Benevolence was once an American virtue. Our nation was a shining beacon of hope for the less fortunate of the world. Programs like USAID — established in 1961 — provided immediate emergency assistance of food and medicine, but also served as longer-term soft-power guides to democracy and economic development. The subhead of the USAID website said, “From the American People.”
On February 23 of this year of President Trump’s “America First!” transactional foreign policy, USAID was shuttered. In fact, most foreign aid has ceased since the Trump Administration came into power in January. (The exception is selling, or gifting in some cases, weapons of mass destruction to nations such as Israel without restrictions.)
International charity has been replaced by punishing tariffs, the threat of bombs, closed borders and deportations, and, always, the president’s bellicose bully pulpit. No longer can the world’s poor look to the wealthiest country on the planet for help. Good will has devolved to good riddance.
Here are some of the lowlights of those measures:
Food
Recently, the US has ordered the destruction of 500 metric tons of high-energy biscuits, enough food, The Atlantic reports, to feed 1.5 million children for a week. The biscuits cost the government a mere $800,000. The food was meant for kids in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It also could have helped in Gaza, where starvation is rampant. Or in Sudan. Or Yemen.
Instead, the biscuits, their viability now expired, sit in Dubai, where, according to The Atlantic, “United Arab Emirates policy prevents the biscuits from even being repurposed as animal feed.”
Birth Control
Sitting in a warehouse in Geel, Belgium, are around $10 million in contraceptives purchased by the United States for distribution around the world to poor women, especially to African women whose access to birth control is hardly guaranteed. These include condoms, contraceptive implants, pills, and intrauterine devices. But, instead, the US has decided to destroy those reserves.
The organization MSI Reproductive Choices has offered to purchase the contraceptives from the government, but Uncle Sam will burn them until they are ash.
“It’s a completely political act, and African women are going to pay the price,” said Sarah Shaw, MSI’s Associate Director for Advocacy. “If the government really wanted efficiency, family planning is the best investment you can make for health and development.”
The United Nations’ sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, also offered to buy the contraceptive stock, but the United States never responded.
Is the government’s decision political or is it racial? Reuters reported that the contraceptives “had been destined largely for vulnerable women in sub-Saharan Africa, including young girls who face higher health risks from early pregnancy as well as those fleeing conflict or who otherwise could not afford or access the contraceptives.”
In 2018, President Trump infamously referred to African nations as “shithole” countries. He preferred that the US take in immigrants from places like (white) Norway.
Medical Aid to Children
Thanks in large part to Laura Loomer, the fatuous white nationalist, proud Islamophobe, 9/11 conspiracy promoter and unofficial advisor to Trump (he has praised her as a “very good patriot and a very strong person.”), the US State Department will no longer issue visas to children injured in Gaza and in dire need of medical treatment, children horribly wounded no doubt by armaments used by the Israeli Defense Forces and manufactured in the United States.
The decision came directly on the heels of Loomer’s posts on X (where she had been previously banned, but then reinstated by X owner Elon Musk) falsely claiming that the injured children in need of artificial limbs were “Islamic invaders from an Islamic terror hot zone,” and that when Palestinian children and their families were arriving in the States they were yelling “jihadi chants” and “doing the HAMAS terror whistle,” whatever that is.
See for yourself as the children arrive in the US in wheelchairs how false that claim is:
Loomer concluded her rants by calling out Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Who at the US State Department under @marcorubio signed off on the visas for Palestinians from a HAMAS hot zone.”
Loomer’s posts achieved their goals. In a post on X, the State Department said, “All visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days.”
Loomer’s large influence on Trump remains a mystery. She has huddled with the president and presented him with her lists of government employees she deems disloyal to Trump. Six National Security Council officials were fired after Loomer met with Trump in April of this year.
These cruel actions I referenced beg the question: if we are no longer a benevolent country, that “shining city upon the hill,” then who are we? What is it that we stand for? Accumulation and militarization?
November 16 of this year will be the “World Day of the Poor,” an event created by Pope Francis in 2017. When Francis established this day he said the goal was, “to draw near to the poor, to encounter them, to meet their gaze, to embrace them, and to let them feel the warmth of love that breaks through their solitude.”
In this dark era of “America First,” our humanity diminishes while the cries of the poor and wounded of the world grow louder with each passing hour. Are we still listening?
For more of Stephen J. Lyons’ work, visit his Substack: https://stephenjlyons.substack.com/
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Globe Post.
