‘America First Foreign Assistance’: Rubio Rings the Death Knell of USAID

Secretary of State Marco Rubio took to the State Department substack on Tuesday to ring the death knell of USAID.

“This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end,” Rubio proclaimed. “Under the Trump administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests. As of July 1st, USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance. Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests—will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency.”

Rubio’s article announcing the end of USAID, titled “Making Foreign Aid Great Again,” represents the culmination of the Trump administration’s effort to bring USAID, and its constellation of NGOs and client states, to heel. In the post, the secretary dispatches with the Left’s claims that the Trump administration is heartless for holding USAID accountable for its litany of failures in detail.

After Rubio’s announcement, a senior State Department official told The Daily Signal that “today the State Department, at the direction of Secretary Rubio, has launched a new chapter of America First foreign assistance that will be focused on prioritizing the core interests of the United States above all else.”

Nevertheless, Rubio assures skeptics that effective, results oriented foreign aid programs will continue under the supervision of the State Department, but those results will focus on furthering America’s interests, rather than the interests of the contracting class of NGO middlemen: “We will not apologize for recognizing America’s longstanding commitment to life-saving humanitarian aid and promotion of economic development abroad must be in furtherance of an America First foreign policy.”

The Trump administration’s focus on dismantling USAID came after President Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders in the early days of his administration to review foreign aid and DEI policies across the government. When it became clear to the administration that USAID was refusing to implement the president’s agenda, the Trump administration looked to dismantle USAID and have its core functions absorbed by the State Department.

The administration’s review of USAID contracts and funding found egregious abuses of taxpayer dollars, such as $50 million for condoms in Gaza, $1.5 million for DEI in Serbian workplaces, and $1 million to help disabled people in Tajikistan become climate leaders.

The Trump administration notified Congress of its detailed plans to dissolve USAID in March and of its plan to broadly restructure the State Department in May. 

Rubio’s article outlines what can only be called a patronage system erected by USAID for globalist elites running these NGOs—completely funded by the U.S. taxpayer. “Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War,” Rubio wrote. “Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown.”

While so-called liberals claim that reforming how the U.S. distributed foreign aid is a massive forfeiture of soft power, Rubio goes to the data to prove that “the countries that benefit the most from our generosity usually fail to reciprocate.” He uses countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa as examples. Though countries in sub-Saharan Africa have received more than $150 billion in U.S. aid since 1991, Rubio points out these countries vote against the U.S. in the U.N. more than 70 percent of the time. In all but one country in the Middle East and North Africa—which have received almost $90 billion in aid since 1991—China is viewed more favorably than the United States.

Such failures are unsurprising. In previous decades, policymakers in Washington infected with a globalist mindset made U.S. aid culturally conditioned and economically inefficient. A new port would hoist a pride flag; agricultural assistance would be weighed against the availability of abortion; access to emergency medication would be considered with “equity” and “inclusion.”

“USAID viewed its constituency as the United Nations, multinational NGOs, and the broader global community—not the U.S. taxpayers who funded its budget or the president they elected to represent their interests on the world stage,” Rubio claimed. “USAID marketed its programs as a charity, rather than instruments of American foreign policy intended to advance our national interests. Too often, these programs promoted anti-American ideals and groups, from global ‘DEI,’ censorship and regime change operations, to NGOs and international organizations in league with Communist China and other geopolitical adversaries.”

“That ends today,” Rubio continued, “and where there was once a rainbow of unidentifiable logos on life-saving aid, there will now be one recognizable symbol: the American flag. Recipients deserve to know the assistance provided to them is not a handout from an unknown NGO, but an investment from the American people.”

The senior State Department official added, “For far too long America’s foreign aid program did more to fund NGOs than it did to advance America’s own interests. Under the Trump administration, that era of fiscal unaccountability and lack of oversight is officially over.”

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