Much of the world has caught a cold since the inauguration of President Donald Trump on January 20, marking the beginning of his second term in office as the 47th POTUS. Unsurprisingly, he hit the ground running by signing truckloads of executive orders which has had very far reaching effects on both domestic and foreign policy.
At the heart of these controversial executive orders is the seizure of all US’s foreign aids and assistance around the world with initial exceptions to Israel and Egypt.
His publicly stated intention has been to shrink the size and cost of the federal government thereby saving American taxpayers billions of dollars wasted on supposed inanities.
For this, he created the Department of Government Efficiency and appointed his billionaire friend Elon Musk to oversee this department.
After US’s withdrawal from WHO, the latest and most controversial act so far has been the knockdown of the U.S Agency for International Development (USAID) described by Musk as a “criminal organization beyond repair and deserving to die.”
President Trump himself has described the leaders of USAID in very caustic terms saying they were “radical left lunatics.”
The disbandment of USAID and the retrenchment of thousands of its staffers have drawn bipartisan criticism and protests across America. The legal battle line is also drawn challenging the powers of the president to kill USAID via executive fiat being a creation of Congress.
This article intends to rise above the fog of emotions, ignorance, petty partisanship and perch on the towers of objectivity while explaining to you the geopolitical ramifications of this disbandment.
In this wilderness of media chicanery we find ourselves in, a sixth sense most especially a third eye is of scientific necessity!
WHAT DOES USAID REALLY DO?
The mass of the people, especially those who pride themselves as being fully aware or politically conscious are unaware or unconscious of the fact that they themselves have or are been zombified by the media (social or conventional).
We have watched both sides of the American media feed skewed narratives to their audience who in turn unfortunately parrot these distorted narratives with fanatical zeal without self processing.
USAID founded in 1961 by president Kennedy has been touted as a totally benign philanthropic agency dishing out foreign aids and assistance to poverty, disease stricken and disaster hit nations of the world.
The question is, “Is USAID really a Santa Claus or merely wearing the costumes of Santa?”
I am myself hit hard by this rhetorical conundrum and to resolve it, I refrain from making judgements but contented with presenting the facts just so that you may be the jury.
The USAID can be likened to what the Yorubas in praising one of their greatest Field Marshal, Iba Oluyole, nephew of Basorun Gaa and grandson of Alaafin Abiodun. He is praised as “Aseburuku, se rere.” Meaning, one that that does both bad and good. Whatever the case may be, I am sure, the great Iba Oluyole remains the calculated beneficiary of his Machiavellian designs.
The Global South especially Africa are a warm and welcoming people. Our arms are always opened, extended to welcome other peoples. Unfortunately, harm we have always gotten in return for our open arms.
Legend has it that the men in cassocks asked our forbears to close their eyes for prayers. When they opened them, their land was gone and all they had was the word. They had the world, while we had the word and its promise of afterlife. We have recklessly inherited that hospitality!
USAID is a vivid reenactment of the legends of the missionary. No wonder, their offices in different parts of the world are called missions.
No doubt, many great goods have been done and many millions of people have benefited. However, Jacob’s lunch was and still is not free! The cost to Esau and his generations has not been and is incapable of fully paid. It is an eternal debt!
The price tag on US aid and assistance is “American Soft Power.” Joseph Nye of Harvard University popularized the term in his 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. He writes, “when one country gets other countries to want what it wants might be called co-optive or soft power in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants.”
In this epoch, democracy is the political currency or legal tender while soft power is the gold standard that backs it up! Is Soft Power not smoother and cheaper than crude and costlier colonialism?
To access US aid, nations have had to swallow terms and conditions that undermine their sovereignty and compromise on sociocultural norms. Individuals and organizations have had to thread the treacherous paths of treason all just to advance American interests at their own expense.
Governments who resist this diplomatic, philanthropic arm twisting and ball squeezing have been undermined through color revolutions vis a vis engineering and financing internal conflicts.
The Maidan revolution of 2014 in Ukraine against the democratically elected Viktor Yanukovych was choreographed by the United States. The result has been eleven years of war in Ukraine. USAID under the cover of aid has interfered in Cuba, Bolivia, Russia among other sovereign nations. In some of these places, USAID has been kicked out.
We do not have enough space and time for the catalogue of covert operations carried out and still carried on by USAID. The USAID has been a crucial lynchpin of American Empire project around the world for over six decades. No surprise that this “philanthropic” agency participates in National Security Council meetings of the United States.
While we must give it credit for ending tyranny and intervening in humanitarian crises, we are skeptical about the media’s attempts to pretend as if USAID does not deserve credit for so many other activities. This elective credit system should tickle your curiosity if you have the capacity for curiosity.
THE ECONOMICS OF FOREIGN ASSISTANCE
You must be convinced that Esau did not make a full assessment of what Jacob’s porridge would cost him. If he did, if he knew how sterling his destiny was, his decision would surely have been the opposite. Like herbivores ( ain’t we ones too anyways), he would have grazed on grass rather than mortgaged his destiny. This “Esaurian” tragedy is the lot of aid recipients.
Where possible, the bulk (monetary value) of foreign aid stays in the donor country. For example, 41% of food aid is sourced from American farmers. Technical expertise is locally sourced and over 90% of staffers are Americans. This policy direction provides jobs and income opportunities for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
While those “economic round-trips” should not bother us as much, we must beware that American “philanthropy” is not merely to acquire soft power for the sake of it but mainly to acquire human assets especially in government that give them unfettered access to the mineral wealth of host countries.
The US is the biggest beneficiary of its own phony philanthropy. When USAID was shut, the concern of US foreign policy establishment was not the wretched people of the third world who would lose, not even the hundreds of thousands of Americans and businesses that would lose but that the United States would lose its soft power and that rival powers such as China and Russia would swoop in to leverage on this vacuum created by USAID exit.
IS THIS THE END OF AMERICAN GLOBALIST AGENDA?
Some have excitedly described Trump’s actions as a constitutional revolution in America vis a vis he is making a u-turn from America’s role as a global hegemon. Excited that American interference with the sovereignty of other nations is grinding to a halt.
Are you not concerned about the idiocy of this sheepish excitement? Would it not cost the deer dearly to believe that the imperial leopard would change its spots and graze with it in the savanna?
President Trump now the head of the American Empire in typical fashion of Emperors has expressed expansionist, imperial, land grabbing intentions. One is the addition to the US of Canada as the 51st state, the acquisition of Greenland, the grabbing of Gaza and who knows where else in other to Make the Empire Great Again (MEGA). This is not a u-turn from Globalism!
The withdrawal from WHO, the dismantling of USAID and the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency is all red herring. The goal is a miserly, low budget Empire Rebuilding project.
THE ALTERNATIVE USAID
Millions worldwide are disappointed with the dismantling of USAID. Some are “genuinely” disappointed while most are ignorant. Whichever you belong, I am afraid you are ill-informed.
It is an existential MUST for us that we let Mr. Jacob keep his lunch!
Government and non-governmental organizations, individuals worldwide must resist imperialism in all its shades and shapes! We must now all begin to look inward to engineer, to own the patents of solutions to the problems and challenges of our destiny.
It is only by so doing, that we can unleash our full potentialities and free ourselves and posterity from predatory philanthropy!
Olusegun O Oduntan!
