USAID Shutdown: Who Benefited from their Funds?
In recent days, Democrats are outraged about Trump’s freeze on funding to organizations like USAID (Agency for International Development). As a non-partisan observer, instead of judging Democrats or Republicans, I decided to look for myself into who really benefits from USAID grants. On the USAID’s website, we read:
“USAID is the principal U.S. agency to extend assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms.”
A closer look into the recipients of the funds, totaling $43.4 billion in fiscal year 2023, reveals there are in fact some non-profits benefiting from the funds but also many for-profit entities (receiving 40% of funding), such as pharmaceutical (Pfizer) and consulting firms (Development Alternatives and Chemonics) receiving American taxpayer funds. Even among non-profits, there are “news agencies” like Politico and even foreign agencies like BBC that received large sums, perhaps to steer their content curation away from criticism of the US government. In fact, USAID reportedly funded 6,200 journalists and 707 news outlets in 30 different countries to help US politicians to politicize news, curate opinions and shape news narratives using US taxpayer funds1.
Interestingly, for-profit medical and drug companies like Pfizer (see chart below) received huge USAID contracts for drug sales to countries like Bangladesh, Kenya and Kazakhstan they marked as FREE donations but actually paid by US taxpayers.
Other beneficiaries of USAID funds are organizations like GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) which are public–private partnerships promoting vaccines in poor countries, while syphoning taxpayer funds to their private partners and pharmaceutical companies. In fact, in 2011, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) criticized vaccine companies like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Pfizer for receiving subsidies as well as a per-unit payment for supplying vaccines, which MSF deemed “corporate welfare” that is scandalously expensive to donors and taxpayers alike.
Interestingly, for a fraction of the funds dispensed by USAID, poor countries could work locally on supplying their residents with healthy food and water, for example by building roads or clean water infrastructures. Even among GAVI donors, some member countries worried that GAVI was undermining and paralyzing local health care systems in poor countries by its single-minded focus on pushing vaccines (profitable for pharma companies) promoted by Bill Gates (who could benefit indirectly from his personal investments in Pharma companies receiving the taxpayer funds channeled through GAVI).
Trump issued an executive order during his first week in office ordering a 90-day freeze of most foreign U.S. assistance. Musk, who heads the newly created task force known as the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE), said early Monday in an audio discussion on X that he and Trump were working to shut USAID down. Given USAID’s main directives which seem to be influencing foreign policies of the US government through NGO funds, Trump may move the agency under the State Department umbrella.
The Pharma lobby is extremely concerned. They have called Trump and Musk’s actions a “threat” to “a legacy of medical foreign aid” without citing that the main beneficiaries of US taxpayer funds were for-profit US corporations (see https://www.pharmavoice.com/news/usaid-shutdown-global-health-pharma-medicine/739088).
Among other beneficiaries of USAID funds: $2 million for sex changes in Guatemala, $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt, $20 million on a new Sesame Street show in Iraq, and allegedly (from posts on twitter) paying celebrities to visit Ukraine to boost President Zelenskyy's popularity in the U.S. Also, documents show gross misappropriations. For example, from $4.4 billion dedicated to humanitarian assistance to Haiti, only 2% reached that country and the rest went to firms in DC, Maryland and Virginia!
News agencies and publications received large sums from other government agencies too. The New York Times alone, received $50 million from various government sources, including $26.9 million from Health and Human Services, perhaps to push for-profit vaccines benefiting Pfizer and Moderna. As reported in the article, Pfizer separately received taxpayer funds directly (from USAID) and indirectly (through GAVI) too, making it triple-dipping into taxpayer funds.