30,000 tons of food stuck in Houston port after Trump halts foreign aid
Tens of thousands of tons of food purchased through a federal program to feed hungry people overseas is stuck at a warehouse in Houston’s port after President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid, according to an email from an international food agency and an employee with the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The pause comes as the Trump administration moves to dismantle USAID, one of the world’s largest government aid organizations. The organization spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year through its Food for Peace program to distribute surplus crops from American farmers around the globe, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Trump not happy with USAID, but agency funded his family members constantly
USAID has maintained close ties with the Trump family members and has invested in their government ventures for a long time. They even helped in financing Melania Trump’s Be Best program and Ivanka Trump’s Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative during the first term of Donald Trump, according to the Daily Mail UK report.
All these useful idiots decrying the spending of USAID lack the intellectual rigor to consider how it is any different NOW than it was under the first Trump Admin - and clearly it wasn’t.
To support the First Lady’s initiative, Administrator Green named Julie Cram as USAID’s BE BEST Champion. In this new role, she will promote the BE BEST Campaign at USAID and identify opportunities for greater alignment between the initiative and USAID’s programming.
In policy terms, the Democrats have a point. The legality of DOGE’s strike on the agency is unclear. For the incredible amount of wasteful stuff in its budget—why did USAID grant $1.5 million for “diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities”—USAID also provides basic aid, like nutrition and health assistance, to needy countries.
But politically, none of that matters a whit. Trump occupies the high ground in this fight, which is probably why he and Musk picked it. If voters dislike anything, it’s bureaucracy and foreign aid. And USAID is a 10,000-employee bureaucracy—housed in a palatial building on prime downtown real estate—that spends $40 billion a year on other countries…
Skepticism about foreign aid is one of the most consistent and durable findings of public opinion research. In a 2023 AP-NORC poll, 69 percent of respondents thought U.S. government spending in this area was “too much”; 20 percent, “about right”; and just 10 percent “too little.” In contrast, support for more spending in most domestic areas (healthcare, education, infrastructure, Social Security, etc.) is quite strong.
As veterans like Emanuel know, anti–foreign aid sentiment runs highest among working-class voters, precisely the people who have been defecting from the Democrats…
A very large chunk of USAID money goes to Ukraine, and all these government agencies have their own Inspector Generals. From May 2024:
https://oig.usaid.gov/node/6814?oref=d_brief_nl The USAID Office of Inspector General, Inspections and Evaluations Division, is initiating an inspection of USAID’s oversight of Starlink satellite terminals provided to the Government of Ukraine.
Our objectives are to determine how (1) the Government of Ukraine used the USAID-provided Starlink terminals, and (2) USAID monitored the Government of Ukraine’s use of USAID-provided Starlink terminals.
This is easy to answer! It’s because someone (some politician somewhere) owed the person who was to run the program in Serbia, and this was an easy way to pay them back using government money. The “organization” gets the $1.5M, and then distributes it to the person owed via salary, benefits, and sometimes other ways.
You’ll have to ask Teixeira. But you’re missing the point of the article.
“Skepticism about foreign aid is one of the most consistent and durable findings of public opinion research.”
“As veterans like Emanuel know, anti–foreign aid sentiment runs highest among working-class voters, precisely the people who have been defecting from the Democrats…”
as the source of your claim of “incredible amount of wasteful stuff” in USAID. Yet most if not everything on that website is either a lie or distorted information. For example, the second item on the list is
$70,000 for production of a “DEI musical” in Ireland
As of 2019 68% of American want to increase or maintain spending on foreign aid, at least according to PEW. USAID funding is usually a bit over 1% of the total budget. 89% of Americans believe the US should spend at least 1% of its budget on foreign aid.
The administration is against fighting discrimination against LGBTI, so, in the eyes of the administration, funding such programs is “woke” and “DEI”, therefore wrong, if not illegal.
Apparently, there are “good Christians”, and “bad Christians”. “Good Christians” strictly adhere to “traditional American family values”. The “bad Christians” are “woke”. There is now a committee working in the White House to get that all sorted out.
This will be a challenge for “JC” HR policies. With “DEI” being de facto illegal, the “JC” will no longer be questioned if there are no brown/black/Asian/female/handicapped/gay people on his payroll. However, the DOJ may be asking questions if he has anyone but Christians on his payroll. Meanwhile, he will need to tolerate the Christians on his payroll aggressively proselytizing in the office/plant, lest he be charged with anti-Christian bias.
The problem with today’s democrats is that they are weenies. They keep looking for some populist message and try to avoid anything that their polling says might be unpopular. Weenies.
What people want to hear is that democrats are willing to fight for something. What do democrats stand for? By waiting so long for the perfect message, they allow republicans to define them.
Dems don’t even have to come up with new rhetoric. They can just use Reagan’s arguments, who I believe was very popular with the exact demographic democrats currently want to win.
Many Americans still criticize US foreign aid by employing these same excuses. Reagan gave many compelling reasons to support foreign assistance.
First, it’s in our national security interest. Reagan believed that the key to enduring peace was creating strong friendships. Aid is an effective way to turn developing nations with potentially unstable governments into powerful friends, as was done with Japan and Germany after World War II.
Second, it helps the US economy grow. Germany and Japan eventually became key trading partners for the US, and still are today. International trade promotes growth in all the countries involved, so the more nations there are to trade with the more money there is to be made. Small investments in lesser developed countries can lead to huge growth for everyone down the road.
Note that the AP-NORC poll found 69% said we are spending too much in “Assistance to other countries”. Given that literally trillions of dollars have been spent In Iraq and Afghanistan alone over the past few years, one can see why this phrasing would be unpopular.
PEW asked what should the US spend for “economic assistance to needy people around the world.” In 2019, only 28% said we were spending too much.
When it comes to helping foreign people in need, Americans are all for it by a big majority. Americans want to help others who are hungry or discriminated against. That’s the USAID if anyone would take the time to look into it and not simply take Musk at his word.
Michael Smirconish did an outstanding segment this week on USAID and how much good it has done in the world.
One of topics was the funding of a research study on the sex lives of the screw worm. Back in the day, a Senator actually lambasted the study as wasteful government spending:
Senator William Proxmire’s “Golden Fleece Award,” which often ridiculed odd-sounding science. But it did not escape such ridicule. The “sex life of the screwworm” has been a favorite target for some Members of Congress eager to talk to their constituents about “Washington waste.” And the story has had an amazingly long shelf-life.
But this study helped the USDA determine that they could control the screw worm - which was devastating cattle in Texas and other southern states, by sterilizing the male fly (the screw worm is the larval form of this fly and it eats living flesh).
The authors of the study went on to win the 1992 Worlds Food Prize when their research led to the irradiation of the screw worm in America.
All of this was of course 30 years ago.
But, this was just last month (and last admin)
This is the sort of spending that is being arbitrarily cancelled.
Fair enough, but are they investigating Starlink or themselves?
“ The Lever reported Tuesday that USAID’s inspector general was in the process of investigating its own public-private partnership between Musk’s Starlink and the Ukrainian government”
“ The USAID Office of Inspector General, Inspections and Evaluations Division, is initiating an inspection of USAID’s oversight of Starlink satellite terminals provided to the Government of Ukraine.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans released a budget plan Wednesday that sets the stage for advancing many of President Donald Trump’s top domestic priorities, providing for up to $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit so that the U.S. can continue financing its bills.
The budget plan also directs a variety of House committees to cut spending by at least $1.5 trillion while stating that the goal is to reduce spending by $2 trillion over 10 years.
4.5T in reduced tax revenue, but only reduce spending by 2T over the next 10 years.
