Soft power shift

In Washington, D.C., in late February, Meaghan Mobbs sat, blond hair pulled into a bun and leaning forward on her folded hands, before a group of U.S. lawmakers in a beige conference room in the Rayburn House Office Building. The House subcommittee hearing was about emerging global threats, but the conversation kept returning to USAID.

Until President Donald Trump and his administration essentially shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development in January, the agency was the nation’s top purveyor of soft power—that is, the use of humanitarian aid, as opposed to military force, as an influence on foreign nations.

Mobbs, director of the Center for American Safety and Security at Independent Women’s Forum, was blunt about her view of USAID under the Biden administration.

“I would argue they relied overly on soft power, but in my view a perversion of soft power,” she told lawmakers. “It was a focus on these progressive projects that actually didn’t promote the necessary influence where we needed to.”

While Republican lawmakers have repeated the party line that USAID was wasting taxpayer money, few say that humanitarian efforts aren’t worthwhile. But Trump has said his priority is getting the nation’s finances under control, and he’s relying on the Department of Government Efficiency to make cuts.

USAID was first on the chopping block: The new administration declared a 90-day freeze on foreign aid funding, issued stop work orders, and fired contractors. With more than 80% of USAID’s workforce and contracts cut as of early March, the American footprint on the international stage has dramatically changed. The cuts have variously provoked worry, outrage, or praise, and also raised questions about whether the Trump administration will be willing to make future investments in American soft power.

Trump has not commented on the role he thinks humanitarian aid should play in foreign policy. But he blames USAID for using American tax dollars to promote left-wing ideology.

“Eight million dollars to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of,” Trump said at his March 4 joint address to Congress. “Sixty million dollars for indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombian empowerment in Central America.” The president claimed to have found billions of dollars in “waste.”

But USAID diplomats say the agency’s programs—including epidemic control, life-saving food and health programs, job training, and anti-terrorism initiatives—were meant to advance democratic values and boost goodwill toward the U.S. Now, employees have been fired or put on administrative leave, and embassies have directed aid officers and family members to limit movements outside in sensitive countries where anti-American sentiment is rising.

One furloughed contractor I spoke to worked in the Bureau for Inclusive Growth, Partnerships, and Innovation with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region. She told me her department helped local communities build their own infrastructure so that they could wean off of USAID funding. But she said shuttering the entire agency could counter long-term strategic goals.

“Audits are a great way to drive efficiency, but not like this,” the contractor said. “The work that’s been lost, the organizations that have closed, the people that have died will not return overnight.” (WORLD agreed not to name interviewed USAID contractors and staffers to protect their current or future employment.)

One American USAID employee in Northern Africa cited projects he worked on that boosted local economies across Africa to block Russian and Chinese influence in the region.

“DEI was a big thing under President Biden. That was not a USAID thing,” he said, referring to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that Trump has worked to eliminate. “If a president doesn’t like the policy, they can reform it. Why take out one of your best foreign policy tools and cede the ground to our worst competitors?”

USAID funding recipients sued the Trump administration over the sudden cuts. The Supreme Court on March 5 ordered the government to disburse $2 billion in unpaid bills for work done before the freeze.

USAID’s congressionally approved annual budget of roughly $40 billion is more than any other country dedicates to development, although it accounts for less than 1% of the federal budget. Some conservative voters say that while they sympathize with suffering people around the world, it’s time to balance the nation’s checkbook.

“A trillion seconds is 30,000 years, and we have $36 trillion in debt,” said Aaron Gawronsky, an Arlington, Va., resident who attended the Conservative Political Action Conference’s annual meeting in February. “If you can’t pay that debt, the full faith and credit of the United States is lost, America declines on the world stage, our influence is gone.”

Fred Fleitz, vice chair of the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, noted that many conservatives argue it is wasteful to send aid abroad when there are humanitarian problems at home.

“I just don’t see it that way,” Fleitz said. “It’s such a small percentage of our money.” He’d prefer to cut costs but then bring back humanitarian aid, devoid of political agenda.

“Whether we like it or not, we are a superpower, and we will get involved in things we don’t want to because the consequences are too deadly otherwise,” said Rick Tyler, a Republican strategist. “Soft power allows us to develop other countries and make them more independent. Because if we don’t, then China will. And China will not make them independent.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, currently the acting director of USAID, has praised the agency in the past. But on March 10 he announced on X that just 18% of the agency’s programs would continue, and that 5,200 canceled USAID contracts had “spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve … the core national interests of the United States.”

Meanwhile, at the earlier House hearing, Mobbs defended humanitarian aid as a strategic tool for America.

“Soft power is not a charity, it is a weapon, one that when wielded correctly can shape the battlefield before a single shot is fired,” Mobbs told lawmakers. “Beijing understands this. Moscow understands this. The question is, do we understand this?”