Rep. Young Kim says she’s not looking to gut USAID — just to make sure tax dollars aren’t wasted on programs that don’t serve U.S. national security interests.
One of her biggest concerns? If the U.S. pulls out of certain USAID programs, China will move in fast.
She pointed to initiatives in Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines — including efforts to remove unexploded landmines and aid for people exposed to wartime toxins — as examples of work that could be at risk.
“If we pull out all of those activities and programs we are funding via USAID, who’s going to step in? China. And they’re just waiting for us to pull out,” said Kim, R-Anaheim Hills.
Losing ground to one of its biggest rivals would weaken U.S. soft power, Kim said, making it harder to build alliances overseas, push democratic values and counter China’s growing economic and political sway. The point of USAID, created by President John F. Kennedy during the Cold War, was to counter Soviet influence and fund foreign aid programs — based on the idea that a safer, more prosperous world also benefits the U.S.
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, an independent government agency within the legislative branch, USAID and the State Department between fiscal years 2019-22 allocated approximately $6.6 billion to support activities in the Indo-Pacific region, with the most funding going to Bangladesh, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Kim said Chinese Communist Party officials have already reportedly signaled their willingness to replace the agency’s work in Nepal and Cambodia.
“These are just the instances that we know about. Even critics of USAID acknowledge the critical soft power value of targeted and efficient programming,” she said in a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday, Feb. 13.
During the hearing, titled “The USAID Betrayal,” Republican lawmakers scrutinized spending by the U.S. Agency for International Development as the Trump administration paused foreign aid for 90 days through the agency.
“What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to root out the waste,” Kim said of the hearing. “I wanted to first acknowledge that there are some wasteful or non-national security related programs, but at the same time, distinguish those wasteful programs from the targeted, much-needed efforts and the programs that have made a difference.”
Kim highlighted a $2.5 million USAID-funded project to build electric vehicle charging stations in Vietnam as an example of what she considers to be wasteful spending.
The Trump administration has criticized other programs, including $1.5 million to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbian workplaces and businesses.
As for whether Congress should step in to refocus USAID, Kim said it’s too soon for that.
“The conversation about whether or not Congress should consider introducing legislation as the review is taking place, I believe it’s premature at this time,” she said. “We do have the 90-day review period which we are doing, and during that time, this was one of our first full committee hearings to address this very important issue.”
The question before Congress is “how to design the future of U.S. international assistance,” Kim said, and her top priority now is to clear up the lack of clarity on the scope of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s waivers for humanitarian assistance. While Rubio has issued blanket waivers for lifesaving programs, lawmakers have brought up concerns that they aren’t effective because layoffs, mission closures and frozen payment systems have still stalled the aid programs.
“It’s hard to restart them if we completely turn the lights off, right,” Kim said.
But the Republican lawmaker also said that USAID hasn’t been shut down entirely.
“Contrary to what we’re hearing, the program is not 100% cut off, and it’s not eliminated. Since (Trump) made the comments for the executive order, we have had some waivers, and that’s also thanks to Secretary Rubio stepping in and saying, we need to review this very carefully,” she said.
Kim said some may believe Trump’s reforms are happening too quickly, but she defended them as a standard process for a new administration.
“This review process that is taking place right now, it happens anytime a new administration comes in. Four years ago, when the Biden administration came in, they wanted to do a review of the previous work in the administration,” she said.
“This is what the majority of Americans wanted,” Kim continued. “They spoke and gave us a mandate in November, and President Trump, with Republicans in the Senate and House, we are doing what we were asked to do by the American people.”
The bottom line, she said, is that every program receiving taxpayer money should align with U.S. interests.
“We want to do proper oversight. We want to reform where it’s needed, so that anything that we do, the programs that we fund, any departments that are getting congressional appropriations to operate is in line with … U.S. interests first and foremost,” she said.
On Thursday, former Rep. Ted Yoho, a Florida Republican who once led the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Asia Pacific, responded to Kim’s question about ensuring an effective waiver process by emphasizing the need to highlight USAID’s successes.
“One drop of kerosene in a cake batter ruins the whole thing. What happened and what’s been exposed doesn’t mean the whole thing was bad,” he said. “Not all aid programs are good. Not all of them are bad.”
Also on Thursday, a U.S. district judge — who was nominated by Trump during his first term — extended a pause through Feb. 21 on the president’s plan to put USAID workers on leave.
