Samantha Power, the former administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, warned that the Trump administration’s dismantling of the agency, which provides international humanitarian aid, could bolster China’s global influence.
“It’s no secret we’re in a period of intense strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China,” Power told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “The PRC has become more active over the last decade and a half through the Belt and Road initiative, but also through programs that mimic some of what USAID is doing. … They see the value of gaining this political capital and winning hearts and minds in this way.”
Trump issued an executive order halting all foreign aid distribution; amid a stop-work order, thousands of USAID employees and contractors have been being fired or furloughed. Plunged into uncertainty, USAID announced this week that nearly all global hires would be placed on administrative leave.
NBC has reported that shipping containers filled with aid supplies have been sitting untouched at various ports, and clinical drug trials for infectious diseases around the world have been halted.
‘There is American food in warehouses that is just sitting there because of the stop-work order,” Power said. “It is just devastating for American interests. It’s devastating for America’s reputation as a country that keeps its word.”
Power, who penned an op-ed yesterday in The New York Times arguing that the end of USAID will be a win for global autocrats, said China will “relish the strategic opening that this offers them.”
“This is going to create an opening just about everywhere USAID has worked,” she said, pointing to China’s launch of a $4 million global mine clearing program to address the gaps left in USAID’s absence.
Power also slammed Republicans who have pivoted to false theories about how USAID spends its congressionally appropriated budget, saying “falsehoods about projects that are allegedly going on here or there have come in such a short time to define USAID’s reputation, including with Republican supporters of USAID who have stood with the agency over decades.”
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