Angry Planet - The End of U.S. Soft Power

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comU.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the interim head of USAID, for however much longer the agency lasts. For 60 years, the massive bureaucracy was a vehicle for American soft power abroad. Trump, Elon Musk, and all their creatures don’t like it. It might soon be gone.Nicole Widdersheim is the deputy Washington director of Human Rights Watch with a long history of humanitarian work. She’s here on Angry Planet today to walk us through this new era of the American Empire.A brief history of USAIDThe size and cost of USAIDCritiquing a bureaucracyPeople like you when you give them stuffDefense, diplomacy, developmentThe real world consequences of the ending of foreign aidA mallet, not a scalpelSupporters need to get cynicalUSAID did a bad job of defending itselfAmericans don’t care about the human costThe Glorious Republic of Jasonvania wants food aidCongressionally approved rice to North KoreaIt turns out the cruelty is, in fact, the pointAt USAID, Waste and Abuse Runs DeepNo one read those reports on AfghanistanHow China’s “Belt and Road” actually worksThe end of USAID will screw over American farmersTrumpism is a lack of consistency Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Hello and welcome to another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. I'm Jason Fields here with Matthew Galt. And Nicole Wittersheim is also joining us. Did I pronounce that properly? That's right. Wittershund. And can we start off? Would you be able to sort of describe, say who you are, describe what you do, and we'll take it from there? Sure. My name's Nicole Wittersheim, and I am the deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Washington office. So I primarily do advocacy and policy for this global human rights organization that does documentation of human rights abuses all over the world. And so I forward. face or take those findings to U.S. government on the Hill and in the White House and all the different agencies and departments here. You've been with USAID. You have a lot of experience with them. And that was actually the motivation for reaching out to you because USAID is changing fast

or disappearing or something like that. I'll say it's under attack. Under attack. Yeah. I think it's fair to say that. Yeah. And I just want to put, just to put this in a moment in time, this is February 6th, 2025 that we're having this conversation. Things are changing so rapidly. I've seen a lot of stories that get outdated, you know, almost 12 hours later because things are happening so fast and things are happening so strangely right now. So just to kind of put us in that moment for the listener. So can you give us a bit of background about USAID?

I mean, why does it exist in the first place? When did we come up with USAID here in the United States? Okay. Yeah. So before joining Human Rights Watch, I worked for USAID for a total of 12 years and probably, I think, maybe 10 different countries. I was primarily in African countries and then in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, but I've been to Cambodia and Afghanistan and Bangladesh and lots of different places for them.

And the U.S.A. came into being, the U.S. Agency for International Development came into being with the Foreign Assistance Act initially of 1961, I believe, and then it was updated in 1998. And so it was, you know, right now it's getting vilified and so many, so much information is out there that is flat out lies, but also untruth or fabrications or exaggerations. But it was always an agency within the Department of State, and it had a foreign policy purpose, as well as a development and humanitarian response purpose. So, you know, I've heard different people describe it as acting like a charity. And it was, it was a massive bureaucracy. And it did have parts of it that did do direct. food assistance. And this often was guided by a neutrality of, that goes all the way back to, you know, prior to the Reagan years, but one that Ronald Reagan said, you know, the hungry child knows no politics. And so there was a huge branch of USAID that was involved in providing life saving emergency food and non-food assistance. So when I say non-food assistance, that could be water, emergency meds, you know, public.

plastic sheeting, we call shelter, which is, you know, really terrible. But yeah. So, and then it also had a lot of work. And this is where I started out in the humanitarian sector, but I quickly gravitated to something that I was really interested in that, that jives with my human rights dedication was the democracy governance and rights programming of USA. So it did a lot of work to support democracy, which the United States used to be a really good fan of. They wanted to see other countries have civilian-based rights respecting, transparent, and open rules abiding democracies in the world because the bottom line is that if there's other countries that are like us on these core moral values, it does make us safer to exist in the world as a country that

respects those things. So, and then it had big development programs, global health programs, Bush Jr. launched the PEPFAR program, which was the Presidential Fund to combat AIDS that has saved millions of lives. It was an unprecedented contribution to the world. So it was a massive bureaucracy. And yeah, it is it is under a direct assault. And it, and this started, we can go, you know, but I think you know, but I think maybe your listeners don't know. It started with a review. that was announced in a full suspension of foreign assistance. And so USA is the primary deliverer of foreign assistance, but the State Department and some other departments deliver some of foreign assistance too. And I want to start by saying, you know, considering how much money foreign assistance, it's about $68 billion a year.

