The conservative case for keeping USAID

Boston Globe

10-02-2025

TODAY'S STARTING POINT
Over the weekend, the US Agency for International Development looked to be on the verge of shutting down. The Trump administration had frozen aid the agency distributes and moved to put most of its staff on leave. On Friday, after crews pried the agency's name off of its Washington headquarters and Trump urged its closure, a federal judge
Democrats have responded to the administration's moves with anger and dismay. Their concerns echo the case for the existence of USAID that political liberals often make: It helps people in need. The agency's efforts to vaccinate children, treat HIV and malaria, avert famine, and reduce maternal and infant mortality have likely saved tens of millions of lives in poor and struggling countries — all for less than 1 percent of the US federal budget.
But there is also a case for USAID that political conservatives have long emphasized — including some of the Republican lawmakers now watching Trump dismantle it. In their telling, the agency exists to benefit Americans, not just foreigners. It does so by preventing diseases from reaching the United States, promoting global stability, and maintaining America's international power.
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Today's newsletter explains this conservative case for USAID — and why Trump seems intent on decimating it anyway.
Outflanking rivals
The 'America-first' case for USAID dates to its birth. When Congress and John F. Kennedy created the agency in 1961, at the height of the Cold War, they saw it as both a moral imperative to help poorer countries and as a tool to enhance US power. The Soviets,
'It was partly an expression of American idealism, that America should be a force for good in the world, partly an expression of an enlightened self-interest,' says Larry Diamond, a consultant to USAID during the George W. Bush administration who is now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
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That twin rationale lasted for decades. Though some congressional Republicans have called for cuts or other changes to USAID, bipartisan majorities and presidents of both parties kept funding — and expanding — it. Ronald Reagan, another Republican who sought to shrink government,
More recently, Republicans have looked to USAID to counter a different international rival: China. Since 2013, China has spent an estimated $1 trillion to help Asian, African, and Latin American countries build highways, bridges, and other infrastructure, known as the
The handful of Republicans who have (gently) pushed back against Trump's plans for USAID make a similar case. 'We need an aid program to match the Chinese effort,' Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi
If Trump does shut down the agency, China could fill the vacuum. 'We're going to be number two in the world,' Diamond said, 'and China's going to be number one. I don't see any way in which this makes America great again.'
National security
USAID funds warning systems to detect and contain disease outbreaks. It helps foreign governments reduce corruption and improve efficiency, lowering a country's chances of descending into conflict. And it rushes humanitarian aid after natural disasters, lessening displaced residents' incentive to flee abroad.
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Marco Rubio, who has echoed Trump's criticisms of USAID, which he now oversees as secretary of state, suggested it was 'critical to our national security' back when he was a senator. 'Foreign aid is not charity,' Rubio tweeted in 2017, when Trump's first administration tried to cut USAID's funding. (Congress rebuffed those efforts.)
Gutting the agency risks more pandemics, more wars, and more migration, Diamond warns. 'We have to be in the game,' he said. 'If we're not globally engaged, it's gonna blow back on us.'
Win friends, influence people
During the Cold War, USAID promoted economic growth in part to prevent countries from coming under Soviet sway. Doing so strengthened trade relations, cultivated ideological allies, and boosted America's
More recently, the agency has focused on women. Research shows that countries that allow women to move around freely, go to school, vote, work, and start businesses tend to be more stable and democratic. When USAID launched a program supporting female entrepreneurs during Trump's first term, his daughter Ivanka
Trump's case
If USAID so benefits us, why is Trump trying to decimate it? He has accused the agency, without evidence, of 'tremendous fraud,' claimed that 'radical left lunatics' run it, and suggested in the past that most foreign aid is 'stupid.' He and his allies seem to believe that less American engagement with the rest of the world — and less American money going to it — is better for America.
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But without USAID, Diamond says, what happens overseas may not stay there. 'Even if you think about it in only isolationist terms, only what's good for us here in the United States, this is not going to be good for us.'
Read more:
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