Elon Musk came under heavy public criticism after he abruptly and unexpectedly terminated USAID, the United States Agency for International Development. Experts said that the swift termination puts millions of lives in immediate danger around the world, jeopardizes American national security interests at home and abroad and also threatens the integrity of the U.S. domestic agriculture industry, where surplus American food produce is often sold to USAID for global distribution.
Judges, analysts and officials have also widely protested that USAID can only be legally abolished through an act of Congress, not by unilateral executive action, and litigation is now ongoing to resolve those arguments in court.
President Donald Trump and Musk, meanwhile, zeroed in on their desire to dramatically reduce federal budget spending, and have made USAID one of several primary targets for that effort. International aid comprises between 0.4% to 1.4% of the annual U.S. federal budget, down from a high of nearly 5% during the Cold War era. Some of Trump’s allies have also pointed to a handful of DEI-themed initiatives to explain why USAID should be targeted.
Watch the above video as Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten argues that abolishing USAID is the right thing to do and says that USAID is “woke.”
The following is an excerpt from the above video:
More broadly, the Trump administration, in rescinding policies and aggressively issuing new directives, freezing and reviewing funding foreign and domestic, including all funding to NGOs, freezing regulations and freezing and shrinking the federal workforce, is operating like any new executive team would do in taking control of a bloated and failing company. It’s exactly what was promised the American people. In so doing, it is reasserting Americans’ control over a leviathan bureaucracy, that rubber stamp by Congress has put its interests first. It’s exposing for the American people the genuinely detrimental things that a ruling class has been up to on our dime and to its own benefit. What the administration is doing is the least we should ask of our government. That it’s revolutionary speaks volumes about where we’ve been. Nevertheless, the revolution has the potential to radically alter the course of American history by realigning the government with the people, our values and interests, focusing on effectiveness and efficiency, not wokeism and more sinister efforts.