In a hearing held earlier this month titled “USAID’s Betrayal,” Republican members on the House Foreign Affairs Committee squandered a strategic opportunity. They missed the chance to highlight the Trump administration’s legacy of successful USAID initiatives while maintaining ground on Congress’s role in overseeing necessary reforms to the agency in response to the president’s foreign assistance executive orders.
Instead, they fixated on sensational and inappropriate rhetoric, diminishing the credibility of their oversight efforts. And the moment was lost.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration announced it would end 90 percent of USAID’s contracts and cut $60 billion in global aid.
The excessive and crude references to “condoms” and “circumcision” by members of both parties were embarrassing and beneath the dignity of Congress. Chairman Brian Mast’s (R-Fla.) remark, “we will write $10 million off foreskin out of the budget,” was just one among an endless stream of cringy exchanges by Republicans on the panel.
The tone was unserious; the discussion detracted from a substantive debate on USAID’s mission and impact.
Former USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios provided a key insight during the hearing: “USAID staff do what political appointees tell them to do.”
As a former political appointee at USAID during the first Trump administration, I found this statement largely accurate. Under President Trump, USAID prioritized, allocated funds and implemented programs to advance international religious freedom as well as sent USAID staff to Greenland.
In February 2019, USAID along with Ivanka Trump launched the W-GDP Fund, the first U.S. whole-of-government approach to global women’s economic empowerment to reach 50 million women worldwide. An April 2019 visit to Côte d’Ivoire by Ivanka Trump is one example of this global initiative, where she announced a $2 million USAID-World Cocoa Foundation partnership to support 300 new savings associations, enabling women farmers to access capital and training programs to support their families.
USAID also played a critical role in countering China’s influence in the developing world. Max Primorac, one of the witnesses in the hearing, highlighted how a strong counter-China infrastructure developed under USAID was dismantled by the subsequent administration.
Despite these successes, Republican committee members failed to emphasize them as a contrast to the Biden administration’s policy shift to the American people.
Instead of reinforcing Congress’s oversight role, their focus was on vilifying USAID for implementing White House directives under President Biden. The hearing failed to offer any thoughtful plan to eliminate wasteful spending and reorient USAID toward advancing American interests as well as protecting our tax dollars.
A more serious, sober inquiry would have probed the impact of shutting down USAID on American farmers and implementing partners, including faith-based organizations. Instead, the seriousness came from the Democrat side of the aisle.
Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) underscored the urgent need for USAID to resume humanitarian food assistance in Haiti, noting that “23 farms are impacted in the state of Florida.”
Unfortunately, American farms in other states such as Kansas, Louisiana, Iowa Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Missouri, Montana and Arkansas have also been impacted since they supplied USAID with rice, wheat and soybean for USAID’s food and relief programs.
The hearing should have been an opportunity to assess USAID’s effectiveness and propose meaningful reforms. Instead, it devolved into an unprofessional spectacle that did a disservice to the American people and USAID’s beneficiaries worldwide. A serious review would have addressed:
- The financial impact on American farmers and agricultural exports resulting from USAID funding suspensions.
- The national security implications of shuttering USAID, particularly its role in stabilizing conflict zones.
- USAID’s long history of surging into dangerous, conflict environments, like their heroic embedding with the U.S. military during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, managing humanitarian assistance and restoring essential services.
- The need for greater transparency (for example keeping USAID’s website available so that the American people can see for themselves USAID’s successes, failures, and areas for improvement).
President Trump’s executive orders directing a review of USAID programs are necessary, and I want his efforts to reduce waste and refocus the agency to succeed. But Congress has a duty to ensure that those carrying out the president’s vision do so in a way that preserves America’s strength and maintains an effective foreign assistance apparatus.
Rather than fueling a fire that could burn down a system that helped win the Cold War, combat terrorism, prevent famine, expand American business into emerging markets and keep America safe, Congress should engage in serious oversight. USAID needs reform, but dismantling it entirely would be a reckless mistake.
The American people, and those who rely on USAID’s work, deserve better. USAID’s work — including its support for religious liberty, working with American farmers, partnering with faith-based organizations and democracy promotion — deserves more than meaningless theatrics. America’s national security and the American people deserve better.
Samah Alrayyes Norquist is former chief adviser for International Religious Freedom to the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
