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Irish Independent
3 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Bono tells Joe Rogan US global aid cuts have led to 300,000 deaths and reveals conversations with Marco Rubio
When Mr Trump took office earlier this year, DOGE, led by Mr Musk, was set up to cut wasteful spending in the US government. The Trump administration has moved to cut funding to government foreign aid agency USAID and other global initiatives, including the United States President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), which has saved more than 25 million lives since it was established in 2003. During an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Bono told host Joe Rogan of how the world's relationship with the US seems to be changing, and revealed he is in contact with US secretary of state Marco Rubio. 'I think America's more vulnerable now than it's ever been. It feels like America's fallen out of love with the rest of the world. I don't think the world wants to fall out of love with America,' he said He then cited a report estimating 300,000 people have already died as a result of cuts made to USAID funding and said food intended for foreign aid is being left to rot because the workers who had access to it have been fired. "There's food rotting in boats, in warehouses. There is - this will f**k you off - you will not be happy, no American will, but there is, I think it's 50,000 tonnes of food that are stored in Djibouti, South Africa, Dubai and - wait for it - Houston, Texas. "And that is rotting rather than going to Gaza, rather than going to Sudan, because the people who know the codes for the warehouse are fired, they're gone. What is that? That's not America, is it?" Mr Rogan agreed there "have been organisations that do tremendous good all throughout the world" but added there was "a money laundering operation" with no oversight that saw billions or trillions of dollars of US public money go missing. The levels of waste, abuse and fraud in the US government claimed by Mr Trump and Mr Musk have been disputed by fact checkers in the American and international media. Mr Musk has responded to the claims made by Bono in a post on his social media platform X: 'He's such a liar/idiot. Zero people have died!' he wrote. ADVERTISEMENT During his conversation with Mr Rogan, Bono said a Christian aid organisation working with malnourished children is being forced to 'choose which child to pull off the IVs' because of funding cuts. "It just seems to me like a kind of, I don't know if evil is a strong word, too strong a word, but what we know about pure evil is it rejoices in the deaths, the squandering of human life, particularly children's. "It actually rejoices in it and whether it's incompetence, whether it's unintended consequences, it's not too late for people.' Bono said he is contact with Mr Rubio, who does not agree people are dying as a result of cuts to funding. "I have conversations with Marco Rubio. He's convinced people aren't dying yet. I don't know who's telling him, or not telling him, rather. But his instincts are correct.' He said Mr Rubio used to wear an armband for the One Campaign, the organisation co-founded by Bono in 2004 for providing aid in Africa. "Americans, no matter what political colour, you seem them, just the size, they just grow in stature when they know they're being useful.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Donald Trump must reverse his aid cuts and lift the death sentence on HIV patients
One of the most arresting moments in The Independent's latest documentary by Bel Trew, our chief international correspondent, about the chilling effects of Donald Trump shutting down America's aid programme, comes when she asks a boy in Zimbabwe, orphaned when his parents died of Aids, what he was called. 'My name is Hardlife,' he says. Before Mr Trump returned to the White House, this young man had hope for the future. The President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, a programme set up by George W Bush in 2003, was one of the world's most successful health initiatives ever. The world was on track to end Aids in five years' time, by targeted and realistic intervention, delivering antiretroviral drugs to HIV-positive people in countries of the global South. Within days of Mr Trump's second inauguration, however, he announced a freeze in United States aid spending. Two months later, he confirmed the closure of USAID, the aid agency that he said was 'run by a bunch of radical lunatics'. Since then, as is typical of the Trump administration, confusion has reigned. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, has said that he wants the programme supplying life-saving drugs for babies with HIV and adults who are sick with Aids to continue, but that it should get smaller. (If it were allowed to achieve its aim of eliminating Aids by the end of the decade, it would indeed be smaller.) The president has signed a waiver for 'life-saving care' – but, as Trew reports from Uganda and Zimbabwe, this has not resulted in restoring the supply of drugs that was abruptly cut off in January. When The Independent asked Mr Trump about this on board Air Force One, he said: 'We did a waiver.' When our reporter pointed out that this had not restored the supply of vital medicine, he replied: 'I can't help that.' He said that 'you have to get your people to act properly', as if The Independent were responsible for administering the US foreign aid programme. The president also complained that it was unreasonable to expect the US to take sole responsibility for tackling Aids. 'Other countries should be helping – where is France, where is Germany, where are those other countries?' he asked. 'Nobody does anything but the United States.' This is, of course, not the case, although it is true that the US had the biggest aid programme of any country in the world, as might be expected of the richest country in the world. It might also be expected that the president of the US would be proud of the Aids programme in particular, one set up by his Republican predecessor, which has saved millions of lives and was on track to save many millions more. Unfortunately, the British government responded to Mr Trump's semi-legitimate complaint about the US bearing too great a share of the cost of defending Europe by cutting its aid budget to increase spending on defence. So when Mr Trump makes the less justified claim that the US funds too great a share of the world's aid budget, the UK government looks the other way. We defy anyone to watch Trew's report from Uganda and Zimbabwe and say that the withdrawal of life-saving Aids medicines is not a tragedy. There is hope that the Trump administration will resume the Aids programme, but the UK and other rich nations could put pressure on it to do so by offering to step in to sustain it. Even the most cynical and isolationist parts of British public opinion, which is, we realise, sceptical about foreign aid, must accept that President Bush's Aids programme has been a moral triumph – and should continue to be supported.