It's not a lot compared to other big budgets of the United States. But, you know, it's perfectly in the right of any administration. And as a taxpayer, I would like to see it too, that this money continually be scrutinized and reviewed and making sure that it's getting to the right place and it's serving good purposes. So that's not a problem. The fact is that we are one of the biggest humanitarian donors in the world, and we just stopped it in its tracks. And that is currently hurting a lot of people. So, you know, and then was this vilification of people who work at USAID, who, you know, like me, I'm not ashamed to say I was, you know, an idealist and a believer in hope and doing good and kind of the classic American, you know, you pick me out of any crowd overseas. I'd be smiling and talking to everybody. And, you know, there was tons of people like that in aid and still are waiting to see if they're,

They're fully terminated. But, you know, they came from the Peace Corps and they came from degrees and a dedication to doing good work and making a career in doing good work. And working with NGOs and local partners and local staff who work for USAID and who are fighting these fights for assistance and development and human rights and democracy all over the world. So this does go back to the Kennedy administration, though, just like the Peace Corps. That's right. And not coincidence, you know, to do both of those things out in the world on behalf of the United States. Now, there's, you also mentioned a bureaucracy. And I just want to get an idea, you know, when you're talking about various charitable organizations and other organizations out in the world trying to help people, one of the things that you're supposed to look for is how high is the overhead compared to what they actually give out to people? Right. So how large is this bureaucracy?

I mean, this is a large bureaucracy. I think, you know, at certain stages, there were USAID missions, I think, in between 50 and 70 countries. They ebb and flow. You know, the idea is to work itself out of business, which, you know, some people question, you know, how long is it going to be in the development and humanitarian work in a given country, you know, like that that needs. the scrutiny of our policymakers in the Congress to say, you know, are you setting the right goals to get this country off of U.S. assistance and fund its own Ministry of Health? Those are all really valid questions to be asking. And so it had, I think, close to 10,000 people. These stats are wildly, you know, changing. But I think there was around 9 to 10,000 people employed by USAID.

the majority of those people were foreign service nationals who work in the country where we work, which was one of the coolest things about USA. It is that if you have an office and say the places I've worked at like Sudan or Congo, the majority of people working there are people from that country. Speak the language. They are development experts. They are agricultural experts. They come back.

They'll be trained in, they'll be trained on. contracting and grant oversight and all the rules of which there are so many put on USAID by Congress and U.S. government regulations. And so there, it's a very, it's a very inexpect, when you look at the bureaucracy of the United States and different branches and development, DOD and other places, this one is primarily staffed by nationals on their own labor rates and their salary rates of the, of the developing countries where USAID is working. So it's not the reason the reason why it's less than 1% of the whole U.S. government budget is because it's running on a development model. So there are Americans based with USAID overseas and that, you know, that is a cost that, you know, it's a foreign service officer.

They're under, you know, diplomatic passports and, you know, it's still a government job. It's still a government salary. but, you know, those Americans overseas are the minority in any given U.S. aid operation. And then they partner with the NGOs who are even living more streamlined. I worked for American NGOs like International Rescue Committee and Oxfam. And they often partner with USAID. Sometimes Oxfam doesn't take any U.S. government money, but IRC does. And you have your USAID counterpart who oversees your grant.

and is your partner. And then the NGOs are also based in those countries. And oftentimes there's very few Americans in those NGOs. It's mostly nationals that run those programs. Okay. So just one more question, Matthew, if that's all right with you. He gave me the thumbs up. I love that.

All right. I want to know about it's not just you've got the bureaucracy, but you've got everything when we're helping people. that's always a nice thing to do. But I'm going to guess not only is it about democracy building so that it's nice for other people, not only is it a matter of giving people food, which is also nice, but we're talking about soft power here, right? I mean, we're really talking about U.S. using half of 1% of the U.S. budget to gain influence around the world. I mean, would you say that's right? Yeah. And I mean, you know, for those that are in the nonprofit world and in humanitarian and human rights, they often find that phrase of gaining influence and pursuing a U.S. foreign policy agenda or a national security agenda, an uncomfortable feature of the fact that it's USAID. Like, there's people that are not in government that would love to see USAB complete charity. And that's just not going to happen. And with organizations that I met in Sudan, who had a problem with the, you know, U.S. aid being an arm of the U.S. government, I was like, well, you know, nobody's forcing you to take U.S.A. money were one of the biggest donors at the time. But, you know, that was a reality that you had to accept if you were an NGO and you wanted to take U.S. government money, that it was available because the U.S. government and particularly the Congress, who passed the Foreign Assistance Act and appropriates these funds every year, had decided it was. in the U.S. national security interests and the foreign policy interests to do development, democracy, and humanitarian assistance overseas. It is often been described as a soft power. It's a hell of a lot

cheaper than boots on the ground from the military. It's a hell of a lot cheaper than, you know, a lot of diplomats trying to keep an eye on things and ingratiating themselves in countries when they have nothing to offer, but to sit there and observe what's going on in the country. So this is what you have a State Department that has an embassy who's looking at economic opportunities, trade opportunities, political alignment from a given country, watching our enemies or our adversaries. And then you have USAID who's actually like, it's not just only that we want to do that. We actually want to partner with you to keep your population safe or keep your population accessing drugs. that your budget as a developing country can by no means afford, like the anti-retro-biral

