Business
Trump’s USAID shutdown is a win for America and a blow to the globalist agenda
From LifeSiteNews
USAID’s promotion of DEI, gender ideology, and population control around the world, along with its efforts to undermine democracies in Europe and Latin America, have greatly damaged America’s standing in the world.
The closure of a corrupt government agency is always cause for celebration.
Not that it happens very often. As President Ronald Reagan once remarked, “The closest thing to eternal life on earth is a government program.”
In the case of the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development, its shuttering will save U.S. taxpayers some $54 billion a year.
But Trump’s closure of the rogue agency is about far more than reducing the size of government or balancing the budget. We are not even talking about simply ending waste, fraud, and abuse, although there were bucket loads of that going on.
READ: Trump’s dismantling of USAID is his biggest blow against the Deep State yet
Under its former director, Samantha Powers, the agency had been transformed into a slush fund for woke fever dreams. No project was too wacko to throw money at.
You want funding to convince Peruvian girls they were born into the wrong body, or to promote LGBT activism in Serbia? USAID had a check for you.
You need money to fund sex changes in Guatemala or to open a transgender surgery clinic in India? You had but to ask.
But as corrosive to the sensibilities of normal people – and to America’s image overseas – that this reckless promotion of DEI and gender ideology was, our overseas aid agency was engaged in far more nefarious schemes.
It turns about that many millions of dollars of aid to the Middle East made their way into the hands of Hamas and Hezbollah. From funding the college education of al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki to sending $2 billion to Gaza over the past two years, our tax dollars have been used to underwrite terrorism.
An estimated 90 percent of our aid to Gaza ended up in the hands of Hamas post-October 7, 2023. Without the constant infusion of U.S. funds, it is doubtful that the terrorist organization would have survived.
Equally egregious is USAID’s undermining of democracy. As Marjorie Taylor Green just noted at a congressional hearing, “What we have learned is that USAID has been used by Democrats to brainwash the world with globalist propaganda to force regime changes around the world.”
Roughly half a billion dollars went into one organization alone. It was called the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and billed as a global network of investigative journalists. But it had as much to do with promoting globalist narratives and undermining populist politicians as it did with exposing corruption, perhaps more.
If you want to know why populist Jair Bolsonaro is no longer president of Brazil, why the conservatives lost in Poland, or why the democratically elected president of Romania – another populist – has now been arrested, look no further than USAID’s massively funded propaganda campaigns against these and other anti-globalist politicians.
As in Xi Jinping’s China, where the Chinese dictator has been purging his political enemies under the guise of an “anti-corruption campaign,” USAID’s anti-corruption campaign was ultimately not about corruption at all.
Like Xi, who was, as the Chinese say, “hanging up a goat’s head, but selling dog meat,” the agency was motivated by a hidden and deeply corrupt purpose – undermining democracy in order to promote globalism.
Victor Orbán of Hungary, whose government has survived years of similar onslaughts, is now vowing to crack down on all of the foreign-funded NGOs operating in his country. He will find that his opposition was chiefly funded by our tax dollars, judging from the many trips to that country that Samantha Powers took over the past few years.
As ruinous as all this is for America’s standing in the world, there is even worse news. Many of the tens of billions of dollars that the agency was flushing down the toilet didn’t go overseas at all, but was spent in and around the Washington, D.C., swamp.
And almost all of this – well over 95 percent – went to Democrat-controlled groups.
How much of the incessant lawfare against Trump that began as soon as he announced his candidacy for president in 2015 was funded indirectly by our tax dollars?
How much of Kamala’s $2 billion campaign coffer came from our own pockets, laundered by USAID through well-connected NGOs and leftist politicians?
Despite the mounting evidence of corruption, there are still those who claim that USAID does much good and should be reformed, not shuttered. “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” one recent headline read.
The problem is that USAID was never primarily about feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty or, for that matter, saving babies. In fact, from the very beginning it was designed to be an instrument of population control.
Its stated goal was “population stabilization.” To this end, it busied itself reducing the number of babies born, all in the name of fighting “overpopulation,” “eliminating poverty,” and, more recently, “saving the planet.”
This is spelled out clearly in Richard Nixon’s National Security Study Memorandum 200, which made it clear that foreign aid was to be used to bribe or bludgeon countries into reducing their birth rates.
Even today, USAID was – until a few weeks ago – promoting abortion in Malawi, doing abortion referrals in Uganda, and pressuring Sierra Leone to legalize abortion as a condition of receiving foreign aid.
Supporters of USAID argue that its programs create goodwill, but it’s hard to see how telling African women and men they would be better off sterilizing themselves and aborting their children accomplishes this end.
And how would Americans feel if China, say, were funding a program to vasectomize American men? Think about that for a second.
USAID’s promotion of DEI, gender ideology, and population control around the world, along with its efforts to undermine democracies in Europe and Latin America, have greatly damaged America’s standing in the world.
But the crime that calls for the complete destruction of the agency is that it was striking at the very roots of the republic itself.
Using the taxes paid by a free people to undermine their freedom is, by anyone’s definition, treason.
Steven W. Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute and the author of The Devil and Communist China.
MxM News
Quick Hit:
During Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. is prepared to move forward with a minerals agreement with Ukraine. President Trump has framed the deal as a way to recover U.S. aid and establish an American presence to deter Russian threats.
Key Details:
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Bessent confirmed during a Cabinet meeting that the U.S. is “ready to sign this afternoon,” even as Ukrainian officials introduced last-minute changes to the agreement. “We’re sure that they will reconsider that,” he added during the Cabinet discussion.
