The Weaponisation Of Usaid Against The Sovereignty Of Nations

USAID and its war on sovereignty. The context behind this discussion is that the Trump administration has put on leave about 60 senior career officials at the US Agency for International Development (USAid) workers, after Washington put a sweeping freeze on US aid (in general) worldwide. The administration further urged the USAid staff to join the effort to transform how Washington allocates aid around the world in line with Trump’s “America First” policy. It also promised disciplinary action for any staff ignoring the administration’s orders. And so, while there is outcry about the loss of USAID support, we ought to address with an adequate characterisation of USAID, because USAID is anything but an organisation focused on aid. USAID has been a CIA front, tool of regime change, and conduit for dependency of the US – at the expense of Americans. There is ample evidence of this in history and the status quo.
To begin with, USAID funding was utilised to fund the research in Wuhan China that culminated in the COVID plandemic! More specifically, some of the research proposals in 2018 were the Wuhan Institute of Virology asking for money to create a virus with a furin cleavage site, specifically a SARS-like coronavirus with a furin cleavage site. Well, that’s exactly what COVID-19 turned out to be. Well, kindly have a listen as Rand Paul pressed USAID Administrated Samantha Power on the USAID’s role in Wuhan China, and the subsequent refusal to provide documentation that details the extent of their involvement.
But, it does not stop there. You’d recall that I mentioned that USAID functioned as a means of regime change, well in 2023, he sent a letter to then US President Joe Biden asking that he stop interference in his country by the United States Agency of International Development (USAID). According to López Obrador, USAID is funding opposition parties and so-called ‘non-government organizations’ opposed to his administration, including Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity and Article 19. To quote him, he stated in a portion of his letter that, “I would like to express briefly that for some time now, the United States government, in particular the United States Agency for International Development, has been financing organizations openly opposed to the legal and legitimate government that I represent, which is clearly an interventionist act, contrary to international law and the respect that should prevail among independent and sovereign states.”
López Obrador also added in the letter that funding to those groups has increased recently. He stated that a few days ago, it was announced USAID will increase the budget granted to organisations opposed to the Mexican government. However, President AMLO stopped short of saying that Biden is aware of the program, instead asking for his “valuable intervention” to end it. He also said he considered not sending the letter, but did so as a matter of principle and in defence of his country’s sovereignty so “future generations should not wonder why this type of violations against the nation’s sovereignty were allowed.”
USAID FUNDED AND ORCHESTRATED A COUP IN NICARAGUA AND VENEZUELA
Now, if the sentiments from President AMLO might seem a bit excessive and uncalled for, let me make plain that what we see in Mexico is seemingly the modus operandi of USAID. This is because a USAID document lays out a blueprint for regime change in Nicaragua. The document shines a new light on the 2018 protests in Nicaragua as well as similar operations in other countries targeted by the US, such as Venezuela.
In particular, a new report by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) has revealed a guide to regime change in Nicaragua by USAID. The document, which dates to March-April of 2020, describes in frank terms how the agency, which maintains close ties with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), could create or exploit a variety of scenarios to remove democratically-elected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his FSLN party from power in or around the upcoming 2021 elections. It is said that many of the tactics outlined in the USAID document can be observed in the demonstrations that rocked Nicaragua in the summer of 2018.
But on the document itself, and how it inspired the coup, it is, essentially, a contract hiring coup plotters – a ‘coup-plotters for hire’-type contract. And it’s really astounding how the whole document is based on the premise that we can impose a better version of democracy for the Nicaraguan people. It talks about a crisis and a transition, and all of this is code-speak for basically bringing about a coup. [PAUSE] All of this is evidence to the fact that USAID is NOT an aid body. When we see USAid, some assume (by design) that the inclusion of the word “Aid” is a reference to aid itself. Rather, “USAID” is an initialism, meaning “US Agency for International Development”, meaning (as stated earlier) that USAID is a CIA front, a tool of regime change (typically for the State Department), and conduit for dependency of the US.
THE INTERNAL WORKINGS OF USAID SHOWED A LACK OF ADEQUATE ACCOUNTABILITY
Now, when we look at the organisation itself, it is not well functioning – literally misusing millions of dollars; which accurately contextualises why president Trump wants to transform how Washington allocates aid around the world in line with his “America First” policy. Kindly take a look at this clip from 2011 of a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform questioning the financial spending of and management of USAID.
The sentiments of the USAID spokesperson testifying, as aptly captured by an analyst, is that the spokesperson was essentially saying that, “The US government gave USAID so much money that it couldn’t afford to keep track of it all.  USAID then spent 45 billion a year, it does not know what Americans and beneficiaries get for that but for $45 billion it must be worth it, whatever it is. And if the US government wants USAID to fix these problems in their spending then USAID needs a budget increase.” So they do not have documents accounting for their spending, but wherever the money is spent must be worth it, and if the government wants better accountability, they must give USAID more money. But overall, we can then observe that USAID has been detrimental to the democracy of numerous nations.
