WEBVTT - What was the purpose of USAID? 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:07.160 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:13.640 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.200 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:20.720 Should Know. Another timely topical edition of Stuff you Should Know. 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.320 Like I just said, that's right, as it turns out, 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:31.120 weirdly super timely because as of this recording date yesterday, 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:35.920 this is July first, Yesterday, June thirtieth, will have been 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.160 the kind of the final day for most us AID employees. 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:44.000 I saw a headline yesterday in the New York Times 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:48.000 where Bono cries. Yeah, Bono kind probably did cry, But 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:52.000 people like President George W. Bush and President Obama and 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:56.920 Bono all got together and said, hey, you know, USA 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:59.400 did so much good work. We're very proud of the 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:03.080 work we did. George W. Bush in particular, was proud 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.800 of the program that started under his watch, the President's 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:10.400 Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that he initiated that saved 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:16.840 twenty five million people's lives. President Obama said, I wish 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:19.840 I could do a good Obama, he said, ending USAID 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:23.240 would go down as a colossal mistake. Ending your presence 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:25.120 in your programs out in the world, and this was 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.679 directly to employees. They did like video messages. That's why 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:28.920 it's in that person. 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.160 Yeah. I think they actually had a video call too 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:31.600 for them. 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.080 Yeah, ending your presence in your programs out in the 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:38.600 world hurts the most vulnerable, and it hurts the United States. 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.720 To many people around the world, USAID is the United States. 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:44.320 And then I got to read Bono's quote, because you know, 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:44.920 why not. 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:46.720 Before you do, I just want to say, like you 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.920 nailed the Obama with the in the middle. 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:54.760 Of it, Bono said, it's not left wing rhetoric to 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.240 feel hungry, heal the sick. If this isn't murder, I 0:01:58.280 --> 0:01:58.960 don't know what is. 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:00.600 That was a prety to get bona. 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:03.280 Yeah, it was more of a Larry Mullen junior. But 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.280 we say all that because I'm not really sure whether 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:08.240 or not we should speak in the past tense on 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:09.640 this with a lot of the stuff. 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.359 Well, today's the day. So, like you said, yesterday, it 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.480 was the last day that USAD existed as an independent 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:19.840 agency in the US federal government. Today's the day that 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:24.320 it got absorbed into the State Department. And I believe 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.800 also today the State Department Secretary of State. Marco Rubio, 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:32.640 the former senator from Florida, announced that there is going 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:36.240 to be some sort of new foreign aid agency called 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:42.120 America First, which is a mind bender. Is it really yes? 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:45.680 So that it's not fully going away, it's just going 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.040 to be restructured. They're going to be doing it differently. 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:52.799 And it's really hard to say. It's really hard to 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.480 get across how big of a deal it is that 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.680 something like USAID specifically is being done away with wholesale. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:04.600 The mothball done really abruptly, really quickly. It's not being 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.160 kind of slowly rolled back or anything like that. It 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.520 just got its head cut off right right within six 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:15.600 months after being announced. It was just done. And it's, 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.960 of course, because we're talking about the United States, it's 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:23.000 a political hot button issue. Everything is a political hot 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:27.280 button issue, but this one should not be divided between 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.600 the left and the right. Like this is how America 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:35.240 influenced the entire world for decades. Some of it was 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.400 really bad, some of it was really good. But I 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.920 feel like me personally, it needed a lot of restructuring. 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:46.119 But I think it was a good infrastructure, a good 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.640 apparatus that just needed to be retooled. I think it 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.000 was a little ham fisted, to say the least, to 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.760 just stop it immediately. That's my take on it. 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.440 Yeah, I agree. And for a second there a few 0:03:57.440 --> 0:03:59.640 minutes ago, I thought you were going to say Marco 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:01.840 Ruby said it was now called America. 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:06.080 Yeah, is that a Team America reference? 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:08.480 I think yeah? That was from that movie, right. 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:10.600 I think so? I hope, yeah, I think it was too. 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.320 I saw that that was a who was it? There 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.839 was a Democratic House member senator the other day that 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:19.640 was as far as what you were talking about, and 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:21.160 we're going to get into the numbers here and the 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:24.000 history of everything, but he was talking about kind of 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.120 what you were saying was like just kind of shuddering 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:30.200 this guys. If the budget of the United States is 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:32.960 the height of the ceiling of this room, and it 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.680 was a big room. He said, the budget for USAID 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.240 is these two credit cards stacked on each other. 