Regions

Asia

Asia is the most populous continent and ground zero in the battle against Communist China’s efforts to exploit the development needs of poor countries for geopolitical gain. America’s Indo-Pacific Strategy should guide USAID’s approaches to disbursing foreign aid in the region.

USAID should intensify its bilateral relationships with pro–free market Japan, Australia, South Korea, and India so that they can jointly advance private-sector solutions to secure financing for power generation, infrastructure, digital con- nectivity, investment and trade expansion, and other economic activities. USAID enjoys a strong in-country presence in India, buttressed by recent coordination on the global response to COVID-19 as India is a global leader in vaccine produc- tion. Those ties should be expanded. So too should development cooperation with Taiwan, which boasts effective pandemic response capacity that should be shared with developing countries.

China’s island-hopping efforts to capture vulnerable Pacific states is a direct strategic threat to U.S. maritime supremacy and homeland security, and USAID and its allied donors should neutralize these efforts through the deployment of targeted assistance such as helping countries combat the effects of China’s ille- gal fishing. While China outpaces the ability of the democratic alliance to deploy state-backed financing to developing countries, it is unable to compete with our collective private-sector capacity to deploy trillions of dollars of capital.

Pakistan is a prime example of foreign aid policies disconnected from U.S. national interests. The country has been the recipient of more than $12 billion in U.S. foreign aid since 2010, yet it remains intensely anti-American and corrupt, has backed the Taliban continuously since 2001, jump-started North Korea’s nuclear bomb program, brutalizes its religious minorities, and is a willing client of China while taking on unrepayable loans from the U.S. taxpayer-funded International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

The Middle East is far more vulnerable today than it was in 2020 because the Biden Administration’s strategy for the region is adrift. Tunisia has slid into autocracy, Iraq is plummeting further into Iran’s orbit, and U.S. soldiers continue to risk their lives for unclear ends amid the ruins of Syria. Meanwhile, billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid props up regimes allied with Iran. President Trump’s Abraham Accords signaled the end of the centrality of the Arab–Israeli conflict, which paralyzed U.S. approaches to the region, and focused instead on Iran as the principal threat to America from this region.

During the Trump Administration, USAID’s allocations reflected the new opportunities created by the Accords and sought to strengthen regional alliances against Iran through expanded regional trade and investment and to promote genuine polit- ical stability tethered to strong American leadership. USAID formally partnered with the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Morocco, Qatar, and Kuwait to catalyze regional partnerships in Africa. Under the Biden Administration, however, USAID has returned to a model that deepens the region’s dependence on aid. A new conservative President should reset USAID’s programming in the Middle East in line with our national security interests and committed to the goal of ending the need for foreign aid through development that is led by the private sector.

Specifically:

Foreign aid must advance the Abraham Accords. Increased trade and investment between Israel and its Arab neighbors represent the most effective path toward reducing poverty, fostering the emergence of a middle class, and solidifying peace. USAID should therefore focus its development assistance on countries such as Morocco and Sudan through joint investment collaboration with the more economically advanced economies such as the UAE and Israel.

USAID should consider cutting aid to states allied to Iran, limiting assistance in these countries to the advancement of narrow strategic priorities and support for basic American values, such as aid to persecuted religious minorities. USAID continues to expend hundreds of millions of dollars in nonhumanitarian aid to antagonistic regimes in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories.

After billions of dollars of aid and many years of effort, these countries remain hopelessly dysfunctional—a fact that exposes the failure of a foreign aid model that is disconnected to our national security and without exit strategies to promote self-reliance. We must admit that USAID’s investments in the education sector, for example, serve no other purpose than to subsidize corrupt, incompetent, and hostile regimes.

USAID should undergo operational changes to secure better development outcomes by reducing its missions’ footprints in the Middle East given that most personnel in the region are unable to leave their highly protected and expensive compounds and carry out their oversight functions. It should redirect program funding away from expensive and poorly performing international partners to more cost-effective local entities that require a minimal USAID field presence.

