In 2017, I Tried to Spotlight USAID

By Armando Simón    

In 2017, with the election of Donald Trump, I along with millions of others felt there would be a deep change in the federal government. In my limited capacity as a private citizen and with  no funds at all to speak of, I carried out some research on USAID. Since America was dangerously close to bankruptcy  due to absurd deficits (which predictably worsened in the four years under the Biden Crime Family), USAID was the perfect place to look at. The reason was that the bureaucrats working there were proud of “foreign aid” sent abroad, totally oblivious—or uninterested—to the anger of American citizens. In a little known USAID website (which I have not been able to locate this year), it boasted a tabulation of the millions of dollars sent to each country in the world. For each year.

I was shocked at what I found. I knew the amounts were large. I had no idea the amount of money sent abroad was gargantuan. It was enough to make anyone hyperventilate  and have cardiac arrhythmia.

Two thirds of the world was on American welfare rolls. Put another way, two thirds of the world was getting food stamps. And some of these countries were quite wealthy. Others were our enemies.

I collated my findings and sent them off, along with an explanatory letter, to various representatives in Congress. And then waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

In frustration, I wrote an article for American Thinker. Because of the site’s space limitations, I showed only a truncated list of data for six countries (Egypt, Zambia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Kenya, South Sudan).

And waited.

The beginning of the 2018 campaign season started. I went to several of representatives who were campaigning in my area and was able to meet very briefly with a senator and a congressman. I handed them my findings and verbally told them what I had found. They stared at me with that blank expression, supposedly listening, but which really meant, “God, the things I have to put up from these yokels!” They thanked me and rode off to another campaign site.

And then, I waited.

And waited.

Originally, I was not able to ascertain the specifics of the allocation of USAID funds but occasionally, it became public. It has recently been said that foreign aid is when poor people in rich countries are forced to give their money to rich people in poor countries. African dictators and their families have purchased luxuriant chateaus in the French Riviera and in Paris and have collections of luxury race cars along with big, fat bank accounts in the Grand Cayman islands, Switzerland and Panamá. I am certain the people in North Carolina who did not receive help from Democrat-controlled FEMA can sleep better knowing that there is a roof over the heads of African dictators and their families. In Europe.

All this time, we were assured that the funds were going to help feed people in other countries. Throughout my adult life I believe I have seen the same picture of the starving African child I saw when I was a teenager. Now, with President Trump and Elon Musk and his six young geniuses, we are seeing what our money really went to. The public is angry, and the Democrats are angry, but for different reasons.

And in case you are wondering, I recently posted a full list of my original findings here.

Armando Simón is a trilingual native of Cuba, a retired psychologist and historian, and author of A Cuban from Kansas, The U, and When Evolution Stops.