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:38.760 Wow. 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.920 And he said, you know, to there has been waste 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:45.080 in there, and there has been some fraud, and we're 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:46.440 going to cover that stuff because we like to be 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.200 even handed. Sure, he said, and that's it at its worst, 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:52.400 but at its best, you're shuddering something that costs so 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:56.480 little money for us that has saved tens of dozens 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.839 of millions of lives of people, and not only just 0:04:59.880 --> 0:05:02.599 like life saving, but as you'll see, just influence for 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.359 people around the world to like Bono said, like to 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.000 some people around the world, US eight is America, and 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.440 that's like they're the people that came in and helped 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:12.560 us when we were at our most dire. That's the 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:13.400 United States. 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.799 Yeah, yeah, So hopefully we'll kind of get it across. 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:21.200 If you're already mad, you know, politically speaking, just settle 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.080 down and listen, because we're not. We're not approaching this 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.520 from like a no Obama's right kind of thing. It's like, like, 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:29.760 just listen to this and make up your own mind. 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:31.760 We're not going to try to steer you. We were 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.080 just sharing our own opinions on it. We're allowed to 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.400 have those because we're thinking feeling human beings. 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:41.080 That's right, all right. So the US historically is the 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:45.880 single humanitarian the largest single humanitarian aid donor in the world. 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.919 We supplied about forty percent of humanitarian aid in twenty 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:52.359 twenty four. As either the wealthiest or one of the 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:57.159 wealthiest countries in the world, foreign assistance falls into these 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.919 broad categories when it and again this is all foreign assistance. 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.840 US eight is within that, as we'll see, but humanitarian 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.719 assistance is about twenty five percent of it. And this 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:12.200 is like you know, medicine, food, and shelter to save 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:16.919 people after epidemics and disasters and famine. Development and assistance 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:22.760 is sixty percent. Those are programs installed to develop democratic 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:27.080 nations economically, politically, socially. And then the last smaller piece, 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.680 smallest piece is security funding fifteen percent. It's not a 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.880 part of the US military. Their programs to help strengthen 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:38.159 foreign militaries and foreign police to you know, get their 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.320 act together and instill some sort of rule of law 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:41.720 where there might not be any. 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:44.760 Yeah, and we don't want to be polyannis about this. 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.440 Like USA, it identified the police and training and outfitting 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.760 and helping financially the police in different countries is like 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:57.960 the best way to tap into that local that nations 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:02.680 like the pol keeping your pulse on that nation's local stuff, 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.400 right to because the police are the ones who like 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:11.000 suppress riots and suppress demonstrations. They're the ones who arrest people. 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.840 Like bringing in the military is way too big of 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:17.960 a deal. The police can do it, so USA definitely 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:20.640 focused on training police. That was a big one too, 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:22.800 and that just kind of peels back the layer because 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:25.280 right now, Chuck, let me just say this and I'll stop. 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:31.720 There's a lot of really like sunny, glowing, like really 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:38.880 fairly not fully realistic talk about USAID and what it does. 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.040 It does a lot of this stuff, but it leaves 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:42.600 out a lot of the darker side. And I think 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:44.640 you have to take it as the whole thing to 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.240 fully understand its value in the world. 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:51.400 Yeah, absolutely, and that's our aim here. But if you're 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:54.600 talking about since World War Two, we've distributed about four 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.400 trillion dollars and today dollars to foreign assistance, which is 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:00.760 a lot of money. But like I mentioned earlier, with 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:04.800 a little credit card metaphor that I ganked from that senator, 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.840 as a percentage of our federal budget, foreign aid accounts 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.120 for one percent of our total government spending. 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:16.920 And that's all foreign aid. The USAID's portion is zero 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:22.160 point five percent. So just us AID has less than 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:23.640 a percent of the federal budget. 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:28.120 Just two credit cards laying on the floor, right, Maybe 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:32.640 credit card wasn't the best thing to use, like insurance 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:35.200 card or something, or that probably wouldn't have been good either. 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:36.680 Library card, how about that? 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:38.480 Yeah, don't talk about insurance. 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:40.679 Yeah, library cards are not controversial, right. 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.640 Yeah, A little bit controversial, sure, all right, especially school libraries. 