Cutting foreign aid funding isn't just bad for our allies — it’s bad for America 

The future of U.S. foreign assistance, which we’ve been providing since 1812, is in jeopardy.  

The Trump administration froze all U.S. foreign assistance on Jan. 24 except for some military support. Secretary of State Marco Rubio subsequently announced a waiver for lifesaving humanitarian aid, but that waiver isn't self-executing, and humanitarian programs are finding they can't access it. They have been issued stop-work orders — practically speaking, their funding is suspended too.

“We get tired of giving massive amounts of money to countries that hate us, don’t we?” President Trump said last week. But U.S. foreign aid prior to Trump suspending it was less than 1 percent of the U.S. federal budget, or about 0.3 percent of our gross national product. 

That’s hardly massive, and it’s a much smaller percentage than most of our allies give. In fact, compared to foreign assistance levels provided by wealthier countries of the world, the U.S. ranked near the bottom of the list. Before the administration froze U.S. aid, just about every other wealthy Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development country was more generous with aid than we were. Now, everyone is. 

Last week, like many nonprofits and many universities around the world, I received word that U.S. support for several of our projects at the American University in Bulgaria were suspended immediately. Far from being a “country that hates us,” Bulgaria, a former communist satellite, is a new democracy and a U.S. ally. 

One of our projects whose funding is suspended addresses the need for media literacy. It equips young Bulgarians with critical thinking skills to navigate the increasingly complex information landscape, strengthening societal defenses against disinformation. This is a very pressing concern in this part of the world, where Russian propaganda is pervasive.   

Another project whose U.S. aid is suspended involves educating for democracy. It organizes citizen assemblies to educate youth leaders from Bulgaria and around Eastern Europe about civil rights and to encourage democratic engagement.  

Globally, development assistance helps build a more educated, healthy and peaceful world. In the past 30 years, foreign aid has helped reduce poverty and boost life expectancy dramatically. U.S. assistance for international health programs has slashed deaths from HIV, malaria and many other infectious diseases. Over 26 million people are alive today because of U.S.-funded PEPFAR programs.

U.S. aid supporting female education has had important local, national and global impacts. When more girls and women have the opportunity for education, infant and child mortality declines, families are smaller and healthier, economic growth increases and corruption is reduced. 

Surely all this is in the U.S. national interest. Aren’t democracy, health, education and opportunity American values? 

Throughout our history, U.S. foreign aid has expressed American ideals and furthered our interests in countries of economic, strategic and geopolitical importance to us. Countries that are democratic and supportive of human rights are less likely to suffer civil violence or make war on their neighbors. 

Though currently much maligned, foreign aid has long bolstered U.S. national interests and global leadership. We should be deepening, not destroying, our relationships with other countries and their citizens. By cutting foreign aid for the wrong reasons and at the wrong time, the Trump administration risks undermining allies, shriveling our moral authority, and pushing countries into the embrace of totalitarian meddlers such as China and Russia. 

Instead, the U.S. should build and nurture relationships with other countries. One way to do that is to reinstate federal programs that were widespread 50 years ago, which let students, faculty, business and government leaders, researchers and teachers come to the U.S. for training; enabled American educators to teach, train and learn in other countries; and helped us better understand one another.

For example, USAID’s Participant Training Programs of the 1960s and 1970s trained many thousands of people from Asia, Africa and Latin America in U.S. universities. In turn, those universities benefitted from having students and scholars, entrepreneurs and government officials from around the world on their campuses. As a result, U.S. universities, especially our great land grant universities, helped shape agriculture, education, medicine and business all over the world.

Universities educate for democracy. They teach the next generation of leaders how to think critically and creatively, and how to apply their knowledge and skills to building a more democratic, just and sustainable world.

Past U.S. administrations have played a valuable role in supporting them. But now they are widely under attack. Without the foundation universities provide, democracies are likely to slip rapidly into one or another form of tyranny. 

Congress needs to reassert its authority and do its constitutionally mandated job by stopping the Trump administration from mindlessly cutting foreign aid. Those who have worked on Capitol Hill and understand the value of these programs need to speak out, even if it has become dangerous to do so. We must find common ground in truly serving the U.S. national interest. 

Margee Ensign, Ph.D., is president of the American University in Bulgaria and former director of USAID's Development Studies program coordinated through Tulane University.

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