I witnessed the dissolution of USAID firsthand. It signals not only a callous lack of compassion, but also a dangerous surrender of our nation’s influence in the world.
Words by Kristina Drye
February 12, 2025
On Feb. 5, 2025, I was terminated from my job as a speechwriter at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). For two and a half years, I worked with an incredible Washington, D.C.-based team to communicate USAID’s mission to people around the world. The days were long, the edits difficult, and some of the topics we dealt with — from Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, to famine in the Horn of Africa, to Hamas’ attack on Israel and the subsequent humanitarian crisis in Gaza — were heavy. But my colleagues and I were glad to do the work. Every day, we felt like we were making a positive difference in a world saturated with human suffering.
When President Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, we were under no illusions that USAID would remain the same. Every public servant knows new leaders bring new ways to implement policy and manage taxpayer dollars. Our oaths bind us to serve the American people regardless of who is in the White House, and we take these oaths very seriously.
But what happened inside the walls of USAID in those last days exceeded our wildest dreams.
On the first day, the Administration sent out an Executive Order to stop all work related to DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility), and we cleaned our offices for fear of retribution from the new political appointees in the Front Office. Some of us hid our pictures taken with former U.N. Ambassador and USAID Administrator Samantha Power. I even packed up books to take home, afraid that their authors — including Power, Barack Obama, and Paulo Freire — would single me out for retribution.
On the second day, the emails began to come. They threatened disciplinary action if we did not inform on our own colleagues for trying to preserve any programming that could be interpreted as “DEIA” — a term that seemed to encompass almost everything for an Agency whose work supports the most vulnerable, and often marginalized, people around the world. They asked us to clean all “DEIA language” from our work and our websites. They reminded us that the new “America First” agenda would be prioritized at the expense of our development efforts, without a good-faith conversation about them.
The following days were hell. The new leadership took down pictures of our work hanging on the walls. They unplugged televisions displaying news stations. They started automatically transcribing our Google Meet calls. And they placed dozens of career public servants on administrative leave, in some cases escorting them out of the building.
Ultimately, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) manhandled its way into USAID’s information systems. In a matter of hours DOGE shut down our websites, took over email handles, and summarily removed the system access of hundreds of gainfully employed public servants. We did not know it then, but the building would never again open its doors as the U.S. Agency for International Development.
With this shuttering came the end of a vital lifeline for millions of people around the world. Children were turned away as they waited in line for tuberculosis vaccines. HIV-positive people suddenly lost access to the daily treatment they need to stay alive. Emergency food aid, already paid for by American taxpayers and shipped to ports around the world, sat undelivered and rotting while its intended recipients went without meals. For just one penny of every dollar in the Federal budget, USAID saved lives. Overnight, those lifelines were extinguished.
Many may ask why this work is important, aside from just being the nice thing to do. Why should we provide food to children in Sudan, when we are having trouble feeding our own children here at home? Why should we provide healthcare to people in other countries, when healthcare is so hard to acquire in the United States? In the end, why should we spend this money on others, when we could spend it on ourselves?
These are valid questions — and they are questions with answers.
First, national security. The safety and security of every single American relies not only on reactive defense, which comes from the Department of Defense; nor only on responsive diplomacy, which comes from the State Department. It relies, too, on proactive care, which until February of this year came primarily from USAID. For example, when we predict and respond to famines, we proactively prevent instability from spreading beyond those borders to our own shores. When we spray for malaria and respond to disease outbreaks like Ebola, we stop those diseases from becoming pandemics that threaten the lives of Americans, too. And when we help other countries build and maintain their democracies, we invest in our own safety: One of the first rules political science students learn is that democracies do not go to war with each other.
Second, when people think of USAID, they think of what it does around the world. But they rarely think of what it does here at home. The truth is that USAID’s development work directly supports the American economy. When active, USAID sourced 41 percent of its humanitarian food aid from American farmers, worth some $2 billion annually. It invested some $1 billion in American small businesses. In fact, the loss of USAID means that U.S. states will lose an estimated $3.34 billion in direct economic benefit. And since 11 of America’s top trade partners were once recipients of USAID, we can anticipate that we will lose billions in future trade revenue, too.
Lastly, the closure of USAID represents what has been described as an extinction-level event for an entire profession that specializes in addressing global economic and health challenges. An estimated 52,000 Americans have lost or will lose their jobs and will have to find employment in other fields — representing an irreplaceable loss for them, and for the world. Most of us were terminated without prior notice, without severance, and without basic access to our files to pull the materials needed to apply for other jobs, like writing samples. We find ourselves in the wholly unexpected position of applying to drive Ubers, bag groceries, or tend bars to make ends meet.
It is important to note that USAID always maintained a significant eye to fraud, waste, and abuse. It is one of the most heavily earmarked agencies in the government, meaning that Congress has to approve more than 90 percent of its funding for very specific projects — often years ahead of time. USAID reports to its own, separate Office of the Inspector General. And just last year, the Agency successfully passed several audits from multiple independent organizations. Given this, it can be confidently said that many of the claims of “wasteful programming” — from rumors that USAID “sent condoms to Gaza,” funded “transgender operas” in Colombia, or personally paid for Chelsea Clinton’s lavish lifestyle — are demonstrably incorrect. This kind of misinformation and, in some cases, disinformation, further threatens not only the Agency’s reputation but also the safety of its workers around the world.
So the closure of USAID — in just two short, unfathomable, and painful weeks — was shortsighted, both for national security and for the prosperity of our nation.
The decision begs another question: what does the closure of USAID say about us, about our country, and our values? What does it mean when the government Agency representing the best of us — generosity, kindness, and a respect for human dignity — is shuttered completely, in a move to turn inward and hoard our resources and talents?
We must face the truth: the policy and its outcome hinged entirely on cruelty.
One of the books I removed from my desk in those first days was Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a 20th century German and American historian and philosopher, a Jewish woman who lived during the reign of Hitler, focused her work on the nature of power, evil, and totalitarianism. In Eichmann, Arendt attempts to explain how ordinary people become actors in totalitarian systems. She coined the term “the banality of evil,” the idea that everyday people can do evil as a matter of course — that complicity is common.
USAID represented everything that is good and kind in the American conscience. When we share, others share. And when others prosper, we prosper, too. Soft power is all about empathy and proactive investment. If we give in someone’s time of need, they are more likely to assist in ours. These are simple lessons that we all learn as children: but countries practice them, too, on a larger scale.
The truth is that USAID represented the opposite of the banality of evil. It represented what I like to think of as the banality of good: the idea that kindness can be common, too. But kindness being common does not make it any less noble; just as cruelty being common does not make it any less cowardly.
When President Trump set his sights on USAID as the first target of his second term, he told us exactly who he wants America to be. And as Maya Angelou once said, “When someone shows you who they really are, believe them.”
So it is time we decide who we are, and act on that conclusion. The world, and America, are counting on us.
NOTE: 202-224-3121 is the phone number for the U.S. Capitol switchboard where an operator will connect you directly with your representative. Let your members of Congress know how you feel. It matters.