It's serves the US to project and maintain this soft power, and it assists Tyrants and Democratically elected governments all across the world assist their own citizens, for "free". Some nations have become so dependent on the "free" USAID it's not even an afterthought in it's own budgetary process, and for most of the USAID recipients they simply cannot make up the financial shortfall to fund these programs on a dime, most couldn't ever pay for these programs out of their own budgets ever. Some countries take advantage of the US, countries who can easily pay for the same services that USAID funding provides, but would choose not to because when put to the choice, they'd choose to let their people suffer.
Another factor is this: Where do the physical goods come from that USAID sends? Answer: US businesses. The food? US farmers. Weapons? US contractors. Medical supplies? US suppliers. All the money "given" to foreign countries by USAID is actually given to Americans, buying their goods in order to give them to foreign countries. It's a huge economic boon that flew under the radar all this time. By destroying this program, Musk and Trump are gleefully destroying the livelihoods of thousands of Americans, if not millions after their efforts collapse the food supply and possibly the US dollar if they try hard enough.
That's not even getting into things like USAID providing medical supplies to developing nations dealing with communicable yet curable diseases like Tuberculosis. Destroying these diseases in the developing world helps protect Americans. To walk back that work is absurdly shortsighted.
Another commenter gave the main point but there's more: Treaties. There's a lot of treaties that only work because nearly every county signed on to them and the reason why they signed on is because of promises of aid... USAID.
Things like the Berne Convention that guarantee that countries will enforce copyright law. It's because of that treaty that it doesn't really matter where you upload pirated content... It'll still be taken down because all these countries (with Internet) signed on.
If there's nothing like USAID to help these countries they will likely pull out of the Berne Convention and other treaties and start pirating (and selling) content from other countries like the US.
Free movies from wherever for all citizens! Pirate anything and everything! Use our country's YouTube and TikTok equivalents and you'll never have to worry about your content being taken down!
There's other things like not developing weapons of mass destruction, not working with our enemies, providing for the safety of our citizens that visit, etc that will all likely go away along with USAID.
US gives significantly less per capita than almost all western European countries, and even less as percentage of GDP. This is not a case of the US being the only one who does something. It's the US doing so much less than they could, and everyone else in a comparable position is. And now taking even that away.
Could you collate a few numbers so they could be seen side by side for easy comparison, please?
Something like this wiki page? There are some good charts showing trends at this site. That site also gives more context if you're interested in digging.
Thank you.
A lot of great answers here, but one issue stands out as the most important: time. There isn't enough time for anyone else to pick up the slack for the promises the US has already made. People across the world are depending on those supplies, and many of them won't survive long enough for another country to step in and provide them.
Even the ones that will survive will face long-term consequences. Malnutrition and lapses in medical care aren't just short-term or isolated problems. Suddenly pausing treatments for tuberculosis patients doesn't just mean the patient can suffer and die - it also means TB can repopulate in their bodies, develop resistance like any bacteria exposed to but not cured by antibiotics, and that patient can spread more drug-resistant strains of TB to others. (Credit to John Green). More drug-resistant TB anywhere in the world is going to be a problem for people everywhere.
It’s not a cold question, just ignorant/uninformed
- We made a commitment, people’s lives are depending on it
- Per Capita we pay less than most other Western countries
- We do have the biggest economy, the most people though, so are of course the largest such donor
Are you really going to rest on such idiocy as being the largest donor just by virtue of size? Is it really an objection that we give more than say, Denmark?
Just the opposite, they give more per person, more relative to the size of their economy, they have a higher burden. Our contribution is peanuts
Edit: looking at the Wikipedia chart someone posted, apparently US gives 1/3 of what Denmark gives per capital or per gnp
Sounds like the most extreme of the climate and animal rights activists are about to get a dream come true.
Well conservation and animal welfare efforts are funded by USAID... So species are still going to be killed off
I'm sure PETA will continue to do their part as well.
Poor people don't produce much co2, it's the rich that cause the problems
The climate impact of the poorest is nothing compared to the pollution of rich countries anyways and the same is true for factory farming. The money will likely be used for much more environmentally destructive things now instead. There's nothing positive in this from any progressive perspective.
Are they in the room with us right now?