OPINION: USAID: A deep state slush fund exposed and defunded

Trump and Musk just smashed one of the Deep State’s biggest cash cows: USAID. For years, this bloated agency funneled taxpayer money into global activism, corruption and election interference, all while posing as humanitarian aid. With a $44.2 billion budget -- bigger than the CIA and State Department combined -- it operated with zero accountability. I first noticed USAID’s corruption in 2005, when it was caught funding a prostitution ring in India. That was my wake-up call: This agency wasn’t about humanitarian aid -- it was a taxpayer-funded, progressive racket.

USAID wasn’t just wasteful -- it was weaponized. The DOGE team uncovered more than $200 million funneled to EcoHealth Alliance, the same group that partnered with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where COVID-19 originated. Worse, USAID directly sent $1 million to WIV itself. Why was a so-called “aid” agency bankrolling communist bioresearch?

Meanwhile, the following is just a fraction of what the DOGE exposed as USAID’s taxpayer-funded waste:

• $4.6 billion to Catholic Relief Services.
• $164 million to “radical groups.”
• $15 million for condoms to the Taliban.
• $14 million in cash vouchers for migrants at the southern border.
• $10 million for creating transgender animals.
• $3.3 million for “being LGBTQ in the Caribbean.”
• $3.2 million to help Tunisian migrants readjust to life in Tunisia after deportation.
• $2.5 million to build electric vehicle charging stations in Vietnam’s largest cities.
• $1.5 million to promote job opportunities for LGBTQ individuals in Serbia.
• $1 million to boost French-speaking LGBTQ groups in West and Central Africa.
• $446,700 to promote the expansion of atheism in Nepal.
• $425,622 to help Indonesian coffee companies become more climate- and gender-friendly.
• $80,000 for an LGBTQ community center in Bratislava, Slovakia.
• $55,750 for a climate change presentation in Argentina led by female and LGBT journalists.
• $47,020 for a transgender opera in Colombia.
• $39,652 for gender identity and racial equality seminars at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
• $32,000 for an LGBTQ-centered comic book in Peru.
• $20,600 for a drag show in Ecuador.
• $16,500 to foster a “united and equal queer-feminist discourse in Albanian society.”
• $10,000 to pressure Lithuanian corporations to promote “DEI values.”

This is where your tax dollars went -- while American families struggle with inflation and a crumbling economy.

How does any of this alleviate poverty? As Ron Paul points out, U.S. foreign aid strips hard-earned money from struggling American taxpayers and hands it to foreign governments, bureaucrats and global elites, fueling globalist agendas while rarely benefiting the people it claims to help.

But USAID’s corruption didn’t stop at funding foreign radicalism -- it actively worked against Americans, too. In 2019, the agency funneled $20 million to bribe journalists, smear Rudy Giuliani, and push Trump’s impeachment. New documents reveal USAID and the CIA worked together to execute a deep state coup, using taxpayer dollars to remove a sitting president. This wasn’t “foreign aid” -- it was treason.

Our government wasn’t just meddling abroad -- it was subsidizing left-wing American media. Politico received $8.2 million in government payments. The New York Times got $4.1 million in August 2024 alone. Since 2022, the AP has taken $5.8 million, and Reuters $10 million.

USAID was never about humanitarian aid -- it was a $44.2 billion slush fund for globalist agendas, DEI activism and outright election interference. There’s no “aid” even in the name. It doesn’t serve U.S. interests like peace, security, freedom or democracy. Instead, it exports bizarre, destabilizing sexual politics while funding riots, coups and proxy wars. Most of what it touches brings chaos, division and conflict.

Your tax dollars have been used to wreck foreign nations and work against Americans. USAID bankrolled Arab Spring uprisings, unrest in Belarus and Georgia, and funneled $6 million through the Tides Center to fuel the 2020 BLM riots.

Worse, a new investigation found that USAID and the State Department have funneled over $160 million to groups tied to designated terrorist organizations, including entities under Hamas control. Some recipients have even called for violence against Jews and the destruction of Israel -- paid for with American tax dollars.

The only politicians defending USAID are those on the take or those with constituents on the take. The agency is 97% Democrat donors -- a progressive operation hiding behind “foreign aid.” USAID is a professional rent-a-riot, not a force for stability.

DOGE’s revelations have put USAID beyond repair, and shutting it down is simple. We need a foreign policy that isn’t evil -- one that protects American taxpayers instead of funding global chaos. Ending USAID isn’t just about fiscal responsibility. It’s about ending a corrupt, weaponized agency that has no place in a government that claims to serve the people.

Courtney served 20 years as a nuclear engineering officer aboard submarines and 15 years as a graduate school instructor. A political independent, he spends his time chasing his eight grandchildren around Moscow.