USAID, Trump, and the Decline of American Influence

And the Peace Corps? Not entirely innocent either. It has been accused, more than once, of acting as a cover for U.S. intelligence. Countries like India, Bolivia, and Peru temporarily expelled it in earlier decades.10 Whether true or not, the perception that aid and intelligence were holding hands damaged reputations. But it also proved how powerful these tools were. Because when aid agencies can shift regimes or influence opposition leaders, they’re not just carrying rice, they’re carrying strategy.

Now, here we are. 2025. The global chessboard has changed. The Cold War is long over. But the new battle isn’t against one giant. It’s against many. China, Russia, India, Turkey, Brazil, they’re all eyeing the vacuum the U.S. is leaving behind. The Chinese are all over Africa. They’re building roads, ports, and pipelines.11 The Russians, through Wagner, have helped boot out French troops and Western influence in parts of West Africa.12 And India? It’s not far behind, flexing its economic and strategic muscles across Asia and the Global South.

The tragedy of Trump’s decision isn’t just the 14 million children at risk. It’s the geopolitical suicide America is committing. With USAID gone, America loses its backstage pass to dozens of governments. It loses influence over civil society, opposition groups, and policy change. It loses soft power leverage. It loses trade routes, partnerships, goodwill, and, eventually, control over the narrative.

And let's be absolutely sure, others are ready to fill the gap. If China becomes the biggest donor to the World Bank, they’ll push to move it to Beijing. If Russia tops the UN donor list, don’t be surprised if the conversation starts about the UN headquarters moving out of New York. Sounds far-fetched? Maybe. But it’s the logical end of a story where America walks away from the very tools that made it powerful without firing a single shot.

Foreign aid is not a freebie. It’s a strategic investment. It’s influence at times disguised as empathy. It’s often control with a human face. When Trump yanked USAID off the table, he didn’t just cut spending. He cut America’s power projection. And that, more than any wall or tweet or trade war, could be the decision history remembers him for.

Because in the end, the world won’t wait. And neither will China, or Russia, or India. They’ll pick up where USAID left off. And America? It’ll be watching from the sidelines, wondering how it lost the script so fast.

Footnotes

  1. USAID Fact Sheet & Budget Reports (usaid.gov) ↩

  2. USAID Wikipedia Summary, verified against Congressional Research Service reports ↩

  3. The Lancet, 2025 report on global health risks following USAID budget cuts ↩

  4. Associated Press and The Guardian, 2014, reporting on "ZunZuneo" Cuba covert program ↩

  5. The New York Times, 2006–2010, on USAID funding Venezuelan opposition ↩

  6. BBC News, 2013 – Bolivia expels USAID ↩

  7. Reuters & AP, 2015 and 2020 – Yemen detainment and prisoner exchange of American contractors on UN flight ↩

  8. The Guardian, 2011 – CIA fake vaccination program to locate Osama bin Laden ↩

  9. The Lancet, WHO, and UNICEF joint statements on backlash against polio campaigns ↩

  10. Peace Corps country program closures and controversies, Peace Corps official site and U.S. diplomatic archives ↩

  11. Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) reports on China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Africa ↩

  12. Al Jazeera and Reuters reporting on Wagner’s role in Mali, Burkina Faso, and CAR ↩

 

Donald Trump did what few presidents had dared to do before him, he pulled the plug on one of the most powerful, far-reaching tools of American foreign policy: USAID. And he did it without so much as a blink. His justification? That American taxpayer money was either being wasted on countries that had no alignment with so-called "American values," or worse, being used in ways that were inefficient and extravagant. According to him, this money was better spent back home. But what he really did was shoot America’s soft power straight in the foot.

Let’s get this straight. USAID wasn’t just an aid agency. It was one of the largest, most ambitious development and foreign policy instruments in the world. Since its creation by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, yes, the same year he created the Peace Corps, USAID has pumped close to $500 billion in development assistance globally.1 We’re talking $25 to $50 billion annually on average, over six decades. Not peanuts.

It operated in over 120 countries, with on-the-ground missions in more than 100.2 And this wasn’t about just food drops and boreholes. This was serious strategic work, funding education, nutrition, maternal health, sanitation, democratic governance, civil society, and emergency response. Partnering with the United Nations, NGOs, and grassroots networks. Getting into places where governments had failed, where nothing but USAID and a few others were keeping children alive. That’s not a figure of speech, it’s reality. A recent report in The Lancet, says Trump’s decision to cut off USAID funding could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million deaths among children younger than 5 years.3

But here’s what people forget, USAID wasn’t just about saving lives. It was about influencing them. It was about projecting American power, values, and influence without dropping bombs.

There have been accusations as well. In Cuba, USAID backed the creation of a fake Twitter-like platform called ZunZuneo to trigger dissent.4 In Venezuela, it allegedly funneled money to opposition groups tied to a failed coup against Hugo Chávez.5 In Bolivia, Evo Morales kicked USAID out, accusing them of trying to divide his country.6 In Yemen, two white American men were arrested by the Houthis after flying in on a UN flight with UN passports, Houthis said they were CIA. One was found dead days later. The other was eventually released in a prisoner swap five years later.7 No one confirmed if they were USAID, CIA, or what. But these stories stick.

There’s more. In Pakistan, the infamous case of Osama bin Laden’s capture was linked to a fake vaccination campaign. The doctor involved said he was collecting DNA samples under the guise of a hepatitis B immunization drive, allegedly to confirm bin Laden’s family was inside that Abbottabad compound.8 It wasn’t a USAID program, but the backlash hit all Western health initiatives, including USAID and polio workers. Dozens of them were murdered. Polio campaigns collapsed. The fallout was catastrophic.9