drugs that the PEPTRO program was supplying. So, yeah, it's a reality that I think there's a push and pull. Like you've got the far left who's like, we don't want to see this as be something that is a tool of U.S. foreign policy. But the reality is there's tons of charities and tons of organizations that you could work for if you want to take this. no government money. I work for one of them that takes no government money. And so there's a, if you want to get involved in this line of work, there's lots of different options. But USAID was funded and every year from the Congress to be a power, a soft power tool. And, you know, generals, my career, I've often seen military personnel and generals and different senators

and Congress people and diplomats, U.S. diplomats say, you know, this is an extremely important part. They talk about the three Ds, defense, diplomacy, and development. And, you know, there's a reason why those were always together and why you had a weak chair if you pulled out one of those legs. We seem to be pulling out one of those legs. Yes, we're cutting it off. We're going to weaken the chair. Why do you think, I guess, first of all, what stories are you hearing this week without getting anybody in?

trouble. What have been some of the like the immediate consequences of the pulling of this funding, the freezing of this funding and kind of the chaos around this that you've heard? Yeah, I mean, one of the most just, I mean, appalling, sickening stats is that nobody else was supplying these anti-retrival drugs and the pipeline

from the PEPFAR program because it's related to cold chains, supplies, and these things, we're providing those drugs to stop the transmission of HIV and AIDS from a pregnant mother to their unborn, and then soon-to-be-born child, right? Baby. And so we were looking at statistics, some words upwards to, I think, over 250,000 babies were set to be born with AIDS because these drugs. were cut off. Now, I just, I mean, I just refuse to believe that the U.S. policymakers,

President Trump, and anybody else in positions of leadership who wanted to see this review and even want to cut U.S. assistance or get rid of it would fully understand that statistic. And, you know, there was a lot of criticism from the right. about how disastrous and unplanned and chaotic and abrupt was the left's the Biden era departure from Afghanistan and how many people got hurt. U.S. soldiers were killed. You know, why would you do that? You could plan.

You had people on the ground. And now they're doing the same thing, but on a global scale. Where, you know, nobody is saying they shouldn't review this aid. And nobody's saying it's not the right if they want to cut funding or balance the budget or try to balance the budget to reduce parts of the U.S. assistance, foreign assistance. I mean, we are one of the biggest donors in the world. There is some burden sharing to be looked into.

However, you don't have to kill doom 250,000 or more babies to be HIV positive when you've already committed to them that you were going to provide them drugs to not have that life. and you didn't even take the time to try to find someone or another donor or a phased approach to avoid that cruel reality. I mean, we are focused on exposing that and hammering on about that. And I know other organizations and even American pharmaceutical companies are trying to make sure that people address that and get those exemptions if there can be so. But the other point that I'm looking at is human rights defenders who, you know, are on the front line dealing with terrible regimes in countries that, you know, have their number. And one of the proudest things that the U.S. government does, and I can talk about why a lot of Americans don't know this, but like one of the coolest things they do is they have a discrete fund that exists if a human rights.

rights defender. When I say human rights defender, I'm talking about someone exposing corruption in their country, or, you know, exposing that people are being disappeared or, you know, the government is murdering people or killing journalists and, you know, these type of things. We have a fund that we can help a human rights defender who maybe be under attack in Uganda or Congo. Just get out of the frying pan for a little bit. go take a flight over to Nairobi, sit out, like, save your life. You know, they get a couple nights in a hotel in Nairobi just so they're not murdered. And, you know, the EU does this too at a much lower scale. And it's one of the most admirable and politically astute things that we can do.

It's not a lot of money, and it helps directly save human rights defenders who are trying to expose corrupt and murderous governments and militias and dictators. And so that's all suspended now. And so this was like a gift to these authoritarian who want to target their own people who are fighting for justice and human rights. So none of this was done with a scalpel. I mean, this was all done with a mallet. I mean, it's and it's across the government too. I mean, research funds and all sorts of great stuff like that.

Do you think at this point there's anybody who is giving any thought to the time? Yeah. I mean, so first off, there are Republican and Democratic allies for USAID. It's not particularly popular right now for the Republicans to speak out and in big support. because they also support seeing the president live up to his promises and reducing spending and shrinking our government. And frankly, USA is an easy target because a lot of the American people don't know. And if you tell somebody, like when, you know, I mean, frankly, when I tell my family in rural Ohio, you know, this is only $68 billion. They're like, holy shit, that's a lot of money, you know.

