Gutting the USAID-Industrial Complex
21st February 2025
That was the U.S. Agency for International Development’s approach to protect its autonomy from the president. It had nothing to do with resisting Donald Trump and DOGE—this line was written three decades ago to resist reforms by Warren Christopher, Bill Clinton’s mild-mannered secretary of state.
The career bureaucrats and their aid-industrial complex won out. That marked the last shovelful of dirt on the grave of attempts to rein in USAID.
Until Trump and his DOGE team.