Africa. Since its inception, USAID has had a strong presence in Africa, saving millions of lives through its pandemic and infectious disease responses, especially for malaria and HIV-AIDS. It has led global efforts to provide lifesaving emergency assistance to those who are fleeing conflict and suffering from devastating natural disasters. American generosity knows no equal.

Yet the agency’s efforts to reduce poverty and hunger have failed as it spends ever-higher amounts of aid partnering with a costly and ineffective aid indus- trial complex that has little interest in “working itself out of a job.” Long-term, multibillion-dollar humanitarian responses lack exit strategies, while numer- ous development projects lead neither to measurable results nor to government reforms. Despite the tens of billions of dollars spent, the continent remains poor, unstable, and riven with conflict, corruption, and Islamic terrorism. This situation has also resulted in vast illegal migration from the continent.

Failure to generate wealth has provided opportunities for China to step in and become the continent’s leader in trade, loans, and investment. As a result, Beijing controls most of the continent’s strategic minerals that are critical to advanced technology. Moreover, USAID is criticized by Africans for exporting cultural values that are anathema to their traditional norms, further abetting Chinese continen- tal supremacy.

The Biden Administration’s radical global climate policies have cut off billions in investment to develop clean fossil fuels, denying Africa’s billion-plus people access to cheap energy to further their own development and finance their own social services in health, water, education, and agriculture, while increasing its dependence on China’s renewables industry. It has exacerbated hunger by increas- ing the costs of fertilizers to levels that many African farmers can no longer afford. Poverty-inducing dependence on aid grows daily.

USAID efforts in Africa require a rethink. In 2025, USAID will update its five- year Country Development and Cooperation Strategies. This will give the next Administration an opportunity to pursue a new development course for Africa that promotes economic self-reliance, catalyzes private-sector solutions for job creation through increased trade and investment, terminates legacy and nonper- forming programs, and supports diversified energy approaches. Critically, it must hold China accountable for its extractive investments that violate international labor, environmental, and anticorruption norms and practices; undercut business opportunities for U.S. companies; and sabotage Africa’s development.

USAID, in collaboration with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of the Treasury, and U.S. Department of Commerce’s Foreign Commercial Service, should use its convening power, diplomatic heft, and risk-reducing instruments to facilitate U.S.–African business relationships and expand Prosper Africa, launched by the Trump Administration to “bring[] together services from across the U.S. Government to help companies and investors do business in U.S. and African markets.”17

The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)18 provides Africa duty- free access to U.S. markets. The next Administration should extend AGOA beyond its 2025 term but within a strategic framework that rewards good governance and pro–free market economic policies. There is no point in wasting massive sums of aid to countries whose governments fail to keep their promises to reform.

USAID should build on, not compete with, private-sector initiatives launched by global churches, corporate philanthropists, and diaspora groups that have already invested billions of dollars in self-reliance– based projects.

Japan has committed $30 billion in aid to Africa over three years to stem China’s economic and political grip on the continent. Gulf-based sovereign funds also are investing billions in African energy, infrastructure, mining, water, food production, information and communications technology, and other strategic industries. Other allied donors are promoting investment-based aid. There is no lack of funding to support Africa’s economic rise. What is lacking is strategic direction among U.S. government foreign aid agencies.

PEPFAR has saved countless lives over the years and constitutes America’s most successful aid program. During the Trump Administration, PEPFAR increased the share of funding to local entities from about 20 percent to nearly 70 percent with commensurate improvements that have had lasting impact. The next Administration should extend that localization model to all global health and humanitarian assistance in view of how local African entities have strengthened their capacity for direct management of U.S. programs. Correspondingly, USAID should aggressively ramp down its partnerships with wasteful, costly, and politicized U.N. agencies, international NGOs, and Beltway contractors. All new programs in Africa should build on existing local initiatives that enjoy the support of the African people.