And it sounds huge for the globe and in respect to the DOD budget, which is over almost $900 billion. It's super small. But the point is that American people don't really understand aid and what it does and how it works. And so that's a fair thing to not stick your neck out right now. But we do know some Republican lawmakers are trying to talk to the administration and use their relationship with Secretary Rubio who was just appointed

as the acting administrator because the blowback on these very harsh and rapid movements was starting to trickle up and trickle up and trickle out and so they're trying

and I think they're articulating both the national security risk that this presents because we're rapidly creating new generations of enemies because we told them trust us we're going to keep You know, we have you on this program. We're working with your local government, you're in your

local NGOs, and then all of a sudden we ripped the carpet out from under people. But also, there's a lot to do here that leverages and maintains U.S. influence. And if you want to put America first, there's an argument to be made that this puts America first for, you know, relatively low cost. And, you know, I know, I know we're in a tough bind right now because people don't want to talk about the right thing to do or lives to save. So I think you can, everybody I see that is trying to address the bleeding, if you will, and the gutting of this organization are trying to also be smart and how they talk about it. It can't just be because it feels good, it feels good, and it's the right thing to do. But you have to articulate the questions you are asking me, Jason, about soft power. And so I see some members doing that.

But I think we all think, and I hear this from folks that I talk to on the Hill, that this is a test balloon, right? So this is going after a bureaucracy that probably has a small, if almost absent constituency in the American people. And it's easy to attack. And definitely there's been some like programs that are very hard to explain or understand or they sound kind of wacky. You know, there's been one of the things I posted was the routine audits of USAID that like audit the funding numerous times over a given year. And they submit those reports and audits to the Hill. And, you know, with any large bureaucracy, there's going to be waste and graft and you got to, you know, fix it. So, you know, that's all there. And that's a credible reason to do the review. But you don't need to

kill people while you do a bureaucratic review. And so, you know, I don't know that the policymakers are going to be able to save USAID in its past form of two weeks ago. That doesn't seem to be possible. But they will continue to make the case. And where this is going is if the Congress is still going to have power of the purse and appropriate funds that the administration and the White House has to spend, or is it going to set a new precedent for our government where Congress does that and the executive branch doesn't spend that money and challenges a power that goes all the way back to our Constitution? That's kind of the broader fight of USAID and possibly other cuts across different departments that are likely coming and already announced. So you think that this was,

USAID was targeted first because it was because it had weaknesses. Yeah, I think that there's weakness in that the American people, you know, and this is USAID's fault. Okay, so like, let me just start there, that the American people didn't really know about it, didn't understand its value. And then it's easy to pluck out problems and audits and things that didn't go well for USAID that aren't the majority of the good work it's doing, but you can pull out anything bad about it,

the large bureaucracy and find things to criticize. So, and also, you know, when you saw the White House suspend some federal domestic grants, you immediately saw two lawsuits filed. There's nobody that was doing that for USAID or, you know, a lot of these organizations that were getting foreign assistance. I mean, they're non-profits. Yeah, no one's going to cross.

on behalf of the Afghan farmer. But they're also not going to have like a lawsuit filed within 24 hours. So it was a soft target for a variety of reasons, some of which it owns. And, you know, I do think some pieces, I have to believe that some smarter heads will prevail over time. And we will see parts of USAID that come back online and are maybe more. strategic to the U.S. foreign policy. It's not unheard of to have your development and humanitarian arm within your foreign ministry. That is the case for the U.K. in other countries. But in every one of those cases where it's happened, there's multiple ones, the actual commitment and contributions to

development of humanitarian assistance has dramatically decreased. When Diffid moved into the U.K.'s foreign ministry, it really shrunk, same for Canada. So I think that's the fear of my community and those that work on these issues and I want to see, you know, a generous contribution from one of the biggest and wealthiest countries in the world, like the United States. Do you think this queasiness around the idea that people in the Foreign Service or that we're working for USAID were responsible for soft power on behalf of the United States, this kind of hurt them here? Meaning like, who are these people who are living overseas and representing

if you've got, if you take a more cynical or pragmatic view of what you're doing, could you not then explain to the Power Center that what, the practical reasons that we would do something like this? Like, reasons that you said earlier that no one wants to hear about the lives saved right now. I thought that was very interesting and horrible. It is horrible. And also true. Yeah.

They want to know what you're doing for America. Yeah. Right? But doesn't Marco Rubio know? Marker Rubio. Don't these people, you know, all of these people who are actually doing the cutting? Don't they actually know? I mean, it seems like it's more cynical than that.

But you've got to be able to tell Trump, right? Right. So do I believe that President Trump knows. about the intricacies of, you know, mother-to-child transmission and how the United States should be proud of the fact that we were one of the primary actors, countries in the world that was stopping that and, like, dramatically decreasing AIDS and HIV new cases. Does he know those details?

I mean, I hope he's learning now, but I'm not sure that he did. Or I don't even know that he would agree. Like, does former Senator Rubio know about USAID and has he visited USAID programs? Absolutely. And, you know, I was in Haiti when he came to Haiti after the earthquake. And he, as a Florida senator with other senators, after that massive earthquake in 2010, advocated for more USAID assistance to Haiti to respond. They were in our neighborhood. And, you know, like we were going to see a large influx of possible Haitian immigrants, leaving a destroyed capital where most of the Haitians were living at the time.