Business Times
23-05-2025
- Business
- Business Times
Foreign aid looks good now that it's gone
[CAMBRIDGE] 'Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.' When Joni Mitchell sang that line in 1970, she was lamenting the destruction of the environment, but the sentiment applies to many issues. Today, we can add official development assistance (ODA) to the list. For some 80 years, the United States spent more on humanitarian assistance, economic development programmes, and other types of foreign aid than any other government. In the 2023 fiscal year, the US government disbursed US$72 billion, with much more coming from private non-governmental organisations and individual citizens. But the US does not spend the most as a share of its income: by that measure, the US contributes just 0.24 per cent – a quarter of what northern European countries give – putting it in 24th place globally. Moreover, foreign aid accounts for just 1 per cent of total US government spending – a far cry from the 25 per cent many Americans believe the US allocates. Many Americans, including some prominent scholars, believe that foreign aid has a negligible impact, with some, such as Dambisa Moyo and William Easterly, arguing that it does more harm than good. Critics highlight examples of misguided aid programmes falling prey to mismanagement, government overreach, or corruption, including Vietnam in the 1960s, Zaire in the 1980s, and Afghanistan in the 2000s. While some economists, such as Paul Collier, insist that foreign aid is useful – especially when certain conditions are met – the dominant message seems to be that foreign aid is suspect. But now foreign aid is gone, or at least going fast. Soon after US President Donald Trump returned to the White House, his administration – and, in particular, his unelected billionaire crony Elon Musk – began frantically dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAid). Almost immediately, reports began flooding in: what was being defunded were often life-saving, high-return projects. Since George W Bush launched the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief in 2003, the programme has saved millions of lives from HIV and Aids, especially in Africa. The former president's Malaria Initiative has prevented two billion cases of malaria over the last 20 years, and halved the mortality rate. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which receives US government support, has vaccinated more than a billion children against measles, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, and other potentially fatal diseases, preventing an estimated 19 million deaths. Polio has been eliminated in all but two countries, and smallpox has been eliminated everywhere. These efforts have contributed to a steep decline in child mortality globally: today, 4 per cent of children die before their fifth birthday, compared to 40 per cent a century ago. Foreign aid also enabled the development and diffusion of improved crop varieties, as well as synthetic fertilisers, new pesticides, and modern irrigation, in the second half of the 20th century. This so-called Green Revolution in agriculture doubled cereal crop yields in Asia; enabled many countries, such as India, to become self-sufficient in food; and raised incomes in many developing economies. This contributed to a reduction in infant mortality by two to five percentage points, from a baseline of 18 per cent, in the developing world. The US Marshall Plan achieved spectacular success in helping European economies recover from World War II, and in laying the groundwork for 80 years of relative global peace and prosperity. More recently, foreign aid has played a pivotal role in enabling Ukraine to withstand the worst attack on a European country's sovereign territory in the postwar era. The US reaps massive benefits from the aid it provides. One need only recall the Covid-19 pandemic to see that participation in global health initiatives is not pure charity, especially when it comes to infectious diseases such as Ebola, HIV/Aids, and TB. More fundamentally, international assistance – including for causes such as disaster relief and support for human rights and democracy – has been a pillar of US soft power. And that soft power has been at least as important as military might – which costs far more to maintain – in sustaining US global leadership since the Cold War. But now the Trump administration is assiduously undermining it – to China's benefit, no doubt. The effect of foreign aid on economic growth is difficult to quantify, because so many other causal factors are involved. Moreover, much of US aid is designed to advance political or military objectives. The top recipients of US foreign aid, after Ukraine, are Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Nonetheless, we know that reduced morbidity and mortality, and improved nutrition, can boost an economy's performance. It thus stands to reason that foreign aid is a contributor to development, even if not the most important one. The US undoubtedly benefits from having more developed, higher-performing trading and commercial