Rand Paul Wants to Abolish All Foreign Aid. Now Is the Time
#9 America could be on the cusp of Trump making massive spending cuts in places that other administrations would have found unthinkable.
Some very big things have happened regarding foreign aid in the last few days.
The USAID website has gone dark (USAID stands for United States Agency for International Development, the agency tasked with administering foreign aid).
President Trump has also reportedly halted foreign aid.
He froze it.
Reuters reported Friday that “the Trump administration is moving to strip the agency of its independence and put it under State Department control.”
The president appears to be attempting to rein in the agency.
Sen. Rand Paul encouraged this and recommended ditching getting rid of USAID altogether, citing major pushback from the bipartisan Washington establishment (in this case, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer).
Sen. Paul has called for an end to foreign aid since the very beginning of his congressional career.
A headline from 14 years ago (Paul became a senator in January 2011):
Paul has long questioned the wisdom of sending billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars abroad when America has $36 trillion debt.
In 2023, Paul was able to challenge USAID head Samantha Power about how American foreign aid might have been used to fund the gain-of-function research that reportedly took place in a lab in Wuhan, China, and those experiments were likely the origin of COVID-19, as cited now by even the FBI and CIA.
That’s right, millions of Americans not only got COVID.
They likely funded it.
To this day, no one in American government has been held accountable for the COVID-19 pandemic.
We are WAY overdue for a sober conversation about the wisdom of our foreign aid programs.
Like, what the hell is this?
Paul has been mostly ignored on this front. Too many overlapping interests, both within and without government, have prevented any real discussion or debate over tackling where the U.S. might be wasting money - or simply spending money we don’t have - when it comes to our “assistance” overseas.
But Elon Musk doesn’t need money. Donald Trump doesn’t either. Leaders with significant wealth can afford to tackle actual reform because, in part, they can already afford anything they want!
If seen through, this could be a real opportunity.
So now, are we really on the cusp of ending or seriously reducing American foreign aid? The prospects certainly seem more likely than at any other time in our lives. It definitely seems more possible under Trump than any other president of the last few decades.
And how did we get here?
How We Got Here
Also this week, DOGE’s Elon Musk claimed that only about ten percent of foreign aid actually goes to those who might need it, while billionaire Dan Pena said that assessment was being too generous.
He said the amount of foreign aid that is properly channeled is probably closer to zero.
Pena said it’s just a way for foreign elites and their governments to steal money.
This is not new knowledge.
For many years, former Congressman and libertarian icon would explain that "foreign aid is taking money from poor people of a rich country and giving it to the rich people of a poor country."
In December, as a reported adviser to the new Department of Government Efficiency, headed by the world’s richest man, former Congressman Paul had support from Musk in his view of how foreign aid is misused.
Ron Paul even included a chart showing how much America drastically surpasses every other country in doling out aid.
Look at how lopsided this is. Why would we keep spending all this money?
To what end?
Musk was down.
Hope
As a libertarian and fiscal conservative, I never had hope of a serious reduction in the size, scope and spending in government unless a Republican like Ron or Rand Paul was ever elected president. A President Mike Lee, Thomas Massie or Chip Roy might have also got it done.
The point is, it was always going to be a very short list, and a list of figures who were likely never going to occupy the White House to begin with.
But right now, Donald Trump does. As an unconventional president, the likes of which we are not likely to see again, do we now have a unique opportunity to massively reduce government spending in the ways so many libertarians and fiscal conservatives have long dreamed?
Beginning with foreign aid?
We can hope.
And right now, there is reason for it.
I have long been against foreign aid. Now is really the time to get rid of it as our country is trillions in debt and sinking. This must be done.
It is about time we ended this corrupt department.