USAID Cuts Imperil Free Press, Human-Rights Advocacy in Autocracies
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The demise of the US Agency for International Development is sapping billions of dollars of funding for health and social programs that will be difficult for the world to replace. But it’s also leaving behind a complicated legacy as a promoter of American values abroad.
Donald Trump and his efficiency czar Elon Musk made USAID an early target of their cost-cutting campaign in part because the president is prioritizing domestic issues over international support. The agency funded journalistic outlets, human-rights groups and anticorruption efforts that critics at home and abroad argued were unnecessary interventions in other countries’ affairs.