So, you know, yes, they're well aware of what USAID was doing. And also, like, where USAID could have been trimming down and focusing and maybe being more aligned with U.S. foreign policy, if they had doubts of that, that's their job. They were the ones appropriating this money to USAID. They were the ones that ensure all of the FARA, the, um, sorry, not the FAR or the fair. The foreign assistance and acquisition regulations are applied on U.S. aid. They're the ones that the Inspector General submits all the audits to. When I say they, I mean the Hill.

So if they've wanted to do this, and mind you, you know, the Senate has been in Republican control before and so has the House recently, then what were they doing? You know, so, you know, they annually appropriate this money every year. If you don't want to fund food aid, you didn't have to do it right now and cut it off within 24 hours or drugs or whatever. You could have been winding it down over the last, you know, 10, 20 years because you were the appropriators. Who is it? Like, okay, I've just established a country. And it seems unlikely, but I did. And it's Jason Vanya.

And I want food aid from the United States. How would I go about doing that? I mean, if I wanted, let's say, let's say USAID still existed for the sake of argument. I'm just wondering how the process would have worked and how we stick the money to allies as opposed to enemies and things like that. Right. Well, we do supply food aid to North Korea and to. Oh, yeah. Right.

So. And that also. is approved by Congress to do so. So not USA. USA doesn't just decide to supply food aid to countries where the U.S. isn't friendly with. So typically, and I am not a, I've worked alongside massive food distribution programs

in Darfur and South Sudan and over the years and in Haiti. And a country, whether they be brand new, like Jason, what do you call yourself? Jason V. Dacomania. Yeah, Matthew hates that. Right.

So initially, like, of course, you're going to apply to be a member of the United Nations, right? So, and when you do that, you're going to be like, you know what, we're just a new country and we're just getting going on planning our crops. Can I talk to the UN about maybe needing some food aid while we get ourselves organized and reestablish our trade routes? And so they're going to put you in touch with the World Food Program. And then the World Food Program is the entity within the UN that sees the United States. that sees the total food supplies, the deficits, they track food insecurity and food needs and famines. And also they're relating to donors and countries like, for example, the Ukraine and Russia and the United States that have a large grain production, other countries that do huge rice production.

And they're going to say, you know, we have these. amount of countries that are in need of 20% food reserves or emergency food because they had a, they had a drought or a flood or a major disaster of war or natural disaster. And so the WFP will submit an annual budget and they'll have Jason Vaniel, Jason Transvanial or something like that. I keep getting your country's name wrong. That's okay. It was a terrible idea. You know, but they're going to have an annual appeal for countries based on the population and their nutritional assessments. And UNICEF participates with this too. So they'll go.

And then at the United Nations, like the U.S. would be like, well, you know, we can supply this amount of grain or this amount of oil and other countries will offer or they'll offer money because you need a lot of money to fly and ship this food everywhere. So that's initially how it gets going. Now, the U.S., the other thing that they cut, which is just mind numbing, is the U.S. has always funded. the famine early warning system. And this was a scientific early warning system that's looking at weather patterns and food reporting, you know, nutritional rights reported by UNICEF

and local hospitals and population movements and all these other things. And they're tracking continually day to day when countries start to slide into more food insecurity is what we call it. There's a lot of jargon in these fields, but it's called food insecurity. You don't have enough food, okay?

Or you don't have the right type of food. You have a lot of rice, but you don't have oil, you don't have sugar, or you don't have wood to cook the rice. So, you know, so that fuse net was used by the entire world and all these UN agencies and organizations that deliver food and medical services and those that track nutrition rates.

And the United States pulled a plug on it in this foreign assistance freeze. Now, there is a famine that is live and active and spreading right now in Sudan. Over 600,000 people are at risk, and already smaller numbers have started to be in full famine. And that fuse net was the one that was tracking that and making the case to have other donors give more an emergency funding. So, you know, why not? Why not? Just say, you know what?

We're like the grant you stole food assistance. but we're going to give you this hard drive in you UK or you Canada or you Japan can run FusNet while we get our house in order. I don't know that anything like that has happened. They're not even trying as far as what we see. It is really incredible to see it's not just a retreat from the world stage. It's also a burning the bridges. Yeah. You know, it's a smashing of.

of things to make, it's a raising of the territory to make sure that no one else can use it? That's the part that seems, I'm not understanding the cruelty and the, like, the slash and burn. Like, I mean, what, what, how is that putting America first and making good trade partners and, you know, putting our, you know, global prosperity aspects, you know, higher and, you know, I mean, I don't understand that. I do not understand that. I think there are people that enjoy cruelty domestically. Yeah. I mean. And it plays well for them.

I think there are those among us. Yeah. Exactly. There are those among us that when I am suffering, I would love to have my suffering renumerated, but if I can't have that, someone else suffering in my country making someone else suffer feels pretty good. It does feel good because it just makes you feel a little. less like worse you know misery loves company right and like you know why should a single dime go

overseas when right exactly yeah i think yeah that's exactly how you sell it to people i mean you can sell cruelty pretty easily by saying you know yeah you know you're having trouble at home therefore you know do you know where your money actually went you know why you're so broke because this guy in Sudan just got lunch. Yeah. I think they really draw direct lines between those two things, and there's just no line to be drawn. Right.

