The Cruelty Is the Policy
The Cruelty Is the Policy The destruction of USAID, the loss of America’s soft power, and genocide Mary L Trump Nov 23 “Let’s kill poor people.” Regarding the United States Agency for International Development (U.S.A.I.D), Atul Gawande writes in The New Yorker : On a budget of just twenty-four dollars per American—out of the fifteen thousand dollars in taxes paid per person last year—they had saved lives at an almost unimaginable scale. An independent, peer-reviewed analysis in The Lancet estimated that U.S.A.I.D. assistance had saved ninety-two million lives over two decades. Despite that, when Donald came into office, he almost immediately defunded the organization. There are many reasons that defunding an agency like U.S.A.I.D. was a horrific idea. Doing so hobbled America’s ability to deploy soft power which is a vital tool it has used in the past to create alliances, spread democracy, and expand its global influence. Leaving a soft power void for our advers...
