How the United States has made humanitarian aid a tool of influence

By dismantling USAID, Donald Trump turns back to a centenary strategy: using humanitarian aid as a lever for influence in the world. The fact remains that weakening this pillar of his diplomacy, Washington risks annoying his own interests.

The dismantling, at the start of the year, of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) by the new administration of President Donald Trump highlighted the dependence of the humanitarian sector to American funding.

Overnight, all over the world, the programs of a constellation of humanitarian actors – UN agencies, international and national NGOs, local governments – were immersed in deep uncertainty.

In Sudan, a country prey to one of the worst crises in the world, more than half a million people are at risk of losing their regular access to food, while in Yemen, some 220,000 displaced people may no longer benefit from health care. Before the cuts, the magnitude of which remains difficult to estimate, the United States alone funded 40% of global humanitarian aid. Far ahead of the 8% of the second largest contributor, Germany.

“This percentage testifies to the place of the United States in the geopolitics of 20^e century, “explains Valérie Gorin, director of learning at the Geneva Humanitarian Studies Center.

Herbert Hoover, father of food aid

To understand the origin of this influence, we must go back to the First World War, in 1914.

While Belgium, occupied by the Germans, undergoes a terrible famine, the United States set up a assistance commission in order to distribute food packages to the Belgian population. It is headed by Herbert Hoover, who will later become president.

In the aftermath of the first world conflict, in 1919, Herbert Hoover created the American Relief Administration (ARA), a sort of ancestor of the USAID. Active in food aid, this organization originally distributed the surplus of the rations that the American army did not give to its soldiers during the war.

In 1921, the ARA intervened in the Soviet Union, faced with a great famine. “The question was whether to help populations in territories under communist control,” said Valérie Gorin. And above all, how to use this food aid as a weapon against communism ”.

The United States then also provides wheat, which it produces in too much quantity, as well as agricultural machines. The objective is to promote the image of an altruistic country, to demonstrate the superiority of the capitalist model, and to stimulate the American economy, says Bertrand Taithe, professor at the University of Manchester.

Help against communism

“Americans use humanitarian aid with a desire to win the ‘hearts and minds’ (in English, Hearts and Minds). It is not a selfless act of solidarity, but a tool for American diplomacy, ”says Valérie Gorin.

This objective is clearly displayed during the Cold War, which divided the world in the post-war period. In 1961, former president John F. Kennedy set up USAID. He then declared to his recruits: “As we do not want to send American troops to the many regions where freedom is threatened, it is you that we send,” reports the Financial TimesExternal link.

The idea is simple: misery forms the breeding ground for communism, and this is where the United States decide to intervene, specifies Valérie Gorin.

“Food aid must allow the conquest of a sphere of influence in areas where communism is gaining ground and in the regions which must be stabilized to serve as a rampart between the blocks of the East and the West,” adds the researcher. These include newly decolonized states, in Asia and Africa.

The birth of large NGOs

The Cold War is a period during which the major American international NGOs develop, such as Care, Save the Children, or IRC. They benefit from significant state funding which is accompanied by links, sometimes close, with the government.

“We observe a kind of alignment between the objectives of NGOs and those of American foreign policy,” explains Bertrand Taithe. An alignment nourished by the financial dependence of these organizations to the government, but also by the fact that at that time “many people flee totalitarianism. There is therefore a rapprochement between the promoters of freedom, those who seek freedom, and those who help these people, ”he adds.

This proximity is apparent during the Vietnam War, between 1955 and 1975. Most American NGOs intervened only in South Vietnam, which benefits from the military and economic support of Washington, and not in North Vietnam, controlled by a communist regime. But as the conflict extends, some humanitarian workers question this rapprochement.

“The more pacifist organizations, who do not approve of the objectives or the methods of this war, will be distant from the American State,” explains Bertrand Taithe. This is the case, for example, of Care or Oxfam America, who reconsidered their partnership with USAID.

“Militaro-humanitarian intervention”

In the following decades, US military interventions, for example in Afghanistan and Iraq, are accompanied by humanitarian aid, especially food and medical. The aim of this assistance: stabilize occupied areas and increase the legitimacy of the authorities supported by the United States.

“We are talking about military-humanitarian intervention, with a confusion of terms,” ​​explains Valérie Gorin. Humanitarian aid becomes a way of imposing democratic inclinations on certain countries. ”

At the start of Afghanistan’s invasion in 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell explicitly declared during a speech that NGOs are a key element in American military efforts, calling them “multiplicators of strength” and “important part of our combat team”.

This rhetoric – contrary to the principles of neutrality and independence – was strongly criticized by humanitarian NGOs. MSF stressed that this endangered its staff and hampered its access to civilian populations. At that time, NGOs were the target of several terrorist attacks, the best known of which was the explosion of a truck trapped in front of the UN office in Baghdad, in 2003.

“NGOs have sought to safeguard their independence, but have not always held in the face of the promises of financing from the United States government,” said Bertrand Taithe.

Loss of influence

“The United States has always used humanitarian aid to create new friends, maintain existing links, and amplify their influence,” recalls Bertrand Taithe.

In certain areas, especially that of health, the contribution of American aid has been widely hailed, offering the country a influence in the world. For example, the emergency aid plan for the fight against AIDS abroad (PEPFAR), set up by President George W. Bush in 2003, made it possible to save millions of life, especially in Africa. His future is threatened today. As well as that of many programs so far financed by the USAID.

+ To find out more about the impact that the American cuts have, in particular on women and programs to combat HIV, listen to the last episode of our Podcast Inside Geneva (in English).

As part of his program “Make America Great Again” (returning to America its grandeur), Donald Trump portrayed foreign aid as an ineffective instrument, too expensive, controlled by the left. And if his assault against USAID was anticipated, the speed and extent of the cuts were a surprise. The Republican claims to focus on the direct interests of the United States, but for Bertrand Taithe, the dismantling of the USAID is above all an “ideological decision”.

“This will have a negative impact on American interests; interior, because a good part of the aid is an indirect support for agriculture, but also external, because it is an obvious loss of influence in the world, “he said.

Text reread and verified by Virginie Mangin/SJ