The sudden closing by the Trump administration of the USAID (Agency for International Development) missions in over a hundred countries worldwide has sent shockwaves globally. Almost all of its approximately 10,000 employees stationed around the world have been summarily laid off. President Trump assigned men to get up on ladders at the agency’s headquarters in the nation’s capitol and remove the metal letters spelling out its title. These actions, also illegal, ended about $40 billion annually of American kindness and generosity toward the population of much of the rest of the world, aid begun by President John F. Kennedy in l961. USAID stations around the world fly a banner that says: “From the American People”.     

Typical programs USAID has developed and promoted include those in the areas of health and family planning, education, environment, democracy, economic growth, and anti-drug campaigns. Many countries have made great progress because of this aid and have, then, successfully moved on without it. It is a foremost example of the use of American “soft diplomacy” in the world and reflects both American social values and the prosperity of our nation as an expression of love and caring from the American people. The programs have done much to promote a very positive image of America to people around the world who are suffering from poverty, health crises, abuse of families (especially women and children), and the unfortunate consequences of war, including being forced to live as refugees. It is the Power of Love manifested. 

Currently, pictures of sick people wrapped in blankets and being carried out of hospitals by family members or friends in makeshift stretchers or gurneys are on the internet news. Many have no medical facility to transfer to. I saw a video of a young woman with hypertension of pregnancy (eclampsia) and about to give birth who was just told the hospital was shutting down. The look on her face was utter bewilderment. The medical stories must be too numerous and horrid to count.  

More than 500,000 metric tons of food in transit to USAID sites have been sitting at points of transit in danger of spoiling. “Over 40% of the food distributed through USAID programs is purchased from farmers in the U.S. amounting to about $2 billion per year.” , according to NOTUS, a Washington, DC news agency. The involved American farmers are very upset about the shutdown. Some Republicans in congress are directing their ire at the Trump administration. “I mean, it’s packaged with an American flag on it”, said Rep. Glenn (GT) Thompson, Chair of the House Agriculture Committee. “It’s good diplomacy.” GOP representative Don Bacon said: “President Trump and his team need to turn this stuff back on.” Meanwhile, President Trump has characterized the USAID people working to help others in need as “lunatics”.  

It must be noted that during the Trump inauguration, there were three men prominently standing just behind Trump:  multi-billionaires Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos. They are helping to shape Trump’s policy initiatives, such as shutting down USAID. These three allegedly have a combined net worth of $1.3 trillion, so they could pay for USAID themselves out of the goodness of their heart and have $1 trillion 260 billion left over. That, of course, won’t happen. 

The motivation for this USAID behavior defies one’s imagination. Why is increasing the suffering of other human beings, even your own supporters, a reasonable way to behave? Yet, Donald Trump has shown a life-long pattern of cruelty, petty meanness, contempt for others, and gross disregard for convention and decency, including contempt for obeying the law. He is the first convicted felon to become President of The United States. I fully expect the behavior from him and his political allies to continue. Yet, under the great Sun which creates and sustains life, there exists behavior much better than that. We cannot normalize or accept this kind of cynicism.  

In the mid-1800’s, British poet Matthew Arnold wrote of a scenario created when humans exhibit such deep contempt for others:  

“Ah, love, let us be true 

To one another!,  

for the world, which seems 

To lie before us like a land of dreams, 

So various, so beautiful, so new 

Hath really neither joy, no love, nor light, 

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; 

And we are here as on a darkling plain 

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight 

Where ignorant armies clash by night.” 

That is not a world for us to contemplate or allow.  

Dr. Lenderts has lived and worked in the valley for over twenty years. He is and has been active in public health, social, political, and environmental issues.