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Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko was reportedly in Washington on Wednesday to iron out remaining details with American officials.
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The deal is expected to outline a rare earth mineral partnership between Washington and Kyiv, with Ukrainian Armed Forces Lt. Denis Yaroslavsky calling it a potential turning point: “The minerals deal is the first step. Ukraine should sign it on an equal basis. Russia is afraid of this deal.”
Diving Deeper:
The United States is poised to sign a long-anticipated rare earth minerals agreement with Ukraine, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. According to Bessent, Ukrainians introduced “last minute changes” late Tuesday night, complicating the final phase of negotiations. Still, he emphasized the U.S. remains prepared to move forward: “We’re sure that they will reconsider that, and we are ready to sign this afternoon.”
As first reported by Ukrainian media and confirmed by multiple Ukrainian officials, Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko is in Washington this week for the final stages of negotiations. “We are finalizing the last details with our American colleagues,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told Telemarathon.
The deal follows months of complex talks that nearly collapsed earlier this year. In February, President Trump dispatched top officials, including Bessent, to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine to hammer out terms. According to officials familiar with the matter, Trump grew frustrated when Kyiv initially refused U.S. conditions. Still, the two sides ultimately reached what Bessent described as an “improved” version of the deal by late February.
The effort nearly fell apart again during Zelensky’s February 28th visit to the White House, where a heated Oval Office exchange between the Ukrainian president, Trump, and Vice President JD Vance led to Zelensky being removed from the building and the deal left unsigned.
Despite those setbacks, the deal appears to be back on track. While no public text of the agreement has been released, the framework is expected to center on U.S.-Ukraine cooperation in extracting rare earth minerals—resources vital to modern manufacturing, electronics, and defense technologies.
President Trump has publicly defended the arrangement as a strategic and financial win for the United States. “We want something for our efforts beyond what you would think would be acceptable, and we said, ‘rare earth, they’re very good,’” he said during the Cabinet meeting. “It’s also good for them, because you’ll have an American presence at the site and the American presence will keep a lot of bad actors out of the country—or certainly out of the area where we’re doing the digging.”
Trump has emphasized that the deal would serve as a form of “security guarantee” for Ukraine, providing a stabilizing American footprint amid ongoing Russian aggression. He framed it as a tangible return on the billions in U.S. aid sent to Kyiv since the start of Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Business
New federal government plans to run larger deficits and borrow more money than predecessor’s plan
Fr0m the Fraser Institute
By Jake Fuss and Grady Munro
The only difference, despite all the rhetoric regarding change and Prime Minister Carney’s criticism of the Trudeau government’s fiscal approach, is that the Carney government plans to run larger deficits and borrow more money.
As part of his successful election campaign, Prime Minister Mark Carney promised a “very different approach” to fiscal policy than that of the Trudeau government. But when you peel back the rhetoric and look at his plan for deficits and debt, things begin to look eerily similar—if not worse.
The Carney government’s “responsible” new approach is centered around the idea of “spending less” in order to “invest more.” The government plans to separate spending into two budgets: the operating budget (which appears to include bureaucrat salaries, cash transfers and benefits) and the capital budget (which includes any spending that “builds an asset”). The government plans to balance the operating budget by 2028/29 (meaning operating spending will be fully covered by revenues) while funding the capital budget through borrowing.
Aside from the fact that this clearly complicates federal finances, this “very different” approach to spending actually represents more of the same by continuing to pursue endless borrowing and a larger role for the government in the economy.
The chart below compares projected annual federal budget balances for the next four years, from both the 2024 Fall Economic Statement (FES)—the Trudeau government’s last fiscal update—and the 2025 Liberal Party platform. Importantly, deficits from the 2025 platform show the overall budget balance including both operating and capital spending.
Let’s start with the similarities.
In its final fiscal update last fall, the Trudeau government planned to borrow tens of billions of dollars each year to fund annual spending, with no end in sight. Based on its election platform, the Carney government also plans to run multi-billion-dollar deficits each year with no plan to balance the overall budget. The only difference, despite all the rhetoric regarding change and Prime Minister Carney’s criticism of the Trudeau government’s fiscal approach, is that the Carney government plans to run larger deficits and borrow more money.
In the current fiscal year (2025/26) the Trudeau government had planned to run a $42.2 billion deficit. The Carney government now plans to increase that deficit to $62.3 billion. Trudeau’s most recent fiscal plan forecasted annual deficits from 2025/26 to 2028/29 representing a cumulative $131.4 billion in federal government borrowing. Over that same period, the Carney government now plans to borrow a cumulative $224.8 billion.
The Carney government’s fiscal plan does include a number of tax changes that are expected to lower revenues in years to come—including (but not limited to) a personal income tax cut, the elimination of the GST for some first-time homebuyers, and the cancelling of the planned capital gains tax hike. But even if you exclude these factors from the overall budget, the Carney government still plans to borrow $52.9 billion more than the Trudeau government had planned over the next four years.
By continuing (if not worsening) this same approach of endless borrowing and rising debt, the Carney government will impose real costs on Canadians. Indeed, 16-year-olds can already expect to pay an additional $29,663 in personal income taxes over their lifetime as a result of debt accumulation under the previous federal government, before accounting for the promised increases.
One of the key promises made by Prime Minister Carney is that his government will take a different approach to fiscal policy than his predecessor. While we won’t know for certain until the new government releases its first budget, it appears this approach will continue the same costly habits of endless borrowing and rising debt.
Jake Fuss
Director, Fiscal Studies, Fraser Institute
Grady Munro
Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute
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