Is USAID a Slush Fund for NGOs, Warlords, and Anti-American States?

President Trump’s efforts to curb the influence of the bureaucratic state have recently focused on USAID, an agency that has been directing taxpayer funds to NGOs, foreign entities, and even adversarial states under the banner of "soft power." In certain instances, financial resources were also allocated to domestic organizations with left-leaning agendas that claimed to support "democracy."

What is USAID, you might ask? Most of us probably assumed AID meant aid to people in need. That would be terribly incorrect. Mike Benz points out that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a tool of the CIA, the State Department, and the Pentagon for American statecraft to promote "open societies."

At first pass, you would think, well that's great. They are promoting American democracy. Except, as DOGE has gained access to audit their books, it turns out they are funding all kinds of globalist agendas, even terrorist groups that are anti-American.

For instance, DOGE cancelled a $45 million contract for DEI scholarships in Burma. They also discovered American taxpayers were funding $520 million for consultant-driven ESG investments (Environmental, Social, Governance) in Africa, and $1.2 billion in awards to "undisclosed" recipients.

As of posting this article, Elon Musk stated on X that President Trump agreed to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development. Musk confirmed that he spoke with the President multiple times to verify the decision.

Musk said in the discussion — which included former DOGE co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) — that there was no hope for USAID to improve and instead they would be forced to shutter the agency.

“So to be clear, in shutting down, which we’re in the process of doing, shutting down USAID, the reason for that, as opposed to simply trying to do some minor housecleaning, is that, as we dug into USAID, it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms,” Musk said in the X Spaces discussion.

“If you’ve got an apple that’s got a worm in it, maybe you can take the worm out, but if you’ve got actually just a ball of worms, it’s hopeless. And USAID is a ball of worms. There is no apple. And when there is no apple, you’ve just got to basically get rid of the whole thing,” Musk said.

“That is why it’s got to go,” he added. “It’s beyond repair.”