The contrast between the two parties’ perspectives on whether U.S. foreign aid, especially as distributed by USAID, helps or hurts American overseas objectives was clear from the opening statements by Greene and Ranking Member Rep. Angela Stansbury (D-N.M.).
“After hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayers’ dollars have been distributed throughout the world, has the world become safer? No,” Greene said in her statement. “Has the world become more stable? No. Is the perception of the United States around the globe any better? No.
“But have some of the most anti-democratic principles like censorship and the canceling of elections been funded through USAID because of opposition to the ruling regimes? Yes. Has money through USAID been funneled to terrorists? Yes.”
To illustrate the allegations, Greene cited multiple examples that were amplified by three of the four witnesses who gave testimony.
Stansbury then alleged that the hearing was “designed to confuse and to provide cover for Donald Trump and Elon Musk in their reckless gutting of our foreign aid [and] their re-ordering of international affairs.”
Greene and Stansbury’s opening statements set the pattern for the remainder of the two-hour hearing, including the five-minute questioning period each member of the panel had to address the four witnesses.
Republicans, in posing their questions, repeatedly cited examples of USAID sending tax dollars to overseas groups with links to Islamic terrorist outfits, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda.
And just as often, Democrats responded in some manner that mentioned Musk, whose DOGE aims to reduce federal spending and eliminate identified waste and fraud by auditing government agencies.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), after noting that foreign aid represents about 1 percent of the federal budget, closed his questioning of witnesses by declaring that Democrats will “push back every single time” Musk’s cost-cutting efforts affect federal programs and policies.
Asked by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), for example, if he was aware that “we are sending $40 million a week to the Taliban” in Afghanistan, Middle East Forum (MEF) Executive Director Gregg Roman responded affirmatively, then listed nearly a dozen other examples of USAID funding going to terrorist groups in Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Gaza.
The aid originates with USAID, which gives it to one of the hundreds of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) it funds. The recipient NGOs then distribute the U.S. aid to terrorist-linked groups. Federal law requires departments and agencies to ensure that U.S. tax dollars do not end up funding terrorist groups directly or indirectly.
“Despite what we hear in the media, there is no linkage between how we do aid and our national security. South Africa has received billions of American aid dollars yet is China’s main African partner. It supports Hamas and Iran and opposes us at every turn at the United Nations,” Primorac testified.
“Last summer, Mozambique and Tanzania, other large aid recipients, conducted two-week military exercises with the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), expanding China’s power projection to the lip of our Atlantic Ocean. Nineteen of the top 20 USAID recipients are members of China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” he said.
The Belt and Road Initiative is Beijing’s loan program to fund major infrastructure projects in foreign nations that can benefit China’s overseas interests.
The Democratic witness at the hearing was Noam Unger, the director of the Sustainable Development and Resilience Initiative and Senior Fellow at the Project on Prosperity and Development, Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“China has been vying with the U.S. for partnerships across the Global South, inking deals where it can. In ways that it might not have been able to even 15 years ago, China can fill soft power voids left by the U.S., including through telecommunications and infrastructure, like ports and roads, but also through vaccines and other aspects of health care or leadership in the multilateral system.”
Unger said, however, that shutting down USAID, ending all of its overseas aid programs, and terminating its workforce will enable China to make even more new allies who will then, in turn, oppose U.S. interests.
“The U.S. government has purchased more than $2 billion in food aid annually from American farmers, and American farms supply more than 40 percent of the food aid USAID sends around the world. As a result of the foreign aid freeze and stop-work order, rice, wheat, and soybeans are going to waste in transit and in ports. In Houston alone, hundreds of tons of American-grown wheat have been stranded,” Unger said.
