Postcards from the Gulf of America

The End of Smart Diplomacy

One of the early targets of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). 

Established in 1961 by President Kennedy, USAID, according to its website, “is the principal U.S. agency responsible for extending development assistance to countries around the world. USAID programs aim to support economic growth, combat the spread of disease, promote democratic reform, and address food insecurity. The agency also provides assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to alleviate poverty, and emerging from periods of conflict.”

USAID was an unsurprising target for Musk and President Trump. For years, the right has lambasted its roughly $40 billion in annual overseas aid grants as supporting liberal, “woke” priorities, and many see it in direct conflict with President Trump’s “America First” philosophy. In other words, the thought process goes, why spend $40 billion on what appears on the surface to be a fairly random list of aid grants overseas when we have so much need for aid here in the U.S.?

Now, for all intents and purposes, USAID has been dismantled, and its outgoing aid almost entirely halted. Although there are numerous court battles that will determine its ultimate fate, most of its staff has been eliminated, and it’s tough to imagine it ever rebuilding from scratch, at least any time soon.

In his March 4 address to congress, President Trump outlined a number of examples of “appalling waste” that Musk has identified and eliminated, much of it grants made by USAID, including $45 million for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Myanmar, $14 million to reduce conflict and increase stability in Mali and $47 million to improve learning outcomes in Asia.

All told, he listed more than 20 different projects whose funding has been eliminated, and his descriptions of them certainly do raise eyebrows, if not legitimate concerns, about how our government is spending taxpayer dollars.

Putting aside the weirdness and waste of some of USAID’s grants, the program has generally served as a useful and pragmatic “soft power” diplomatic tool since its inception. As Elise Labott recently wrote in The Preamble newsletter: “USAID isn't primarily a charity organization. It's a strategic instrument of American foreign policy, carefully developed over 60 years with bipartisan support as a cost-effective way to advance our national interests without deploying troops or imposing sanctions.”

I got a firsthand account of USAID’s role in the world and the unintended consequences of its demise in a conversation I had recently with Andrea Leiner, deputy director of Global Response Medicine or GRM. GRM is a U.S. based nonprofit that deploys first responders – mostly veterans, EMTs, and healthcare professionals – to areas of conflict and disaster around the world, providing emergency medical aid to civilians. 

Steiner is actually based in Naples and is quite familiar with Southwest Florida, her father, Mike Murphy, having served as Marco Island fire chief for 19 years before retiring in 2020.

Steiner, a nurse practitioner by training, described how GRM was founded in a hot war zone in Mosul, Iraq, in 2017. “It was founded by a Marine infantryman and a collective of folks who saw the effects of civilians getting caught in the crossfire, and they wanted to do something about it,” she said. “It started with the heart and skill needed to do the work with the purest intentions and they managed to do something truly incredible,” noting this first ragtag mission helped more than 10,000 civilians survive the war.

GRM grew exponentially and has deployed thousands of volunteers to disaster and conflict zones all over the world, including Iraq, Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, and others. It’s got a small staff of 11 with an annual budget between one and three million dollars, depending on the need in the world, and is largely funded through small, grassroots donations on Facebook. 

Steiner has been on many GRM relief missions herself and was preparing to go to Ukraine the week after we spoke. I asked her to describe how the 

USAID cuts affected GRM’s work, and she gave me several examples.

“We had donors who benefited from USAID funding pull back and that trickled down to us,” she said. “When an organization as small as ours loses $50,000, that’s a huge deal.”

The second effect, she said, is that some of their overseas partners have had their funding pulled and are asking GRM to step in to fill the gap. “It’s a complete reversal of roles.”

She also noted that many of the universities that provide research and technical volunteer expertise, like a maxillofacial surgeon, for example, have had their funding reduced or eliminated. “The ground is crumbling in so many ways,” she said. Our partners domestically and around the world are just at a loss right now. We’re all trying to figure out how to deal with this.”

Perhaps the most alarming and unintended impact of the USAID withdrawal is China’s response. 

“When the USAID cuts went into effect and aid was frozen to Ukraine, our partners there started reporting that the Chinese government was offering up grants to offset what the Americans had pulled out,” she said, noting it’s happening all over the globe. “It’s great that the work can continue, but there are strings attached. The influence and balance of power has shifted overnight. There’s a lot of bad guys out there, and if the bad guys fill the vacuum, that makes us less safe and in a very vulnerable position.”

Steiner is the first to admit that USAID needed a strategic review of its operations and grantmaking strategy, 

“Of course, we should talk about fraud and waste and excess,” Steiner said. “It happens everywhere. But it’s not the majority of business that’s being done, nor should it be the sole focus.”

She also points out that the current approach has zero regard for the impact it’s having on their volunteers here in the U.S., who view their roles with GRM as essentially a life’s calling.

“The people who do this work are the best kind of people,” she said. “They’re willing to watch something on the news and go do something about it. They’re veterans willing to continue serving their country after completing their service. They’re willing to work four twelve-hour night shifts at their hospital so they can go take care of children somewhere else. There’s going to be quite a vacuum, one we’re not going to be able to fill.”

You know, maybe that’s the prop Elon Musk should bring onstage next time instead of his chainsaw. A vacuum cleaner. It certainly better represents the impact DOGE is having in sucking the good out of so many people’s lives with no apparent strategy, forethought or human empathy.