On January 24, 2025, United States (US) Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced to the world that the US is suspending its foreign aid programs, halting government and non-government organizations’ projects all over the world.
According to the US State Department’s ForeignAssistance.gov, the US spent US$72 billion on international humanitarian assistance in 2023, of which about 61% (US$43.8 billion) went to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Most of USAID-funded programs are on women’s health services, food distribution, medical support, and education in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia and the Pacific.
In the Philippines, the US is only 7th in ODA ranking by source, with USAID and the US Trade and Development Agency as development partner institutions. Still, 39 development projects are expected to hang in the balance, 25 of which were meant to run until 2026 and even until 2029. USAID and the State Department even committed around Php4 billion worth of fresh funding for these programs prior to the freeze. These projects are in partnership with different government agencies like the Department of Education (DepEd), Department of Health (DOH), and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
Non-government organizations (NGOs) also get USAID funding and are also gravely affected by the funding freeze. For example, Caritas Philippines, a humanitarian religious group, is set to lose around Php35 million for programs used to support the poor and for relief aid for calamity victims. In the case of LGBTQ+ organizations like LoveYourself that distributes free HIV testing kits, the funding freeze has stopped new programs like free PrEP distribution and self-testing campaigns crucial to fighting the growing number of HIV/AIDS cases in the Philippines.
For US geopolitical aims
The USAID was established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy to supposedly address economic development and global instability and to give humanitarian assistance to countries affected by war, natural disasters, and economic distress. Over the decades, it has been involved in development projects, working with civil society organizations (CSOs) and media networks in enhancing their capabilities and reach in their communities. The projects would range from nature preservation efforts, education, medical assistance, food and relief distribution services, women’s health, and even campaigning for the destigmatization of sexual identity politics.
But the USAID has operated not without dubious intentions. Critics point out that the funding agency has been instrumental in promoting US geopolitical interests, shaping narratives and influencing democratic spaces of sovereign nations according to US foreign policy priorities in the guise of humanitarian assistance and economic development.
The agency has worked with CSOs and media purportedly to promote freedom of the press, democracy, and governance. But it has also used its reach to muddy the waters of democratic processes. As an example, USAID was allegedly deeply involved in media and information campaigns that stirred unrest like in Cuba, when USAID funded the creation of a social media platform for Cuban users to mobilize for political purposes. The twitter-like platform, Zunzuneo, launched in 2010 and developed by a Washington-based contractor Creative Associates International, collected user data and analyzed these to identify potential dissidents. This was part of its efforts to destabilize the Cuban government and organize opposition for US interests.
Democratically elected presidents like Evo Morales of Bolivia were overthrown by a well-resourced coup aimed at besmirching the indigenous and leftist Morales. USAID allegedly provided financial support to media organizations and so-called CSOs that were highly critical of the Morales government. This resulted in the destabilization and eventual erosion of democracy through racist narratives and demonization of socialist policies.
A similar phenomenon happened in the Middle East, Latin America, and Eastern Europe where USAID allegedly funded organizations promoting pro-US and Western calls and amplifying anti-Leftist content to discredit Leftist governments and movements. In Asia, USAID has apparently provided financial support to CSOs and ‘independent’ journalists to influence domestic politics and counter Chinese influence in media and technology.
For US economic interests
The stringent lending policies and conditionalities imposed by the post-war international financial institutions – the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – forced countries to open their economies for foreign profit-taking. This led to economic stagnation and increased inequality among underdeveloped nations. They also made governments cut public spending, amid resources being drained by such economic openness.
For the US, ‘aid’ is not just a moral salve to compensate for ravaging nations with neoliberalism. It is leveraged to influence other countries according to US foreign policy designs. It is also part of larger efforts to save its own economy from the recurring and worsening global capitalist crisis, the epicenter of which is the US. USAID has indeed provided infrastructure, education and health to poor nations – all in the name of development – but only to further neoliberalism which is the driving force in much of the underdevelopment used to justify the so-called aid.
US aid has provided a pathway for its foreign policy interests to be injected into the domestic policies. Ultimately, the impactful benefits for recipient countries from relief delivery, medical assistance, and educational programs are created not so much for the benefits but to support the larger US agenda of increasing its influence and promoting neoliberal economic policies.
It should be striking that the main areas of concern of US aid programs only go so far as providing immediate relief and do not challenge the structural inequalities that make the need for relief so chronic and always urgent. Fundamental development objectives are not achieved because this is not the agenda, but rather to be able to continuously influence the local politics of neocolonies to align with US interests.
When Trump 2.0 suspended US foreign aid it exempted a part of its military assistance to the Philippines and continued military aid programs amounting to some US$336 million. This confirms the overriding militarist agenda of the US in the country. It is still unclear if USAID programs in the Philippines will continue or in what form. What is clear though is that the US motivation for so-called assistance to the country will be essentially unchanged and are directed towards keeping the Philippines underdeveloped, dependent on foreign assistance, and malleable to foreign influence. This spells more hardships for the Filipino.
Rejecting neoliberalism
This is a fine moment for CSOs to rethink foreign assistance as well as how over-dependence on this undermines the country’s sovereignty and democratic governance. It is an opportunity for organizations to reflect on the real nature of ‘aid’ and how donor countries are too often driven by their own foreign policy interests rather than by the imperatives and urgency of recipient country development. Among the most important ways to reduce this dependence is for the government to expand its social services, welfare and protection programs and to accept overseas aid for this only if they align with domestic priorities and if there is real domestic ownership and control of the assistance offered. Over the long-term, it will be meaningful domestic economic development that completely removes the too often insidious influence of foreign aid.
It is a moment to prioritize people’s interests and people’s sovereignty from foreign economic and social intervention. The Trump administration has failed to foresee that by suspending aid, it has only spurred civil society to pause and rethink US hegemonic interests. This is a pathway for development work to take shape in a more relevant manner – by demanding the Marcos Jr government to upend its neoliberal policymaking and start prioritizing national development. Without this, all that will happen is that its own myth-making will soon unravel.
