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USAid shutdown isn’t just a humanitarian issue – it’s a gift to China

The website for the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), the world’s biggest aid donor, has gone dark.

Donald Trump’s new administration plans to place the autonomous agency under the control of the State Department. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has now declared himself head of the agency to “align” it with Trump’s priorities.

Several days ago, on January 26, Rubio said: “Every dollar we spend, every program we fund and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?”

But the decision to freeze USAid, which is part of Trump’s policy to put “America first,” places everyone at risk. Organizations that provide vital care for vulnerable people around the world are being forced to halt operations. The boss of one such organization said: “People will die.”

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close adviser to Trump, is playing an active role in the destruction of USAid. He has claimed – without providing any evidence – that the agency is “beyond repair.” On X he wrote: “It needs to die.”

Musk, who leads the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), is gearing up to cut trillions of dollars from the US budget. However, by seeing cuts to USAid as a solution, Trump and Musk are catering to an audience that has a fundamental misunderstanding about US foreign aid more generally.

Surveys demonstrate that Americans believe 25% of the federal budget is spent on foreign aid. In reality, the US gives about 0.2% of its gross national product (GNP), the total value of goods and services produced by a country, to foreign aid – or less than 1% of its federal

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