Just two weeks ago I was living in Yerevan, Armenia, directing a U.S. government-sponsored human rights project when the State Department ordered almost all foreign assistance projects around the world to stop work. Billions of dollars’ worth of programming, helping hundreds of thousands of people, halted.
My Armenian colleagues could not believe it. To them, America stood for human rights, fair dealing and reliability. The U.S. government would not stop helping people; it would not walk away from its commitments. But that is exactly what it did. Shortly after issuing the stop work order, the State Department froze foreign assistance funds, preventing people from being paid, and delivering a death blow to both U.S. and foreign organizations that had been its partners.
My nonprofit employer ordered me to return home immediately using frequent flyer miles. It could not pay me for my work or reimburse me for expenses. But the damage this did to me and to U.S. citizens like me was minuscule compared to the damage it did to America’s image and its ability to influence events around the world.
For decades, the three pillars of U.S. foreign policy have been defense, diplomacy and development. The third pillar, development, has been America’s “soft power,” its ability to influence without resorting to coercive pressure. The agency most responsible for projecting this soft power has been the United States Agency for International Development. USAID was the agency funding my Armenia project.
Most Americans have never heard of USAID because they do not see its overseas work and because it makes up less than 1% of the government budget. But while its budget is small, its impact is large. Among other things, it provides war relief in Ukraine, peace building in Somalia, and vaccination and health assistance in Africa and Asia. In the poorest countries, it supplies food, shelter and access to clean water, making the difference between life and death.
Americans may ask why their tax dollars should be spent on foreign assistance. It’s a valid question with many good answers; I’ll give three.
First, foreign assistance can influence governments and populations to work with the U.S. to achieve its foreign policy goals. People are more likely to help us combat Islamic terrorism in North Africa if we are helping them avoid starvation with food aid. We have a better chance of stopping Russia from re-gobbling Eastern Europe if we support local human rights groups’ fight to keep their governments democratic and their freedoms intact.
Second, improving the lives of people living in developing countries reduces the imperative to emmigrate. Give people security and hope for the future in their own country and they will be less inclined to seek those things elsewhere.
Third, the willingness to help those less fortunate has been an essential aspect of our national character. Without it, how are we much different than Russia or China?
During the few hours I spent writing this piece, the Trump administration ordered USAID to close all its missions and fire almost all its employees. While this order is probably unconstitutional, by the time the courts deal with it, USAID will be dead, and our soft power gone. We will have only big guns and bullying politicians to represent us.
Just before heading to the airport to leave for the U.S., I met a local colleague at the top of the Cascade, a set of stone terraces built in Soviet times that look down on Yerevan’s city center. My colleague’s face registered the look of a man who just realized he had been badly tricked. “I really can’t believe it,” he said. “America told me F… you! America said F… you to the whole world.”
Herb Bowman, a Durango High School and University of San Diego graduate, is a former prosecutor, FBI agent and criminal defense attorney. He has spent more than 20 years doing development work around the world related to rule of law and human rights. He is also the father of current Herald newsroom intern Jessica Bowman.