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.400 Since nineteen sixty one, most of this foreign aid has 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.000 come through the US Aid Office because that's when it 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.800 was established, the US Agency for International Development, created by 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:01.040 John F. Kennedy, and the idea was, as we'll see, 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.000 was to create what he called or what everybody calls 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.480 soft power around the world because it was a time 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.360 during you know, as you'll see, during the Cold War 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:15.239 when the influences of the Soviet Union in China were worrisome, 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.640 and Kennedy saw the writing on the wall and was like, hey, 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.320 I think, like we need to get in there before 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:26.920 other countries get in there with their communism and spread 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.439 our message of democracy by helping assist them. 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.800 Yeah, which was like totally in step with the containment 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.679 policy of keeping communism and checking keeping it from spreading, 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:41.319 rather than using the military every time. You could also basically, 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.200 you know, grease some palms around the world, and these 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.080 countries that were hanging in the balance in the Third World, 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.400 you could sway them over the democracy side. And they 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.199 could become an ally and trading partner of the US. 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:53.640 Why not. 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:55.679 Yeah, And you can trace the roots of this back 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.520 to the Marshall Plan when in nineteen forty seven, post 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.440 World War Two, Secretary State George Marshall said, Hey, we 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.120 got to rebuild Europe and put a lot of money 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:05.800 into that. I think it was about one hundred and 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.000 seventy five billion and today dollars. And he claimed at 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:11.280 the time that it was a quote not directed against 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.480 any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos, 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.560 which is partly true. But what was also true was 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.640 the Marshall Plan was to stop the Soviets and stop 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.000 Stalin from going in further to Europe, and like we said, 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.480 sort of plant the American flag over there in a way. 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.240 And this was one of the tools usaid was one 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.880 of the tools, one of the bigger tools during the 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.079 Cold War to establish our influences like a country that's 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:36.840 trying to do good. 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.880 Yeah, this was helped along. I think the Marshall Plan 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.040 was nineteen forty seven, did you say that. Yeah, Like 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.360 later on in the fifties, it was helped along by 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:50.880 a couple of MIT economists Walt Rostaw and Max Milliken, 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.760 and they basically said, this Marshall plan that we used 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.320 to rebuild Europe and keep countries from falling into the 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.720 hands of the Soviets and Communists, this is a good idea, 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.240 even outside of the context of rebuilding after a World war. 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.040 This should just be part of American policy. 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.640 Yeah, and Kennedy liked this idea eventually so much. Senator 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.720 Kennedy at the time would hire Walt Rostau as a 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.240 policy advisor on his staff, and when he was elected president, 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.640 he appointed him as his deputy national security advisor. And 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.199 Kennedy before, you know, when he was a young congressman, 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:28.400 he was not into foreign assistants. He was like, America first, 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:30.880 we got to help ourselves first. But then he went 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.760 on a seven week congressional trip in nineteen fifty one 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:40.640 to Pakistan, Israel, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, Japan, and what 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:44.040 is now Vietnam, French Indo, China at the time, and 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.200 he was like, you know what, it's I'm all for 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.960 the military, but it can't just be a military exercise. 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.679 We got to have an economic stake in this, and 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.199 we got to do that through foreign aid. 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:58.360 Yeah, there was also a book that helped change his 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:01.640 mind a few years later, The Ugly American. It was 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.080 published in nineteen fifty eight. It was a bestseller, and 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:09.080 essentially it was a fictionalized version of the experiences of 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:15.240 the authors as diplomats in pre war Vietnam, and it 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.920 almost satirizes American diplomacy at the time, which was you 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:23.200 had diplomats who were at parties with other diplomats in 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:26.840 gated communities, way far away from the people of the 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.760 country they were trying to serve. And these guys argued, no, 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:31.720 you need to immerse yourself in it. You need to 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:36.040 learn the language, like you have to find out what 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.440 these people really need or else all you're doing is 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.920 patronizing them and wasting money. And it had a huge 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:46.640 impact on America in general. But also Kennedy, who is like, 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.760 this is my north star here in guiding how foreign 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.680 policy in America should go, and even took out a 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:55.760 page in The New York Times, a full page ad 0:12:55.800 --> 0:13:02.800 saying this is a great book. How was that? 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:07.240 It was pretty good? This, you know. Shortly thereafter, in 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.360 nineteen fifty nine, when Cuba falls to Castro, all of 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:12.760 a sudden, it's like, hey, this is literally happening right 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:16.840 out our outside our back door. So the time is now. 