Elon Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are currently in the process of throwing the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) into the woodchipper. With each grant shut down and USAID worker flown home, the left descends even further into a hyperventilating panic attack, clutching its pearls at the loss of one of its main organs of progressive patronage disguised as “American soft power.”
Of course, Democrats love USAID not because of its purported benefit to American national security but because it’s a taxpayer-funded piggy bank for left-wing social engineering projects that doubles as a salary pool for entrenched bureaucrats and progressive NGOs alike. Democrats use our money to pay their foot soldiers to accomplish their goals. It’s a win-win for them.
While already accustomed to a very large degree of government waste and corruption, the American people were nonetheless shocked to learn what exactly our taxpayer money had been funding through USAID.
$1.5 million “to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.” $32,000 to produce a “transgender comic book” in Peru. $2 million in part to fund sex changes in Guatemala. $47,000 for a Colombian transgender opera. Birth control in third world countries, meals for al-Qaeda affiliates, a trans-operated beauty salon outside of Mumbai, electric vehicles (EVs) for communists—it’s like USAID was inspired by Oprah, except instead of giving away all-expense-paid cruises and Volkswagen Bugs to audience members, our government has been handing out condoms and copies of “I Am Jazz” to poor, benighted kids in countries most can’t find on a map.
Democrats like to talk about how USAID’s budget is “less than one percent” of overall federal spending. But given the gargantuan scale of government outlays these days, USAID’s pocketbook still factors out to an eye-popping $43.4 billion. One could only imagine how many bridges could be repaired, homeless veterans could be housed, or criminal illegal aliens could be shipped home with such money.
Of course, the left will never admit that USAID was never really about feeding hungry kids and that it was always a taxpayer-funded patron of worldwide wokeism. Instead, they decry the “death of American soft power.”
You see, to the liberal establishment, there’s no contradiction between funding transgender operas and promoting American ideals abroad. To them, transgender operas are the pinnacle of American ideals. If we don’t fund trans operas, they ask, why would other nations align with us instead of our adversaries?
In the end, that’s what soft power is about: ensuring nations around the world throw their lot in with America instead of joining forces with the likes of China and Russia.
Soft power makes sense in theory. Except there’s one big issue in reality: When the American government and cash-flush NGOs push a socially deconstructive agenda abroad, they don’t increase American influence. They make the world hate us.
Shocking as this may be to the left’s cultural vanguard, the vast majority of people in the world don’t want DEI, sex changes, and EVs. Most want to live in peace, improve their lot, and raise their kids in accordance with their values. Forcing DEI down their throats won’t make them embrace “democratic values.” It just makes them resentful toward the United States.
So, when China shows up offering a country infrastructure funding, and USAID shows up offering to fund transgender surgeries and DEI programs, guess which offer a foreign nation is most likely to accept. Even if the developing country rejects China and chooses America, you can bet they do so while indignant at the “pride progress” flag being fiercely, proudly, and incessantly waved in their faces.
Far from hampering America’s soft power, you can almost guarantee the Trump administration’s deconstruction of USAID will increase America’s influence abroad. Other nations will feel relief knowing that they can finally deal with America as a partner instead of being treated as backward and unenlightened rubes in need of progressive conversion.
Sure, there will be some anxiety as nations realize that America’s long-established, secular NGO missionaries no longer act with the implicit backing of Uncle Sam. Wheels no longer greased will start to squeak, and influential personas bitter that their gravy train has been derailed will wail that the death of USAID signals the collapse of the free world. To be fair, I would be mad, too, if the machine that kept me in power suddenly stopped working.
But fear not. What’s best for progressives is not what’s best for America. Indeed, what’s best for progressives has been destroying America and our influence abroad for some time.
The truth is, America became the most powerful nation in the history of the world without USAID. Don’t let anyone tell you we need to fund transgender hair salons in India to stay that way.
Horatius is the pen name of a writer who served in the first Trump White House and on Capitol Hill.
