section_path: Concerns and criticism/Trump administration's claims of wasteful spending
section_name: Trump administration's claims of wasteful spending
paragraph_text: Trump administration's claims of wasteful spending
  
  In 2025, the Trump administration accused USAID of "wasting massive sums of taxpayer money" over several decades, including during Trump's first presidency from 2017 to 2021. The administration cited a number of projects, including $1.5 million for LGBT workplace inclusion in Serbia, $2.5 million to build electric vehicle chargers in Vietnam, $6 million for tourism promotion in Egypt, and "hundreds of millions of dollars" (the largest item) purportedly allocated to discourage Afghanistan farmers from growing poppies for opium, which allegedly ended up supporting poppy cultivation and benefiting the Taliban. Fact checkers found that these claims were largely false or "highly misleading". According to the World Health Organization, the closure of health clinics in 31 out of 34 provinces in Afghanistan has contributed to a growing humanitarian crisis. The situation is further compounded by widespread poverty and the continued presence of infectious diseases such as measles, malaria, and polio.
  
  On February 3, 2025, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized four expenditures putatively uncovered by DOGE. Fact-checkers found that several of the alleged wasteful grants were actually administered by the State Department, not USAID. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, in his February 2025 order blocking the Trump administration from placing certain USAID employees on leave, "noted that despite Trump's claim of massive 'corruption and fraud' in the agency, government lawyers had no support for that argument in court."
  
  During Trump's first term, his daughter Ivanka Trump, who served as Advisor to the President, used over $11,000 from USAID in 2019 to purchase video recording and reproducing equipment for a White House event. Both Ivanka and then-First Lady Melania Trump had publicly praised USAID's work during the first Trump administration. Melania Trump visited Africa in 2018, speaking about USAID's efforts and stating, "We care, and we want to show the world that we care, and I’ve partnered and am working with USAID." Ivanka Trump also toured Africa on behalf of USAID, lauding her father's creation of the "Women's Global Development and Prosperity" initiative and emphasizing its alignment with U.S. national security interests.
  
  In February 2025, following the allegations of fraud, the White House announced a plan to reduce USAID's staff from over 10,000 employees to fewer than 300. Critics, including former USAID administrators, decried this move, calling it "one of the worst and most costly foreign policy blunders in U.S. history", and have argued that the cuts will result in job losses, damage to American businesses, and harm to vulnerable populations worldwide. The Inspector General for USAID issued a report on the spending pause and staff furloughs noting that these actions limited USAID's efforts to assure that its distributed funds "do not benefit terrorists and their supporters". The Inspector General also warned that $489 million in humanitarian food aid was at risk of spoiling due to staff furloughs and unclear guidance. The Office of Presidential Personnel fired the Inspector General the next day, despite a law requiring 30 days notice to Congress before firing an Inspector General.
  
  In an editorial in the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters argues that the $70,000 spent on a musical event in Ireland was an effective example of waste used by the Trump administration even though the event was actually paid for by the State Department, not USAID. This musical event included celebrating diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Winters writes, “The GOP anti-USAID propaganda works because a lot of people make less than the $70,000 spent on the DEI musical event in Ireland.” He argues more broadly that foreign aid should not export American cultural wars.
  
  In April, The Hill published an editorial by Jim Kunder, a USAID deputy administrator under the administration of George W. Bush. Kunder writes, “Musk’s tiny list of Biden administration-mandated, oddball transgressions amounted to less than one-tenth of one percent of USAID’s budget. Many of the eccentric projects DOGE ‘uncovered’ were not even part of the agency’s portfolio. Full-throated allegations of ‘waste, fraud and abuse,’ it turned out, did not yield a single damning indictment.”
  
  In 2025, the Trump administration accused USAID of "wasting massive sums of taxpayer money" over several decades, including during Trump's first presidency from 2017 to 2021. The administration cited a number of projects, including $1.5 million for LGBT workplace inclusion in Serbia, $2.5 million to build electric vehicle chargers in Vietnam, $6 million for tourism promotion in Egypt, and "hundreds of millions of dollars" (the largest item) purportedly allocated to discourage Afghanistan farmers from growing poppies for opium, which allegedly ended up supporting poppy cultivation and benefiting the Taliban. Fact checkers found that these claims were largely false or "highly misleading". According to the World Health Organization, the closure of health clinics in 31 out of 34 provinces in Afghanistan has contributed to a growing humanitarian crisis. The situation is further compounded by widespread poverty and the continued presence of infectious diseases such as measles, malaria, and polio.
  
  On February 3, 2025, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized four expenditures putatively uncovered by DOGE. Fact-checkers found that several of the alleged wasteful grants were actually administered by the State Department, not USAID. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, in his February 2025 order blocking the Trump administration from placing certain USAID employees on leave, "noted that despite Trump's claim of massive 'corruption and fraud' in the agency, government lawyers had no support for that argument in court."
  
  During Trump's first term, his daughter Ivanka Trump, who served as Advisor to the President, used over $11,000 from USAID in 2019 to purchase video recording and reproducing equipment for a White House event. Both Ivanka and then-First Lady Melania Trump had publicly praised USAID's work during the first Trump administration. Melania Trump visited Africa in 2018, speaking about USAID's efforts and stating, "We care, and we want to show the world that we care, and I’ve partnered and am working with USAID." Ivanka Trump also toured Africa on behalf of USAID, lauding her father's creation of the "Women's Global Development and Prosperity" initiative and emphasizing its alignment with U.S. national security interests.
  
  In February 2025, following the allegations of fraud, the White House announced a plan to reduce USAID's staff from over 10,000 employees to fewer than 300. Critics, including former USAID administrators, decried this move, calling it "one of the worst and most costly foreign policy blunders in U.S. history", and have argued that the cuts will result in job losses, damage to American businesses, and harm to vulnerable populations worldwide. The Inspector General for USAID issued a report on the spending pause and staff furloughs noting that these actions limited USAID's efforts to assure that its distributed funds "do not benefit terrorists and their supporters". The Inspector General also warned that $489 million in humanitarian food aid was at risk of spoiling due to staff furloughs and unclear guidance. The Office of Presidential Personnel fired the Inspector General the next day, despite a law requiring 30 days notice to Congress before firing an Inspector General.
  
  In an editorial in the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters argues that the $70,000 spent on a musical event in Ireland was an effective example of waste used by the Trump administration even though the event was actually paid for by the State Department, not USAID. This musical event included celebrating diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Winters writes, “The GOP anti-USAID propaganda works because a lot of people make less than the $70,000 spent on the DEI musical event in Ireland.” He argues more broadly that foreign aid should not export American cultural wars.
  
  In April, The Hill published an editorial by Jim Kunder, a USAID deputy administrator under the administration of George W. Bush. Kunder writes, “Musk’s tiny list of Biden administration-mandated, oddball transgressions amounted to less than one-tenth of one percent of USAID’s budget. Many of the eccentric projects DOGE ‘uncovered’ were not even part of the agency’s portfolio. Full-throated allegations of ‘waste, fraud and abuse,’ it turned out, did not yield a single damning indictment.”