No, I mean, it is that. I've literally got a press release from the White House pulled up in front of me from three days ago. At USAID, waste and abuse runs deep, and it's just a list of, you know, it's one of these hack lists that you see from time to time. Yeah. $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia. Six million for tourism in Egypt, etc.

these kinds of things, right? Yeah. And to your point earlier, like, there is some of this stuff that it's either hard to explain or is a little odd, makes more sense in the country, or, you know, sometimes a large bureaucracy does fail. They do screw up. There are accidents. I think the Afghanistan example that you were talking about the pullout earlier is pretty instructive because USAID spent a lot of money in Afghanistan. and a lot of it didn't go where it was supposed to. That's right.

Or it was spent on silly projects. But I also remember, because I was paying attention, every three months, and sometimes more frequently, the inspector general would put out a report about, like, hey, they're screwing this up. Yes. Hey, this is like, here's an excruciating detail how USAID or the Pentagon wasted money in Afghanistan. And I didn't hear a lot of headlines. Right. I mean, the wild thing is that Congress funded a standalone inspector general on Afghanistan for 20 years to inform them of this waste. And they still couldn't get their act together to make it run better.

So, you know, to the things that are listed and, you know, I haven't been with USAID since 2018, 2019, sorry. But I would say this, like, yeah, you can pull that out and, you know, they're, you can pull out somebody who got, who's, you know, defrauding the social security program right now, but you're not going to take everybody off of social security. Well, I mean, well, well, if they do, they're going to have a real problem on their hands. But I know they're still looking at that, but, according to the media.

But the point is, you know, Congress was the only one who was like actually the consistent player on this who oversaw this money, who never, you know, really did their job in doing this. So he didn't. So I'm not blaming Congress for this cutoff right now. That's an executive decision. But to make USAID work better and smarter and leaner and to look at any programs that they wouldn't have seen the U.S. national interests or foreign policy objectives. fulfilled by, then, you know, that was their role in their job. One of the things that you, Matt, that you said that I think is also something that's hard to explain. So when I worked on projects that were tiny small grants in war-torn and genocide divided societies, like Darfur after the first genocide, you know, you would, when you were, you had the start of some. peace agreements. The war was dying down, but these communities were totally polarized. I mean, they had been killing each other and actually one side was killing the other one

to a bigger degree. But they had to live together. And one of the things was to do small grants that they could do together. So even maybe doing a well or a market was too controversial because they're going to remember that somebody else destroyed the well and they're taking the land. And so sometimes you might do a children's theater because it was the one thing that they all wanted to do. And it was only like a couple thousand dollars, right? I know that sounds crazy. And, you know, but it's still money spent. But it was the one thing that could bring community back together on it, you know, to have their children entertained. So I see a lot of people talking about why were we supporting programs for, you know, Sesame Street and Bangladesh in these places? Well, you know, actually, it's because they were recruiting youth. into ISIS or IS than Islamic State. So you want to put these wedge options that really don't aren't clearly explained unless you've actually done that type of programming. And so again, this is a comms issue. This is a congressional oversight issue.

And maybe, you know, some of these programs got wacky. But I understand some of them that aren't going to like totally communicate why they were done. Well, you have to look at them either with a jaundiced eye or with goodwill. Right. You know, if you see something like, you know, funding for Sesame Street, you can immediately assume this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard and not actually think about why it might exist. Or you can look at it and say, oh, I bet I know why you did that. You know, I mean, it's not just a sample of knowledge, but it's actually attitude. Right. It's the same reason why we like to have like quality non-commercial funding for our own children here. Well, they're taking care of that too.

That's actually on the list. I just ran a piece today in Newsweek that I didn't write talking about, you know, efforts to kill off Big Bird. Well, hey, Sesame Street's been on HBO for a while now. Well, apparently HBO is dropping it. Yeah, yeah. So was it supposed to return to public broadcasting? That was at least one of the possibilities. but it's not just big bird.

It's CPB entirely and, you know, all that other stuff. It's funny as we're talking about this. It almost seems to me like the extreme left wing has maybe the clearest view of this stuff in that it at least acknowledges that this, that all of this spending is part of American soft power. Like, you know, there's, also people over there that will say like this is all a CIA carve out right which is ludicrous which is kind of like ludicrous on it on its front but at least like they're acknowledging that this cash does have a benefit to the American people beyond just the immediate

benefit to who the money is being spent on right they see it as part of a grander system and it seems like the people that are in charge now only see it as as money that is being, or at least they are selling it to the American people as money that's being taken out of their pockets. Yeah. Well, time will tell when all of AIDS programming stops and we will see if Americans are better off with this being finished. I recently saw something that I think is very helpful because I zeroed in on it because I was born and raised in Ohio. And it mentioned the connection between different Ohio agricultural industries and businesses to USAID and how a company that I grew up around and ended up working in when I was in college, J.M. Smuckers had a direct connection with a USAID program supporting coffee growers. and, you know, that link was beneficial to smuckers because they were learning to where to source new products and things like this.

