By Patricia Lopez / Bloomberg Opinion
The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided relief abroad in every kind of humanitarian disaster since its founding in 1961. This time, it is the disaster site; and U.S. farmers are among the collateral damage.
USAID has been struck by the full fury of President Trump, who attacked not only the agency’s existence but its reputation, calling its leaders “radical lunatics” and accusing it, without evidence, of massive corruption.
That charge has been echoed by Elon Musk, head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Musk — who is neither an accountant nor deeply experienced in the workings of Washington agencies — has declared USAID to be “evil” and a “criminal organization” that is “beyond repair.” (No formal charges of wrongdoing have been made and many of the diatribes launched have been incorrect or misleading.)
After a three-week barrage, USAID is in tatters. Its doors are shuttered, its offices closed, its grants canceled. Thousands of staff have been put on administrative leave, leaving desperately needed projects in limbo.
Their pain is shared by American farmers, who supply more than 40 percent of the food that USAID sends around the world: corn, wheat, soybeans, sorghum and peas. In 2024 alone, the agency paid U.S. farmers $2 billion for those crops.
Farmers invested heavily in Trump, banking on him bringing back better times. Of 444 farming-dependent counties, Trump won all but 11 in November’s election. The elimination of needed markets for surplus goods and a return to costly, destabilizing trade wars was not on their wish list. They would be justified in feeling nervous.
As Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, put it, “USAID is important for farmers. The grain goes all over the world with USAID.” Farmers were already suffering from low crop prices, especially for corn and soybeans, and were depending on those global USAID contracts.
They take pride in their ability to feed the world, but they also need those markets for goods that otherwise would go unsold and unused. Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig, the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, said more than 550 million metric tons of food is now sitting in ports and storage facilities, unable to be delivered. (There is little farmers hate more than wasted food.)
Kim Barnes, chief financial officer of the Pawnee County co-op in Kansas, where he has worked for 51 years, said he has never seen financial impropriety on the grain side of USAID.
“My concern is these will be potential markets we’ll lose, and people will go hungry,” he said. His idea of USAID is a simple one: “We help you today, get you back on your feet and you could be a purchaser down the road.”
Eviscerating the agency hurts US agriculture in other ways, too. At the University of Minnesota’s Cereal Disease lab, USAID had been funding the development of strains of wheat resistant to rust, a disease that can decimate crops. An innovation lab at Kansas State University was one year into a five-year, $50 million award from USAID to develop higher crop yields per acre. The University of Florida was using USAID funds to develop better livestock practices.
All of these could yield long-term gains not only for sustainable practices abroad, but also better options for American farmers struggling with a changing climate and novel pathogens; like the bird flu outbreak that has sent the price of eggs soaring.
Since its creation by the Kennedy administration, USAID has fought hunger in refugee camps in Bangladesh, Sudan and Yemen. It has provided prosthetic limbs to resistance fighters in Ukraine. And its hospitals bring life-saving care to communities around the world; a 71-year-old grandmother who died after she was no longer able to get USAID-provided oxygen is thought to be one of the first deaths attributable to Trump and Musk’s orders.
Yes, like any agency, it doubtless has room for improvement. Like any agency, it should be subjected to rigorous reviews and audits to ensure that taxpayer money is both well spent and aligned with the nation’s values.
If Musk had brought in a team of crack auditors, I suspect few would have objected. If Musk has found corruption (and there has been little solid evidence as of yet) he should take it to Congress. And if wrongdoing is found, appropriations can be cut or redirected. But those are congressional duties; not that Congress seems terribly interested.
The courts, once again, have proven a more useful bulwark. U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols has temporarily blocked some of Musk’s orders.
Nichols was appointed to his post by Trump in 2019, but he has betrayed frustration with the hurried nature of the administration’s actions. He had eight hours to consider the matter, he said, “no briefs [from the White House] and the hypothetical possibility that 2,200 people will be put on administrative leave and claims of irreparable harm.”
The courts are filling a power gap for the time being, but this will be a constant challenge in the Trump era. Meanwhile, as USAID falters, farmers are faltering too.
Patricia Lopez is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy.
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