THE OPPORTUNITIES PRESENTED TO AID RECIPIENT COUNTRIES BY THE USAID FREEZE
First, it is important to note that the freezing of USAID is about president Trump putting America first, by tracing all American taxpayers money and how it is being used. No country has an inherent entitlement to this aid, therefore, this makes it difficult to give credence or support to complaints about USAID being stopped. Therefore, the first opportunity presented to countries who received aid from USAID is the better management of funds to fill the USAID vacuum. And as far as filling the vacuum of USAID funds is concerned, recipient countries, especially African nations have this capacity. Africa is the new world, and we have money in abundance, part of what has stifled our growth is that this money is not well managed. In fact, we have more than enough money and resources to cover everything if the looting and mismanagement is stopped. Many nations including South Africa generally allocate most money to the health department. Therefore, if our economies are worth hundreds of millions and billions, and we already allocate most funding to healthcare, it should be an indictment on the nation’s financial management that a freeze of aid from the US is a threat to our stability.
The second opportunity that African countries have through the USAID freeze is to address corruption. And to push the envelope further, I will make the argument that foreign aid (in general) is part of what drives corruption. The primary reason is that aid reduces the quality of institutions (through removing an incentive to be self-reliant and function), which therefore increases corruption in recipient economies.
And perhaps one of the most important opportunities presented by this USAID freeze is a protection of sovereignty. Aid, including in the form of loans, inherently always comes with conditions. And the conditions are often at the expense of sovereign power and ownership of national resources. Not only have we seen this with African, South American and South East Asian countries, but recently we have gotten to see this play out in Ukraine.
Finally, in addressing the opportunities for African countries presented by the USAID freeze, we ought to address the argument that the US has benefited from a unipolar world order throughout history, especially since its exit from the Bretton Woods system and the use of the dollar as the reserve currency, and therefore, should not get to freeze aid when it is culpable for creating a word where many countries are dependent on its funding and aid. My challenge with this argument is that it concedes to a problem of dependency on the US in less developed countries, but proposes continued dependency as a solution. However, if the US has created a unipolar world, then more than anything, the revelation that it is unreliable to depend on it should be seen as an opportunity to break away from that dependency!
In fact, this reasoning is not at all novel. This reasoning has fuelled discussions about the balance of power to counter hegemonic powers in international relations. This reasoning has also recently been the driving influence behind the consolidation of the BRICS group of nations and its commitment to multilateralism. Therefore, there generally is a propensity around the world to break away from dependency and a unipolar influence – and recipient nations of USAID funds and resources are not exempt from this shift. So much so, that history proves there is a great cost to sovereignty when that comes with this continued dependency.
For instance, RFK Jr exposed that during the Ukrainian riots in 2014, the US, through USAID, covertly funded the unrest, leading to the overthrow of Ukraine’s neutral, and democratically elected government – under Victor Yanukhovyc. A month prior to the overthrow, a now-public secret call between Victoria Nuland and Ukraine’s US ambassador occurred, “where Nuland was picking the new cabinet for Ukraine.”
USAID AND THE SUPPORT FOR AIDS INTERVENTIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA
This discussion on USAid, sovereignty and dependency has been highlighted in nations like Zimbabwe, Kenya and South Africa. In South Africa it is said that the nation gets about R8.5 billion from the US for the health initiatives, including those related to AIDS responses.
Ironically, I think the case in South Africa makes one of the most convincing arguments against foreign aid. You’d recall that during the Thabo Mbeki administration, former South African president Thabo Mbeki championed dissenting views of HIV/AIDS science and argued that the antiretroviral drugs (also known as ARVs) were actually poisonous. Mbeki told thousands of AIDS experts gathered from around the world that he is simply looking for an African solution to the scourge that is ravaging the continent. Mbeki endured a hail of criticism, especially since he refused to provide medicine to pregnant women which was said to reduce risks for mother-to-child transmission of the disease. However, Mbeki emphasised that Africa needed to search for a solution to the AIDS pandemic that would deal with Africa’s unique problems.
However, faced with mounting pressure, and the court’s decision in the landmark Treatment Action Campaign case, the Mbeki administration gave into the pressure to provide ARVs and on 8th August 2003, the South African government made the announcement that they were going to roll out free ARVs, At this point, big pharma had penetrated the South African market. The government now had an obligation to procure and freely distribute ARVS – and thus depend on pharmaceutical companies. Now, I say this NOT to say that people were supposed to be left to die in the absence of intervention; rather it is to say that the Mbeki administration never quite figured a solution to the AIDS epidemic that would be unique to South Africa or Africa at large; instead, the South African government was forced to adopt the interventions of pharmaceutical companies and subsequently dependent on them and foreign aid to finance AIDS interventions. This case, among other things, proves another disadvantage of dependency on foreign aid – it comes at the expense of developing and strengthening domestic institutions. In fact, we see the same issue with the communication that recently came froM the health Ministry in Kenya.
Ultimately, while the USAID freeze does come with a great deal of inconvenience and potentially drastic effects, governments in recipient nations are also culpable in this problem for their dependency. Furthermore, this is a chance for recipient nations to pursue self-sufficiency. But, we have surely prayed, and continue to pray. Therefore, in this glorious Year of Completeness, all satanic and globalist agendas are suspended; and nations will continue to be extricated from harmful treaties and association.
Written By Lindokuhle Mabaso