[WaPo] Trump moves to wrest control of USAID as Musk says, ‘We’re shutting it down’

Who benefits the most from shutting down USAID (which is not a big part of the budget and will reduce US influence in the world) and a trade war with American allies?

 

Good Question

Rocket River
They are a bunch of kids tearing down a house they didn't help build

 

Vacuums exist to be filled. I've expressed dismay over MAGA's paradoxical worldview: you cannot brag about your big dick, but be afraid to swing it. Retreating from the world opens space for MAGA's big boss, China, to fill. That will happen now, not to mention actual human suffering and death.

And stuff like this should infuriate any of you who either served in the military or civilian workforce:

It's a mockery of oaths and training that literal teenagers are empowered to act like this.

 

It's like a really small % of the budget. What is wrong with these people. It just aid to needy people.

 

It's also a badly kept secret in DC and other capitals that some USAID postings are intelligence covers, though much fewer since the Cold War kind of ended. This wrecking of the agency not only creates a humanitarian crisis as we stop things like drugs and food from getting to needy places, but it craters the American image abroad and hurts our national security in multiple, tangible ways.

By the way, it appears that some YouTube white supremacist crank decided USAID is the center of some vast conspiracy that controls all the foreign affairs actions of the US (including the CIA, NSA, State, and DOD) and is in league with others in a Rothschild kind of way. Musk watches this loser regularly, quotes him regularly, and here we are. It's like a grand Comet Pizza theory, so the only option is to destroy things which took decades and blood to build.

 

What a tragedy.

 

Elon Musk is not working for the USA. People need to remember that.

 

By the way, people do realize the Muskites have also infiltrated the Treasury Dept systems and now have access to all your info, right? That includes SS, Medicare, Medicaid, banking info, tax info, govt contracts (including those of Musk's business rivals) and a massive amount of other stuff that directly affects every American. This is being done by whiz-kids computer types who have little experience, in understanding of government, much less the legal authority and clearances--and some aren't even US citizens. They are apparently making copies and running it through AI programs. Who knows what kind of code they are putting into these critical national systems? Everything they touch has to considered compromised. Musk now has access to your financial and medical data and has the ability to cut off any one of us and any company or non-profit from grants, contracts, SS, etc.

Is anyone comfortable with that? Anyone willing to defend it?

 

The World's Richest Nazi is helping Trump's facist takeover move into overdrive. Giving Musk keys to the Treasury system to control money that's Constitutionally allocated by Congress without any involvement of Congress.

The executive branch removing power from the legislative branch is all part of the plan. A plan that was well documented and even given a cute name.


And people voted them in anyway.

 

why would Trump need to "wrest control" of USAID if he is the president? who controls USAID now?

 

Link

Fox New's Giffin: Atul Gawande confirms 50 top USAID officials removed. DOGE teams forced their way into USAID offices this weekend, he confirmed to Fox News.

“Two weeks ago I was combatting diseases. We had 21 serious outbreaks at the time worldwide. Three are serious now: an Ebola outbreak in the capital of Uganda. Bird flu has broken out in 49 countries. Our efforts to contain them have all been shut down.”
In terms of HIV treatment and prevention: USAID was funding the treatment for 20 million people with HIV worldwide including 6.5 million orphans and their care givers.

“We were on the verge of ending HIV, TB, and malaria. That has all ended with this pause. It is a gift to our enemies and competitors,” Gawande said.

“We were funding demining operations in Vietnam to allow farmers to get back to their fields so people can farm.”

“The insanity and cruelty to break this independent agency…they (DOGE teams) took down the USAID Memorial Wall which honored employees killed in the line of duty overseas…Lebanon in the 1980s, USAID personnel killed during the bombing of the U.S. Embassy. Their Memorial torn down. These attacks are spurious and dangerous.”

Those who have worked for USAID now and in the past: “They are being treated with enormous disrespect and fear. The top 3 layers of experienced employees have been removed. All contract employees have been or will be terminated…2/3 of the malaria staff, child immunization experts. This kills our capacity. It’s insane to break this. It’s cruel and it does our country enormous damage.”

“If you want to end foreign aid, let’s have that discussion, but this is a Congressionally statutorily created agency that President Kennedy signed into law. What is happening now is an unlawful shutdown and purge,” Gawande told Fox News.

“800 people work for USAID’s Global Health, 400 have been terminated. It’s not legal.”

“It’s an unlawful shutdown, purge and dismantling of the agency.”

“John Voorhees, our experienced security expert, was put on administrative leave for not letting unauthorized people from DOGE into classified systems. He was just following the law.”

“They have turned into a shell overnight an organization that reaches 100s of millions of people around the world. Our health programs added 6 extra years of life to children by eradicating diseases. That is all being decimated with spurious charges of corruption and mismanagement. It is a playbook coming to an agency near you.”

“Every administration does a top to bottom review of programs and whether they are working or wasteful. There is no need to shut down the agency to do a review. It’s like pausing a hospital or stopping a plane mid flight. You are pausing funding to hospitals where 100 malnourished children are being given life saving support. Teams have been hollowed out. You can’t just switch that back on. There will be large scale layoffs at U.S. companies that we have worked with for years to provide these services overseas. It is very dangerous and cruel.”

 

The daily Jennifer Griffin freakout on Twitter/X over Trump's swamp-draining is one of the most enjoyable aspects of his presidency.

 

China's fairly recent response to USAID is its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which started in 2013, involves 150 countries, and has spent close to a trillion. Without USAID, it is natural that China would gain even more economic and political control over Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and beyond.

 

Republicans: "Democrats didn't even hold a primary!"

Also Republicans: "Yes Mr. Foreign-Born-Billionaire-Nobody-Voted-For, here is total control over the executive branch."

 

The US doesn’t provide aid merely out of goodwill; it’s a strategic move to foster economic, military, and diplomatic ties. Had China been the one providing aid, rather than the US, to Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea when they were underdeveloped, these countries would likely be aligned with China, not the US, today.

Similarly, China’s BRI isn’t motivated by altruism; it’s a calculated effort to position itself as the world’s dominant superpower by investing heavily in that ambition.