Every household knows that resources are limited. Whether we’re managing a family budget, giving to a favorite charity, or deciding where to invest our time, we naturally want our resources directed toward purposes that reflect our values and accomplish meaningful goals. Good stewardship isn’t just about spending less—it’s about spending wisely.
That same principle applies on a much larger scale. As you read the following article, consider what it means to be a responsible steward of resources entrusted to us and why the priorities behind those investments matter just as much as the dollars themselves.
For the families of the world,
Wendy Wixom, President
United Families International
From Emergency Relief to Ideological Activism:
The Rise and Fall of USAID
Alexis Tarkalson
While attending the Commission on the Status of Women in 2025, members of the United Families had the fortunate/unfortunate opportunity to attend the parallel event titled “Present – Trans and Sex Worker Rights Organizing for Beijing +30” put on by the “Best Practices Policy Project.” This was an event wherein our members quickly learned that these trans sex workers had a chip on their shoulders regarding the recently announced USAID cuts. As they bemoaned, such an administrative move by the Trump vanguard was “morally wrong and unjust” because how would they now afford condoms, lubricants, and abortive services?
It was an eye-opening experience for sure, but a year later, the same complaints are still being thrust into the ether. Despite the U.S. constantly being told to stay out of the global melee, the elimination of USAID has people confused as to what they really want. The Center for Global Development credits this disengagement with around 670,000 to 1,600,000 lives lost, which is a more positive outlook than what the Lancet had to project, which was “tens of millions of deaths.” Oxfam International accuses that “a child under 5 could die every 40 seconds by 2030.” It seems the United States is responsible for saving every life outside of America’s borders.
While recognizing the validity to their concerns, albeit extreme, we have determined to show how the USAID cuts will actually prove to be beneficial for everyone involved. Emergency humanitarian assistance still remains important, but if those aims can still be achieved while reducing the cost on the American’s overtaxed dollar and protecting the family unit, we should support every endeavor.
USAID Has Expanded Far Beyond Emergency Relief
When President John F. Kennedy proposed the program in 1961 he said the aim was “to help them help themselves for whatever period is required—not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right.”
And USAID has contributed a great deal of good to the world. By 2024, it was providing aid to 130 countries. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), founded by George W. Bush, has been acknowledged as the reason for 26 million lives saved and the prevention of 7.8 million babies born with HIV/AIDS. Since 2001 the US has led the world in global health foreign assistance while spending a ripe $204 billion, double what any other country contributed. Aids, HIV, malaria deaths, and tuberculosis deaths all slashed within a quarter of a century due to the robust systems set in place by USAID.
Not only the health of a country was uplifted by USAID’s PEPFAR, but also their economy. If a country was instituting this initiative to combat AIDS, they saw a 2.1% increase in their GDP per capita.
Unfortunately, USAID can do good while doing bad simultaneously. Both things can be true at once.
For instance, while maternal deaths were being cut down and Ebola risks mitigated, nearly $16 million were going straight into the inner workings of LGBT activism (Multi-Donor LGBTI Global Development Alliance). In Guatemala, our tax dollars are helping “gender affirming care” (gender transition) take place, with $746,201 already disbursed and $2 million promised. In Jamaica, $1.5 million went towards the “Strengthening community support structures to upscale LGBT rights advocacy.”
Then in Armenia, we gave the “Pink Human Rights Defender NGO” nearly $400,000 to promote human rights for LGBTI people. Once again in Armenia with the same NGO, we were devoting $1.1 million towards “empower[ing] the LGBTI community.” The list goes on, with millions more being spent on LGBT promotion around the world and millions more that would have been disbursed had Trump not initiated the cuts.
It was reported that “a violation of abortion-related restrictions in Mozambique was reported to Congress in January 2025 that PEPFAR had funded four nurses who performed at least 21 abortions between April 2022 and June 2024 in violation of U.S. law codified in the Helms Amendment.” Actions such as these prompted thirteen different countries to write a letter to Congress about “ensur[ing] the program and partner organizations do not “cross over into promoting divisive ideas and practices that are not consistent with those of Africa.””
We won’t even go into the billions of dollars that went into backing communist administrations in Latin America, which in turn promoted values and policies antagonistic to the pro-family movement, or the fraud involving over $550 million in contracts.
Reducing Waste and Increasing Accountability
On January 20, 2025, the Trump administration released their plans to put the USAID on a 90-day hiatus, a hiatus that could (and would) eventually become permanent. As was said in the presidential action, “The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.”
Four days later, a “stop work” order was issued for all foreign assistance. And three days after that, the vetting process began for what would stay and what would have to go. Despite claims of irreconcilable numbers in HIV/AIDS deaths, PEPFAR was granted a waiver as well as multiple other global health services. By March 10th 83% of programs had been terminated. And in April 20th of this year the costs for shutting down USAID were announced.
