(C) Center for Economic & Policy Research This story was originally published by Center for Economic & Policy Research and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Musk cuts off aid to Haiti [1] [] Date: 2025-02-07 And yet, even critics of foreign aid say that cutting off aid to Haiti now would be a disaster. Indeed, the Trump administration’s efforts to shut down USAID — the United States’ main global aid agency — would be felt more acutely in Haiti than almost anywhere else on the planet. Not only would Haitians suffer but canceling aid would likely spark more migration, which would seem to go directly against the Trump administration’s goals. The flow of foreign aid has left “the government with few incentives to carry out the institutional reforms necessary to rebuild the country, as it bets that every time the situation worsens, international governments will open their coffers,” as the New York Times put it in 2021 . Haiti has received tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid from the United States and other donors over the decades – including $13 billion just since the 2010 earthquake – but remains as dysfunctional as ever. Not only has the money failed to improve the government institutions it was meant to help, but it may actually have harmed them. Still, to the shock and outrage of many Americans, the Trump administration moved this week to dismantle the US Agency for International Development, a behemoth of foreign assistance that manages more than $40 billion in appropriations. The agency’s funds have been frozen and nearly all of its 10,000 jobs worldwide will be cut. What made the decision to shut down USAID much more sinister is that it came from billionaire Elon Musk’s systematic assault on federal agencies through the new Department of Government Efficiency. Advertisement You can’t make this stuff up: The world’s richest man cuts off aid to the world’s poorest children. As the Globe editorial board wrote, USAID, for decades, “has represented the best of American diplomacy, feeding the hungry, delivering vaccines, treating malaria, and most recently providing medical assistance to war-ravaged Gaza.” Indeed, the agency has been a premier model of soft power, its real-world impact a lifeline for the world’s most vulnerable populations. Advertisement Which brings me back to Haiti, a country in a dire state of emergency due to a long-lasting multidimensional crisis. From 2010 to 2020, USAID provided nearly $2.3 billion to support infrastructure development in Haiti, according to a federal analysis. For fiscal year 2024, USAID legally committed more than $400 million for multiple purposes, including humanitarian, health, and economic assistance, according to ForeignAssistance.gov. Haiti’s population is only 11 million, much smaller than other notable aid recipients like Ukraine and Afghanistan. While those war-torn countries, as well as nations in Africa and the Middle East, have received far more assistance from the agency in recent years, halting aid to Haiti could make life even harder for people already facing deeply entrenched poverty and political unrest. It doesn’t just pause ongoing programs — it also makes it harder to plan for the future and work toward lasting solutions with local communities. For nonprofit organizations like Saint Rock Haiti Foundation, which is based in the Boston area, funding from USAID has been transformational, according to Jocelyn Bresnahan, the foundation’s president. The group, with a current operating budget of $1.4 million, has been doing work in Haiti for more than 20 years, establishing health centers and educational programs, she said in an interview. “We have two very large [USAID] grants that are under review,” Bresnahan said. The combined value of these grants is $3.5 million and they’re both to support the construction of a maternal health center with an operating room, she said. “We have very little hope that those will move forward any time soon.” Advertisement Most of the USAID assistance in Haiti comes through the United Nations, including its support of the newly created multinational police force. The US government has committed to the international effort more than $15 million, of which $13 million has not been disbursed and is reportedly frozen. Even critics of US aid warn against cutting it off so precipitously. Jake Johnston, director of international research for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, argued in his book “Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti” that US assistance has often sidestepped the democratic process in Haiti and thus eroded sovereignty, and “served more as a benefit to US special interest groups than to the local population,” he wrote in a recent blog post. But that doesn’t mean the United States should just go cold turkey. “There’s sort of a catch-22 on it,” Johnston told me in an interview. “Haiti is extremely dependent on foreign aid and if that foreign aid stops, there will be harm. So how do you untangle that while limiting the human damage that that process would entail?” The chaotic stop-work order will do immediate damage on the ground. “The area in Haiti where this will have the greatest effect is going to be the health sector,” Johnston said. That’s because “the health sector is extremely dependent on USAID financing.” Reforming aid to Haiti is a long-term project. Abruptly freezing USAID funds will only worsen suffering in a country already on the brink. Advertisement This is an excerpt from ¡Mira!, a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Marcela García. Sign up to get ¡Mira! in your inbox each week. Marcela García is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at marcela.garcia@globe.com. Follow her on X @marcela_elisa and on Instagram @marcela_elisa. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/02/07/opinion/elon-musk-usaid-disaster-haiti/ Published and (C) by Center for Economic & Policy Research Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons 4.0 Int'l.. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/cepr/