President Donald J. Trump’s Rapid Response team has cataloged some of the wasteful spending disbursed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which looks set to be abolished as an independent entity and absorbed into the U.S. State Department after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) concluded it was beyond saving.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, the Rapid Response team noted that USAID has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and promoting transgenderism. For instance, $1.5 million was spent to promote DEI in Serbian workplaces, and $70,000 was spent on a “DEI musical” in Ireland.
In Latin America, USAID allocated $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru, and $2 million for sex changes and LGBT activism in Guatemala.
Spending beyond the realm of DEI and transgenderism also appears questionable, with $2.5 million spent promoting electric vehicles in Vietnam, resulting in the construction of just one battery station. $6 million was directed towards boosting tourism in Egypt.
Even more controversially, USAID funded a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations and EcoHealth Alliance, which had connections to research at the Wuhan lab. USAID funding was also used to provide al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists in Syria with meals.
Similarly, USAID funds were used to support poppy farming in Afghanistan, bankrolling the Taliban, and bolstering the international heroin trade.
USAID has been unaccountable to taxpayers for decades — funneling money to ridiculous (and in many cases, malicious) pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats with zero oversight.
🧵 Here are only a few examples of the WASTE and ABUSE:
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 3, 2025
.jpg){kind=link}
