The Truth Behind America’s Most Effective Foreign Aid Program
A Point-by-Point Rebuttal to the WSJ’s Pro-Dismantling Argument
The relentless attacks on USAID are as predictable as they are absurd. How did an agency dedicated to feeding starving babies, preventing pandemics, and protecting American interests become a political punching bag?
The Wall Street Journal’s latest defense of its dismantling is just another round of bad-faith arguments, economic illiteracy, and straight-up propaganda.
Here’s why their claims don’t hold up under even the mildest scrutiny.
Claim #1: “USAID is bloated and ineffective.”
Reality Check: This is the laziest excuse for gutting agencies that don’t serve corporate interests.
✅ FACT: USAID operates on less than 1% of the federal budget but has reduced global poverty by half since 1990. It played a key role in eradicating smallpox and nearly eliminating polio. [(USAID, 2024)]
✅ FACT: Even the Department of Defense relies on USAID to stabilize regions before they become military flashpoints. Cutting USAID funding increases security risks. [(Pentagon Report, 2023)]
✅ FACT: USAID is one of the most efficient federal agencies—for every $1 spent on development aid, there’s a $20 economic return. [(Brookings Institution, 2022)]
🚨 Bottom Line: This isn’t about efficiency. It’s about dismantling an institution that the Administration see as an obstacle to their isolationist agenda.
Claim #2: “Eliminating USAID will save taxpayer money.”
Reality Check: This is fiscal malpractice. Cutting USAID costs far more in economic losses, military expenses, and diplomatic damage.
✅ FACT: USAID’s global health programs have saved millions from HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, reducing healthcare burdens worldwide. Cutting them shifts costs to emergency aid. [(Lancet, 2024)]
✅ FACT: USAID helps open foreign markets for American businesses. Eliminating it hands those markets over to China and Russia. [(U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2024)]
✅ FACT: The abrupt shutdown of USAID has already led to $3.34 billion in economic losses and 52,000 American job losses, especially in small businesses tied to development contracts. [(GAO, 2025)]
🚨 Bottom Line: Cutting USAID isn’t about saving money—it’s about undermining America’s global leadership while funneling more cash into the military-industrial complex.
Claim #3: “USAID is just a tool for the ‘globalist’ agenda.”
Reality Check: This is authoritarian disinformation. USAID serves U.S. strategic interests.
✅ FACT: USAID rebuilt Japan and Germany after WWII, stabilized Eastern Europe post-communism, and led democracy efforts after the Cold War. [(U.S. State Department, 2023)]
✅ FACT: Even conservative presidents, including Reagan and both Bushes, expanded USAID funding because they knew a stable world benefits America. [(Council on Foreign Relations, 2023)]
✅ FACT: China is aggressively expanding its influence in Africa and Latin America, filling the void left by USAID. [(Foreign Policy, 2025)]
🚨 Bottom Line: The Trump administration isn’t protecting American interests—it’s handing global influence to our adversaries.
Claim #4: “We need to focus on America, not foreign aid.”
Reality Check: USAID directly benefits Americans—this is a false choice designed to mislead.
✅ FACT: USAID creates American jobs. In 2023 alone, USAID contracts generated $2 billion for U.S. farmers, manufacturers, and tech companies. [(USAID Budget Report, 2024)]
✅ FACT: USAID-funded programs help stabilize Central America, reducing migration pressures at the U.S. border. [(DHS Report, 2024)]
✅ FACT: Every $1 spent on food security programs prevents $7 in U.S. emergency disaster relief costs. [(Congressional Budget Office, 2023)]
🚨 Bottom Line: You know what costs America more than foreign aid? War, refugee crises, and economic instability. Pretending we can “build a wall” around global problems is pure fantasy.
Claim #5: “This is a necessary bureaucratic reform.”
Reality Check: “Necessary reform” does not mean gutting 83% of an agency in six weeks. That’s not reform—it’s sabotage.
✅ FACT: The six-week “review” of USAID’s programs was a sham. With 3,900 active awards, reviewing 83% would require 540 program evaluations per day—impossible given that most staff had already been furloughed. [(FOIA Documents, 2025)]
✅ FACT: The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, had zero foreign aid experience. His only stated policy was “burn it all down.” [(Washington Post, 2025)]
✅ FACT: USAID officials were illegally gagged, placed on administrative leave, and threatened with FBI retaliation for questioning the dismantling. [(Whistleblower Lawsuit, 2025)]
🚨 Bottom Line: This wasn’t reform—it was an unconstitutional, ideologically driven demolition of a critical U.S. agency.
The Final Verdict
Extremist arguments for dismantling USAID are based on misinformation, bad economics, and outright lies. The reality?
🔹 USAID is one of the most efficient government agencies.
🔹 Cutting it weakens America’s global influence while empowering rivals.
🔹 Slashing aid doesn’t save money—it costs American jobs and increases instability.
🚨 Take Action:
If you care about America’s role in the world, economic growth, and national security, don’t fall for the propaganda. Call your representatives. Demand accountability. Fight back against the destruction of USAID.
America leads best when it invests in a better, safer world. Let’s not throw that away.
Finally, KImberley Strassels "analysis" in the Wall Street Journal completely and totally ignores the LOGICAL FALLACY of cutting off aid first, and THEN figuring out what needs to be spent. It's like saying "we don't entirely like where this boat is going," so then you just throw all the people out of the boat and let them drown. You don't even give other boats time to come and pick up the actual humans who are in the boat. It is so stupidly obvious. The ideological purity that is required to NOT NOTICE that even if you want to cherry-pick information so thoroughly that you are UNABLE to observe the obvious fact that the agency was providing much-needed (and strategic) aid all over the world — not to mention that simply cancelling that first will have massive consequences. It is beyond logical comprehension. She is an apologist.
KImberley Strassels's statements in WSJ are ridiculous.
As for her claim that cancelled USAID programs were "ridiculous or counterproductive", a FactCheck.org analysis found that only the first project was funded by USAID; the others were financed by the State Department. The report also noted that these highlighted projects represent a small fraction of USAID's budget, which was about $40 billion in fiscal year 2023, less than 1% of the total federal budget (https://www.factcheck.org/2025/02/sorting-out-the-facts-on-waste-and-abuse-at-usaid/).
This is cherry-picking of the most ridiculous kind — either veering on willful distortion, or simply engaging in it outright. It is beyond irresponsible for the Wall Street Journal to print this. The idea of having an OPINION section in a newspaper is to give people a chance to share their OPINIONS about a subject — not to make up their own FACTS.