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:21.040 He didn't create the idea for foreign aid. We had 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:25.640 programs at the time, Food for Peace, the Development Loan Fund, 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.400 and others. But Kennedy was the one in March of 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.760 nineteen sixty one to wrap that all up, tie a 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.160 bow on it, and say here, Congress, this is USAID 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.640 and this is this is a new program along with 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:42.079 the Peace Corps that we're creating that like the great 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.959 ambitions that America should pursue. And Congress got on board. 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.520 Yeah. And one of the big things that he pushed 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:52.920 for with the creation of USAID in particular was five 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:53.720 year budgets. 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:54.720 Ah good luck. 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.199 Yeah, so foreign aid up to that point and then 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:00.079 after that point, because he didn't get the five of 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:04.640 your budgets he was looking for. The USA budget was 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:09.080 tied to annual federal budgets and so it was you know, 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.160 it suffered the vaggarees of congressional fights over budgets that 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.760 happened every year. But the point was the reason Kennedy 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:20.440 wanted a five year budget was because if his USA 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:23.320 people were going to these countries that were like should 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:28.760 we go communists or democratic? They needed to come to 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:33.080 them and say, hey, your sympathetic, sympathetic to democracy, you're 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:36.920 running for president. Here's what we can do for you 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.440 that you can actually build a platform around, because we're 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:42.960 going to guarantee that you're going to get this funding 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.680 X number of dollars for five years because we want 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.160 this country to be a democracy, and we want to 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.440 make you the leader of the democracy any way we can. 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.080 And Congress was still like, no, we're not going to 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:54.400 do that. 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:57.240 Yeah, I feel like that's a good time for a break, 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.320 and we'll come back and talk about some successes of 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:25.920 USAID over the years right after this. All right, so 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:27.800 we're back in this promise, we're going to talk about 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.600 some of the success stories of USAID over the years. 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:35.480 More than half of our funding for USAID in the 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.560 nineteen sixties went towards something we talked about quite a 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:40.520 bit over the years here and there called the Green Revolution, 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:47.680 which was a campaign led by doctor Norman Borlog. He 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.920 wrote too many in history to fight hunger and asia 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.560 by saying, hey, let's modernize your agricultural practices. Let's bring 0:15:54.600 --> 0:16:00.320 them into the new age with your irrigation techniques, fertilization technius, 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.520 how to rotate crops, getting you better crop yields even 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.640 when it's a drought going on. And he was very, 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:10.640 very successful at this and changed the world. And this 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:12.040 ran through USAID. 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:17.200 Yeah, so today's estimates put the number of lives that 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:21.240 Norman Borlog and the Green Revolution and USAID for overseeing 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.960 this program saved was probably about a quarter of a 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:25.960 billion people. So right out of the gate, one of 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.080 the first things USA does is save a quarter of 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:32.360 a billion lives from starvation. That's good enough. But at 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:36.600 the same time, Chairman Mao is pushing the Great Leap 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:41.920 forward in China where he's completely restructuring the agricultural industry, 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.360 taking a ton of peasant farmers, putting them in iron 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:50.400 and steel factories, and drastically limiting the food supply so 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:57.400 that forty five million Chinese citizens die in three years. 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:00.600 So people were able to look around and like, wow, 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.920 this communist idea really didn't work. This USAID idea worked 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:09.040 really well. Tell me a little more about USAID, and Chuck, 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.520 I feel like I should also say it's just come 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.159 to be. You used to work for Peace Corps, not 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:16.680 as a Peace Corps volunteer, but as like one of 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.959 the people in the Home office, and I told her 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.640 we were recording on USAID, and she pointed out very quickly, 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.680 it's USAID. Well, we've been saying USAID this whole time. 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.960 Apologies to everybody, I say, we just keep saying USAID. 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.040 I think most people say USAID, and I identify it 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:34.679 as USAID, So I think that's fine. 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.280 Okay, kid, it's just you me who calls it USAID. 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.520 No, no, no, I'm just saying I think will be 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.600 forgiven because most people read that as USAID and they 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:44.480 know what we're talking about. 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:45.639 Gotcha, Okay. 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:48.439 One of the ones I want to mention, well, I 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:52.399 mentioned earlier the initiative launch launched by President Bush in 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.879 two thousand and three, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS relief, 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.360 and what a success that has been. But the one 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:02.639 that really gets me is smallpox. That this was a 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:06.480 deadly disease in the nineteen sixties that was killing kids 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:12.080 all over the world, and we eradicated that thanks to USAID. 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:16.320 How's that very nice partnering with the CDC to establish 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:18.760 an anti smallpox campaign in each country? Or it was 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.439 a big, big problem, and they have saved over the 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:28.520 past eleven years by completely eradicating smallpox basically millions of 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:29.760 lies every single year. 