Skip to main content

Oxfam America: Trump move to dismantle USAID ‘cruel’ and ‘really has exceeded our imagination’

By Neal Augenstein

The Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid and the move to dismantle USAID is already “having deadly consequences for millions of people living in dire humanitarian emergencies and extreme poverty,” said Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, in a WTOP interview.

“Dismantling AID is a callous and destructive political power play,” Maxman said. “Just the disruption and the confusion around the freezes and stop work orders are already harming people’s lives.”

According to its mission statement, “Oxfam is a global organization that fights inequality to end poverty and injustice.”

“As Oxfam America, we do not accept U.S. government funding,” Maxman said. “However, even though U.S. investment in foreign aid is less than 1% of the U.S. federal budget, it represents an enormous part of the humanitarian and development sector at an overall 42% of funding.”

On Monday, President Donald Trump said shutting down USAID “should have been done a long time ago.”

In the space of a few weeks, much of the agency was dismantled — work and spending ordered stopped, leadership and staff gutted by furloughs, firings and disciplinary leaves, and the website taken offline.

Lawmakers said the agency’s computer servers were carted away.

“It is an organization that has had experience and expertise over decades, and to pull that out, it’s like pulling the rug out,” said Maxman. “This has really been a cruel set of decisions and actions that have life and death consequences for millions of people — I think it really has exceeded our imagination.”

USAID was established in 1961 as an independent agency to advance U.S. foreign policy and American values, foster prosperity and save lives around the globe.

“This affects children today, mothers today,” said Maxman. “Clean water, sanitation, things that Oxfam and our partners do are already being affected by the stop-work orders.”

Trump told reporters Monday that he didn’t believe he needed congressional approval to shut down USAID.

“What’s happening is legally dubious, and must be swiftly challenged in court,” said Maxman. “Congress must take a stand. What’s happening is making everyone less safe here in the United States, and globally, and the effect is not hypothetical.”

WTOP’s Mike Murillo contributed to this report.

Trump side-stepped diplomacy on his way to war in Iran. Now, he’s asking China and others for help

By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump relied on his gut and largely side-stepped diplomatic coordination as he made the decision to launch strikes on Iran with Israel. But now with the war's economic and geopolitical consequences unfurling rapidly, he's cajoling allies and other global powers to help mop up the mess. Trump says he's asked roughly a half-dozen other countries to send warships to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz, a consequential waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s traded oil flows. So far, none has committed. Trump even indicated he would use his long-planned trip to China to pressure Beijing to help with a new coalition meant to get oil tanker traffic moving through the strait — a notion that his treasury secretary later downplayed. “We strongly encourage other nations whose economies depend on the strait far more than ours ... we want them to come and help us with the strait,” Trump said at the White House on Monday, listing Japan, China, South Korea and several countries in Europe as examples. Trump has argued that the shipping channel is not something the United States needs because of its own access to oil. It's the type of bullying to action that has secured key foreign policy wins for the Republican president in his second term, like prompting nearly all NATO countries to up their defense spending last year after he spent years accusing allies of freeloading off American largess, and using tariffs to extract investments and concessions from trade partners.
Read Next Story