Former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush have joined forces to shoot down President Donald Trump’s “colossal mistake” to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The Trump administration cut around 90 percent of USAID’s foreign aid contracts during Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) rampage back in February. Musk oversaw the depletion of the workforce from 10,000 to less than 300.
The agency will be absorbed by the State Department, where it will be replaced by a new organization called America First.
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In a farewell video message to staffers on Monday, USAID’s last day before it is folded into the state department, the two former presidents decried its treatment by Trump.
“Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy. Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world,” said Obama, in private comments obtained by Associated Press.
The former president, who served from 2009 to 2017, predicted that “sooner or later, leaders on both sides of the aisle will realize how much you are needed.” He added that “your work has mattered and will matter for generations to come.”
Bush, the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009, was even stronger-handed in his message.
The Republican spoke about cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), saying: “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you.”
He added: “You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work – and that is your good heart.”
Singer and activist Bono got in on the act, too. He recited a poem, specially written for the occasion, telling the crowd: “They called you crooks/When you were the best of us.”
Meanwhile, a study published in The Lancet medical journal claims that USAID cuts could lead to 14 million avoidable deaths by 2030.
“Beyond causing millions of avoidable deaths—particularly among the most vulnerable—these cuts risk reversing decades of progress in health and socioeconomic development in LMICs [low and middle-income countries],” the report added.
The study surmised that the agency had already prevented the deaths of more than 91 million people, many of them children.
In response to the comments from Obama and Bush, the White House told the Daily Beast that America’s international partners “want to be self-reliant.”
“America remains the most generous country in the world because President Trump has a humanitarian heart, and partner countries want to be self-reliant in addressing the needs of their people,” a spokesperson said.
“The Trump administration is ensuring all programs funded by American taxpayers align with American interests, just as this President was elected to do.”