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:32.240 Yes, in the only two places in the world where 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:34.600 you can find smallpox on the planet today is in 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:40.399 Siberia and Atlanta. Yeah, that's right, talking about saving lives, 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.840 not just from like you said, pepfar and from smallpox, 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:50.680 but the us AIDS taking on tuberculosis has saved an 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:55.399 estimated fifty eight million lives since two thousand, and I 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:59.000 believe that estimate was either from twenty seventeen or twenty twenty, 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.800 so it's probably higher than that by now. And then 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.200 malaria too. I think they estimate that since two thousand, 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:11.080 the President's Malaria Initiative under USAID has saved nearly twelve 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:15.080 million lives, and that in countries where the President's Malaria 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:20.320 Initiative exists, there's been a forty eight percent decline in 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:24.480 malaria deaths on average. So like they're literally saving actual 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:26.960 lives by going in and being like, oh, this is 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:29.280 a real problem. Let's fund the people who are working 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.920 to combat this in the place where it's a problem, 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:38.520 and it's having these demonstrable effects like positive effects like 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:39.800 saving people's lives. 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:42.320 Yeah, and they have their little American flag patch on 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:44.439 the whole time. People know exactly where it's coming from. 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.040 That's right. They don't put that Canada flag on their 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.840 backpack and lie to everyone. 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:52.800 And that was even a thing when I traveled Europe 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:56.639 in the mid nineties. Yeah, for sure, was a Canadian 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:58.840 flag because they're like, we're not American. Please don't be 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:00.920 fooled by my right. 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:03.400 Exactly. I have no love for Bill Clinton. I don't 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:05.200 even even know who that is. Why would I even 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:06.200 bring up Bill Clinton. 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:09.320 We said we were going to cover this even handedly, 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:11.680 and we you know, there have been plenty of criticisms 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:17.920 and controversies over the years with USAID. I guess which 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:21.640 one should I talk about? How about this one? It's 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:23.840 not a perfect program. There have been all kinds of 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:26.760 what you call a devil's bargain over the years trying 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:31.120 to fight communism, one of which was, you know, we've 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:35.080 talked in the past about CIA engineered coups across the 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:40.080 world to topple dictatorial regimes. Foreign assistants provided by USAID 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.000 was used a lot of times as a negotiating chip 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:47.439 to basically win allies here and there. So that's you know, 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:50.680 maybe not the purest use of what it was set 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:52.040 out to be. No. 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:57.200 A good example of that is Afghanistan. Us aid's involvement 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:03.240 in Afghanistan after the US invaded is just widely considered 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:08.120 a total disaster. Afghanistan received more than one hundred billion 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.720 dollars in foreign aid from the United States and as 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:16.280 something like forty percent of it went directly to government officials, warlords, 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:20.520 drug lords, insurgents who bought weapons with it and then 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:23.000 fought the United States with it. Yeah, not a good look. 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:27.520 And I found a statistic too that over fifteen years, 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:31.399 usa'd spent almost one and a half billion dollars just 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:38.160 on helping Afghan farmers transitioned from opium production to anything 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:42.800 but opium essentially, and the opium farmers in Afghanistan said, 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:44.919 thanks a lot for the money. Where's going to use 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:48.880 this instead to expand our opium production as it stands, 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:54.159 And between twenty thirteen and twenty fifteen, in Kandahar Province alone, 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.920 opium cultivation more than doubled like one hundred and nineteen 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:01.240 percent in two years because of U USAID money which 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:04.919 was now going not just to insurgents, but to create 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:06.960 the heroin supply in the United States. 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:11.840 Yeah, black eye on that one for sure. More recently, 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:15.760 there was a company called Chemonics that was awarded the 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:19.280 single largest contract ever from USA. It was a nine 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:21.400 and a half billion dollar contract and the goal there 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:25.800 was to streamline delivery worldwide of medical supplies, you know, 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:30.560 mosquito nets, contraceptives, vaccine, stuff like that. And it was 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:35.879 very poorly managed by USAID and there was Chemonics was 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:39.560 involved with false reporting between them and their partners, and 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:43.200 it was just a pretty big debacle, and you know, 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:46.719 USAID continued to pour money into it even as it 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:50.960 was floundering, which again another stain on their reputation, which 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:53.920 you know, we say all this stuff to fairly report, 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.560 but also to point out that, like it makes it 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:59.000 a really easy target when you can say, you know, 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:00.840 we spent nine and a half billion dollars on this 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:04.119 thing that was mismanaged, and you know, fraud like that 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:07.199