The new plan was to dissolve USAID into the Department of State, reduce the heinous waste that was prolific throughout USAID, encourage dependent countries to take confident control of their own development, and eliminate the entitlement the world seems to have with regards to America’s spending money.
As outlined in the “America First Global Health Strategy”, less than 40% of health foreign assistance actually goes towards our healthcare workers and frontline supplies and “The remaining 60% of funding is spent on technical assistance, program management, and other forms of overhead.” To put this in perspective, PEPFAR has a $4.7 billion budget, but only $1 billion goes towards the necessary medical purchases, their transport, and delivery.
All of this egregious waste can be attributed to two primary reasons. First, there are duplicates upon duplicates of programs all doing the same thing and second, a ridiculous indirect cost that is not sustainable. Too many NGO’s and non-profits performing the same tasks and requiring the same pay. Consider this:
“For example, in FY [Fiscal Year] 2024, Uganda alone had 57 implementing partners and more than 300 sub-recipients, and Tanzania had 38 implementing partners and more than 350 sub-recipients. Implementing partners spent $678 million on program management in FY 2024, including one implementing partner who spent $61.3 million just on program management that year. This cost is exacerbated by many implementing partners who have significant overhead costs, with many implementing partners having executives making over $500,000 and several having executives whose salary is over $1,000,000.”
The Kaiser Family Foundation even found that such costs had a negative impact on improving health outcomes in countries. In addition, if countries are going to ever be able to take ownership for their own progression, USAID must be diminished so as to make the cost of taking over these programs more feasible for them.
A Better Model for Foreign Aid
With the death of USAID on July 1st of this year, we will see a better model for foreign assistance. Built on three pillars, this model will be dedicated towards first, making America safer, second, making America stronger, and third, making America more prosperous. The strategy writes:
“U.S. health foreign assistance is grounded in three realities. First, we must continue to make progress saving lives…Second, we must make investments that recipient governments are supportive of and that move countries to self-sufficiency at an appropriate pace. Third, we must ensure that health foreign assistance is promoting American interests, with a focus on bilateral relationships that offer concrete benefits to the American people.”
As it stood prior to the USAID cut, the model was very nearly impossible for developing countries to overcome and stand on their own. But now with renewed energies dedicated towards creating programs that can easily be handed over to local governments when ready, such a goal is possible.
The plan is for “the requirements that the United States will build into its agreements will be directed squarely at achievement of public health goals and better facilitating transition towards country self-reliance…The majority of 71 U.S.-supported countries will transition to full self-reliance during the term of the agreement.”
This is an initiative with “unprecedented energy to move in this direction from recipient countries themselves.” The Guardian reported that, “A quarter of young Africans believe aid cuts by the US could have a positive impact, saying that losing foreign money will force leaders to confront and solve their own challenges, according to a new survey.”
One executive director of an African non-profit said, “I think it’s a reflection of the general feeling. A lot of people find aid very demeaning…They didn’t feel that the aid was being used for the right things and there is a sense of ‘We can do this for ourselves’. The younger generation feel like our leaders are the duty bearers and are supposed to be handling the needs of our communities.”
The U.S. Can Do Better For Itself and Others
Contrary to claims that millions would die because of the USAID reforms, those predictions were built on speculative modeling rather than documented outcomes. As the Center for Global Development was forced to recognize this year, aid is not disappearing with the 5,300 terminated awards. While the Biden administration saw 2,604 contracts being made, Trump has only engaged in 345 thus far, but each contract is allotted a much higher amount in financial aid. So help is still being awarded, just to fewer NGOs and therefore waste is being eliminated.
The naysayers assumed that life-saving programs would simply disappear, when in reality many of the most critical initiatives were preserved or transitioned into a more targeted system. While any disruption to humanitarian assistance deserves careful scrutiny, the dire forecasts proved far more useful as political rhetoric than as reliable prediction.
That does not mean the job is finished. As USAID’s responsibilities are transferred to the Department of State, Americans must remain vigilant. Eliminating bureaucratic waste accomplishes little if the same ideological programs simply reappear under a different agency. Foreign assistance should be measured by one standard: Does it save lives, strengthen self-reliance, and advance legitimate American interests—not subsidize political activism abroad.
America is at its best when it is both compassionate and prudent. We need not choose between helping the world’s most vulnerable and protecting the values of the taxpayers who make that help possible. The goal should never be to spend more—it should be to accomplish more. Foreign aid succeeds not when it creates dependence, but when it makes itself unnecessary.
Alexis Tarkalson graduated from Brigham Young University-Idaho with her degree in Political Science and an emphasis in American Government. She loves spending time with her husband and two children, reading, hiking mountains, and learning new hobbies. The family unit is immensely important to her, as is protecting the associated rights, which is why she volunteers her time towards United Families International.