I understand from how it was described. And so I've been sharing that just today with my other NAP or African family that, you know, is from Ohio with people I grew up with. Because, you know, again, I do think it's a problem that Americans didn't understand and most of Americans didn't understand or weren't proud of this. didn't even understand their local benefit. You know, certainly a lot of the big farming, big farms across the United States, and a lot of them in rent states, know this because that food aid is directly helping subsidize their industry. And so they have fought back on the reduction of food aid in the U.S. federal budget. And I think that's probably linked to why we saw food assistants have the only carve out in the beginning of this review. view announcement. But there's more there to link and understand.

And I guess that's all of our jobs. But yeah, I think fundamentally we have broken the trust and the reputation of the United States across the world. Yeah, that's the next piece of this for me is China has a Belt and Road initiative. And it seems as if we've created a large opportunity for them to step in. Yeah. I mean, they're in. They're already there. I mean, they've almost connected that belt and that road around the world. And, you know, we were never, you know, my 20-some years of being in and out of USAID and working in all these different African countries that I served in. The United States was never going to be building highways all across Africa like China is doing. And so, you know, but the counterpoint was that we thought we were doing. work on democracy and supporting independent media to, you know, build civil society and build

safe and non-conflict countries and, you know, and healthy people that would go on to lead a country and, you know, get the country eventually off of assistance and make them a viable global actor on many different fronts, both for trade and diplomatic relations in these. type of things. And so, yeah, meanwhile, like China's like, well, good, you know, less, less USAID programs that make us feel bad. We'll go back to building roads and getting countries perhaps on unfavorable debt agreements and things. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like they're not, Belt and Road is not USA. Belt and Road is not charity. Right. It gives them the opportunity to foreclose on entire countries practically. Yeah. I don't know anything about this. Can you

guys explain this to me? So there's been a lot of really unfavorable debt terms for a lot of these projects. Some of the more famous ones are the Railroad in Kenya that I'm, I've most familiar in that it's almost, the terms of the debt are almost written, and some of this is also ports in Africa and other places. They're written to a way in which that country is never really going to be able to pay that off. And so then the, the, the, the, the Chinese state-owned industry actually gets the profit from that infrastructure. And so it's not, it's kind of complicated, but this is also all available in the public because you constantly see these countries coming to the World Bank and IMF pleading for help

to restructure these bad loan agreements. And, you know, then countries like, why should we, through these international lending institutions, fund China's loans when these were made with such terrible, you know, terms for countries desperate for a highway or desperate for a railway to move their, you know, some of the few crops that they can get out to international trade and regional trade. And so, yeah, that is a big problem. There's a lot of something I'm not an expert on, but there's a lot of concern over the surveillance. embedded in the technology and this infrastructure that the Chinese surveillance capabilities that are either going to inform China's interests in these countries and with these buildings and hotels and things like that. But also then if you have a non-democratic or authoritarian regime,

China sells the ability to be like, well, you can have this project and we'll build this hotel, we'll build these buildings in the African Union headquarters. And, you know, by the way, you can also hear whatever's doing, you know, like two for one money. Like, you're an oppressive regime. And, you know, you can also benefit from the surveillance equipment. So, yeah, there's a lot of problems with, you know, what is happening with that whole thing. And we like to talk tough. I mean, every administration from the Trump one to, you know, Democratic administrations and Biden administration and all the way back. since, you know, I've been around is, you know, we got to counter China and Africa, but we've never invested to the degree that even comes closer.

No, but China, they're, it's so funny because, you know, we might like ideas that are esoteric. We, you know, democracy and things like that. They want the hardwood from Africa. Right. They want resources of any kind they can get. I mean, honestly, from what I understand, and I know, I know. I don't really want to pretend to be an expert, but right enough to see, I mean, it's virtually rapacious. Yeah.

I mean, you know, what they're doing in Africa. And it's just amazing that I don't think people really know that at all. I mean, they've heard of Belt and Road, and they don't know what it is, and they don't know how it's used. And anyway, I just don't think it's an equivalent program to what we've done. however many CIA operatives we put in USAID. And there's criticism that like, you know, USAID also, U.S. foreign assistance has at times hope to pave the way for, you know, the U.S. getting access to some particular minerals and things like that.

But what has happened is that, like, you know, there was a Biden initiative to like extend a railway in Angola into the heart of Africa. But there's no way, because our foreign policy for Eastern Congo right now, is not matching to end that crisis that's exploding there. There's no way American businesses are ever going to go and get into those mines in Eastern Congo because we're looking at another Africa-sip-like continent-wide war in Eastern Congo right now. So it doesn't even match our foreign policy priorities and diplomatic efforts yet. So, yeah, we're not, yeah, there's a lot to talk about.