partners. Why, then, has the pessimistic view of foreign aid dominated public discourse for so long? One explanation is that the pessimistic view of everything – especially what governments do – has prevailed for years. A 2018 survey showed that a substantial majority of people in rich countries believed that the child-mortality rate in poor countries had either risen or stayed the same over the previous 20 years; in fact, child mortality had been halved. And a whopping 80 per cent of people in rich countries believed that the share of people in extreme poverty had either plateaued or risen, even though it fell steeply from 1990 to 2013. If people are so wrong about these trends, how can they possibly know about the role foreign aid played in driving them? Of course, foreign aid has its flaws and limitations, including instances of inefficiency, mismanagement, or unintended side effects. But whatever the limitations of foreign aid in the past, it is clear that Trump's destructive approach is making things far worse. PROJECT SYNDICATE The writer is professor of capital formation and growth at Harvard University and served as a member of president Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. He is a research associate at the US National Bureau of Economic Research.
Eyewitness News
22-05-2025
- Business
- Eyewitness News
Godongwana lists PEPFAR withdrawal as one of several spending pressures in his budget
CAPE TOWN - Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has listed several spending pressures in his budget, like the withdrawal of the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), which may need funding later this year. The National Treasury told a media briefing before the budget on Wednesday that the withdrawal means they need R1.3 billion to plug the hole left by the withdrawal of the PEPFAR funds earlier this year. Godongwana also said the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) is also experiencing spending pressures that will need to be funded at a later stage. Initial estimates by the Department of Health had put the PEPFAR funding withdrawal shortfall at more than R7 billion, saying close to 15,000 jobs in the sector were at risk. However, National Treasury chief director for Health and Social Development, Mark Blecher, said that the figure provided, following an audit by a top four accounting firm, put the figure at R1.3 billion, with another R200 million for research. In his speech, Godongwana said the latest numbers required to fund the PEPFAR shortfall were submitted this week. 'We've not made provision for the allocation of that now. The Department of Health has just given us the numbers a couple of days ago. Once the resources allow, we will deal with this matter.' Godongwana said other spending pressures that can't be addressed at the moment include accommodating population changes that impact provincial equitable share allocations, and strengthening the office of the chief justice and Statistics South Africa. ALSO READ:
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
South Africa braces for Trump showdown – but it may be too late to save Pepfar
South Africa's visit to Washington to reset relations with Donald Trump is not expected to deliver a resumption of aid to fight the HIV epidemic, public health experts have said. Cyril Rampahosa, South African president, will on Wednesday meet Donald Trump at the White House in a high-stakes effort to rebuild dismal ties while trying to avoid a browbeating like that delivered to Volodymyr Zelensky in February. South Africa has been hammered by global aid cuts, targeted by sanctions and tariffs, and accused of persecuting white farmers in the four months since Mr Trump's inauguration. The country with the world's highest number of HIV patients has also lost some £300m each year in funding given by America to tackle the long-running epidemic. Globally, the cuts are expected to undo years of progress trying to curb the virus, and prompt a return to levels of new infections last seen in the early 2000s. For two decades, South Africa has received vast sums of aid from America under the US President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar). However aid is not expected to be on the agenda for Wednesday and no matter how well the meeting goes, funding is not expected to be resumed. Prof Salim Abdool Karim, director of the Centre for the Aids Program of Research in South Africa, said 'We have pretty much given up on the basis that Pepfar is pretty much over and [American government aid agency] USAid is gone. 'We don't think either is coming back, so there's not much point asking for them. It's not about aid, I don't think it's even going to feature on the agenda. 