One of the first casualties of DoGE and Elon Musk’s indiscriminate assault on federal agencies was the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Within days of assuming office, President Trump issued an executive order to dismantle the agency and eliminate all positions. He also froze all US foreign aid that passed through the agency, accusing it of “waste, fraud and abuse.”
When I saw a picture of workers removing the USAID sign from its headquarters at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., I was heartbroken and enraged. It was personal for me. I have very fond memories of USAID while growing up in Manila.
My mother Zynia worked for the agency for more than 30 years until we migrated to the United States in 1986. She was an expert in public health and helped develop and administer family planning programs for USAID in partnership with the Philippine government and the private sector. For all her contributions and accomplishments in the field of family planning and population control in the Philippines, she received a Meritorious Performance Award in 1980 and a Meritorious Honor Award for Special Achievement in 1984 from USAID and the US State Department.
As a young kid, I often tagged along when my mother made her site visits to the provinces. It was a thrill for me to ride in those big chauffeured American cars from the USAID motor pool, feeling like a prince and VIP. She would visit far-flung towns and barrios to check on how USAID projects were coming along, to poverty-stricken areas where people had little or no health care, and to where children were suffering from malnutrition and hunger. At an early age, I was exposed to the realities of living in a poor country, where daily life was a constant struggle for survival.
I also met some of the finest people working for USAID in Manila, Filipinos and Americans who had genuine concern for the poor, who had dedicated their lives and careers to helping others.
Some of these people became life-long friends of my mother, who gave her the opportunity to promote reproductive health and family planning programs throughout the word. She would travel to Bangladesh, Cambodia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Laos, Nepal, Nigeria, the West Bank and Gaza, and Vietnam, among other places, working with USAID-funded entities.
The dismantling of USAID is a glaring reflection of the callousness and ineptitude of the new administration in Washington. US development assistance serves many purposes and is an extension of American foreign policy. As an example, providing aid to the United States’ southern neighbors helps improve living conditions that can mitigate factors that promote illegal migration.
US foreign aid is crucial to building alliances, which can help counteract China’s growing influence on developing countries. Moreover, and for a selfish reason, development assistance strengthens the US’s global standing and prestige. How does the Trump administration not see this?
Ronald Reagan once said, “We are a global power, with global interests and global responsibilities. We can ignore but we cannot escape this basic truth, and any retreat from our responsibilities endangers both our national ideals and our national interests.”
But by far the more serious repercussion is the terrible human cost the shuttering of USAID will bring. Not only have thousands of people lost their jobs, men and women who are experts in their fields, and who were America’s ambassadors to the poorest regions of the world. Their work helped uplift the lives of millions of people. When the lights are switched off at USAID, so are the hopes of so many.