In a way, it sounds like those models are kind of what Trump would like to do. Yeah, I mean, under Trump One, he launched an initiative called Prosper Africa. And that was, you know, in line with less aid and more trade, right? You hear this a lot. And, you know, again, I think if you're going to say U.S.A. is part of that, you'd say that USA is building safe and sustainable and transparent helping build, excuse me, safe and sustainable and transparent governments and institutions in a country that would be a better in a viable environment for American investment

or foreign investment, right? And so the Prosper Africa was initially conceived to be kind of like a one-stop shop where the U.S. would invest with commerce and state and, and I, I believe aid also had some parts of this with a country to get them to be a better trade and investment partner for American business and industry. And recently I've heard that they don't want to, they don't want to continue that. They want to end that initiative. That was their initiative. And it totally jives with what, you know, what they're saying now where they want to make America more prosperous. Like, you know, one of the three agenda items that they want everything to fit under America First, America safer and more prosperous. So I don't understand. That's,

they're contradicting themselves. A lot of these same people were with, with, with him the first time. And that was a very, you know, interesting and exciting initiative. And I, I just heard last week, that's also on the chopping block and I don't get it. I mean, Africa has the highest, you know, it's going to have the highest population in the world. I mean, it's just, the youth population. And it's, Yeah. You know, it's already made its own continental wide trade organization. We're not going to be able to, like, have, you know, a trade agreement with that country and a trade. They're going to have their own trade.

You know, they're going to have their own, you know, NAFTA or whatever. There's an acronym for it. It already exists. So, yeah, I think that'll be. America is, like, shooting itself in his foot. And I don't understand that if you are the business president. I think that that's one of the frustrating things about covering things. this presidency

as a journalist so far in the first couple weeks, Jason, you can back me up here or not. The complete like inconsistency schizophrenia in a way that like the first one was

was pretty wild. But this is just you know, every couple hours things change or there's a different policy proposal that contradicts one from last week and then from

the first administration, everything's all over the place. And it's hard to parse, like, what, how things will fall. You know, there's no consistency. There's no, you can't stand up and kind of figure out, get the lay of the land, because the train is constantly

shifting. Right. And you, we, I have no idea what we're going to be in a month and what's going to be around and what's going to be canceled and what the new fights will be about. Yeah, I totally agree. I think that's part of a tactic. And also, you know, I've heard there's constantly the rush for a new or a returning president to say this is what he achieved in 100 days. We will be in the midterm election cycle at, you know, probably by the summer or fall.

So, you know, there is a chance that the Republicans lose the House and they want to be able to say that they're delivering and delivering in a speed of light. And, you know, they also, the other thing about this cutting, cutting, cutting. is that they're going into a budget process right now. So they've only been, like, we've only been, you know, having America open and the government funded through to middle of March. And then the president is supposed to send his budget to the hill. And so they want to be able to say, we cut this, this, and that. And so I want you to maintain our cuts for 2025. And then, you know, you can show that this is sustainable.

It's not just our slash and burn, but now we're baking it into how, you know, we're going to deal with the budget medium to long term. So there are some real things that I think are driving the speed. But the stuff that's driving the inconsistency, you know, I challenge them. They said they were ready and they were prepared. And they're contradicting themselves. So, you know, you can either go fast and break a bunch of stuff and then open up yourself for hypocrisy and completely. confusion, and then it gets questioned what your strategy was. Or you can just slow it down a bit and talk about how it does match with these three areas. And you're not going to keep America first on this globe if you continue this way. I think we're going to be operating under the Silicon Valley model for the foreseeable future. I do think it is going to be moved fast and break things and then see what happens.

Well, infectious diseases will reach our shores. We'll have very few new trade and investment options. So we'll be trading and investing with the same old. And maybe that's fine. Maybe they only want to trade with China and, you know, other countries. If it's the Silicon model. So, you know, I think it's, I think time, yeah, as you said, time will tell and we'll see what will happen. Well, I think we have achieved the down note that we were looking for from the beginning of this conversation. I think we have found it. If it's called, we got there. That's right. We got there. We are there. We talk ourselves into a depressive cycle at the end of every episode.

It's true. Nicole Witterstrom, thank you so much for talking us through all this. I feel like I have a better handle on the chaos. What more can I say? I feel like every time I talk about it, I'm more confused. but thank you for having me covering these issues. It's near to dear, near and dear to my heart. And so many people I love and all my friends.

So thank you for covering it. That's all for this week. Angry Planet listeners. As always, Angry Planet is me, Jason Fields and Kevin O'Dell. It's created by me and Jason Fields. If you like the show, Angry PlanetPod.com, the substack. You know how to do the things. We will be back very soon with another conversation about conflict on an angry planet.

we're going to be looking at some missile defense stuff next. We'll see you soon.