'I think that the goal is to establish a rapport with Trump. We have watched how Zelensky was treated and we don't want to repeat that.' Peter Fabricus, a foreign policy analyst in South Africa, said he was not expecting any progress on health and Mr Ramaphosa had already indicated that South Africa should not be dependent on external funding. Instead, the meeting is expected to focus on trade deals. However, Mr Ramaphosa will have to walk such a difficult tightrope that it is believed several advisers urged him not to make the trip. On the one hand Mr Ramaphosa believes that by arriving with a hard-headed package of deals, including opportunities for Elon Musk, he could soothe relations and protect trade with his biggest economic partner. But at the same time, others worry it reeks of desperation and risks worsening relations by opening up the president to an ambush like the one Mr Zelensky was caught in in February. In the four months since Mr Trump's election, already strained ties between Washington and Pretoria have plummeted and South Africa has found itself a punching bag for the Republican administration. First South Africa was hit with global aid cuts, then it was singled out for sanctions after the White House accused it of 'egregious actions' persecuting Afrikaners. America has falsely accused South Africa of appropriating white land and has alleged there is a genocide against white farmers. This month it welcomed a batch of Afrikaner refugees and said more are on the way. Moreover Washington has been infuriated by South Africa bringing a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and recently accused the South African ambassador of being a Trump-hating race-baiter, and kicked him out. Then, Mr Trump's sweeping trade tariffs, announced in April though paused for 90 days, included a levy of 31 percent on South African imports. The onslaught has left a shell-shocked South Africa grappling with how to reset relations with a country which is its second largest trade partner, and until this year provided huge sums for health and research. South African officials have decided the best way to establish that rapport is to arrive with tempting deals, including for Mr Musk, the South African billionaire and close ally of Mr Trump. Mr Musk has regularly attacked the South African government for being racist against whites and many in Pretoria think he is partially responsible for turning Mr Trump against them. Mr Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot was last week found to be warning users on X of white genocide, even on posts about unrelated topics. One potential proposal would be for his electric car company, Tesla, to receive favourable tariffs on its imports into South Africa in exchange for building electric vehicle charging stations. Another would be for Mr Musk's Starlink satellite internet service to receive a workaround of local black ownership laws to operate in the country. South Africa is meanwhile looking at deals to protect its farming sector from tariffs. Mr Ramaphosa is also thought to have been trying to reach out to improve relations through compatriots close to Mr Trump, such as Ernie Els, the golfer and Johann Rupert, another billionaire businessman. His most difficult task may be getting Mr Trump to back down on his rhetoric that South Africa is persecuting whites. He raised the issue in his first term in 2018 and has since repeatedly raised the issue of a genocide against white farmers. Just days before Mr Ramaphosa's visit, he said South Africa was 'out of control' and repeated that: 'It's a genocide that's taking place.' His allegations have been dismissed in South Africa across the political spectrum and America's acceptance of several dozen Afrikaner refugees has been mocked. The country's appalling crime rate does include attacks on farms, and fear of rural attacks is widespread among farmers. Police are accused of doing too little to stop them. But experts have said the crime is common opportunistic criminality and not a planned extermination or politically motivated, pointing out that black people are much more likely to be killed than whites. Police statistics show that nearly 7,000 people were killed in the last three months of 2024 and of those, 12 murders occurred on farms. The data do not record race, but one of those killed was a farmer and the rest were farm workers, people staying on farms and a security guard. John Steenhuisen, leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance party, which is often accused of being beholden to white interests, this week said he hoped Mr Ramaphosa could set Mr Trump right. Mr Steenhuisen, who is agriculture minister in a fractious coalition with Mr Ramaphosa's African National Congress (ANC), said: 'I really hope that during the upcoming visit to Washington, [Mr Ramaphosa] is going to be able to put the facts before his counterpart and to demonstrate that there is no mass expropriation of land taking place in South Africa, and there is no genocide taking place.' The concern in South Africa is that Mr Trump is not meeting because he wants to hear their side, but because he wants to produce a piece of political theatre that will go down well with his supporters. Mr Fabricus said the prospect of a Zelensky-style scolding must be a possibility. He said: 'I think he is capable of inviting someone just to give them a very public dressing down.' Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. 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