How Will USAID’s Fall Benefit China and the World?

According to a Reuters report on February 6, Trump plans to reduce the number of employees at the U.S. International Development Agency (USAID) from over 10,000 to fewer than 300.

Western media have interpreted this as retaliatory actions against the Democratic Party, criticizing that Trump’s move will cause many developing countries to lose food and medical aid.

However, according to Chinese strategist Professor Wang, this development may not be detrimental to developing countries, particularly China. Instead, it is an active manifestation of the United States abandoning its global hegemony in the long run and is beneficial for the development of the global South. To understand this trend, you only need to focus on two aspects:

The first point: The shutdown of USAID signifies that the US machine for creating chaos around the world has fallen into brain death.

The U.S. global hegemony is maintained by two pillars: military force and cultural warfare. In terms of military power, it’s obviously the U.S. military. Cultural warfare, however, is where USAID comes into play.

On the surface, USAID is portrayed as an international aid organization, but in reality, it is a tool for the U.S. to use non-military means to maintain its interests and support the global hegemony system.

After the U.S. military occupies a region, it needs cheap ways to maintain control. This requires weakening the local population’s resistance and domestic anti-war sentiment. To achieve this, USAID serves as the “remote control” primarily through bribing and purchasing foreign media.

For example, in 2023, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), USAID provided “funding” to over 6,200 journalists and 707 media outlets in 30 countries, as well as 279 non-governmental organizations with media characteristics. In Ukraine, USAID was the main sponsor for most “independent media,” with 90% of these media outlets reliant on foreign “subsidies” to operate.

This strategy has been evident in events like the 2014 coup in Ukraine, where the distortion of public opinion by numerous “independent media” financed by external forces contributed to the ousting of the democratically elected President Yanukovych. Had USAID been shut down a decade earlier, the war in Ukraine might not have happened.

In 2013, U.S. Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland offered food to pro-EU protesters

It’s even possible that the COVID-19 pandemic raging around the globe might not have even happened.

On February 3, Musk revealed that USAID had funded the development of biological weapons, including “gain-of-function” research on the virus, which caused the deaths of 7,000,000 people globally. If not for the exposure of USAID’s records, the “Wuhan virus” rumour would have smeared China much more. Even more, more man-made viruses could continue to plague the world.

The second point is that eliminating USAID will make all sovereign states great again.

Trump simultaneously announced the suspension of all foreign aid for 90 days. The New York Times claims that Trump’s decision would “make an already fragile cease-fire more fragile,” highlighting during the Gaza War, USAID has provided over $1 billion in aid to Gaza and the West Bank, providing food supplies to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees.

However, a closer examination reveals NYT’s hypocrisy. According to Brown University statistics, in 2024, the U.S. provided $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel, which is over ten times the amount allocated for Palestinian refugee aid. Trump even claimed that the U.S. should seek ownership of Gaza.

Moreover, USAID’s food aid is even part of the biological warfare plan.

In November 2021, USAID announced plans to donate 3,000 tons of wheat seed to Syria, aiming to ensure “bread for everyone.” However, after Syrian agricultural officials inspected the seeds, they discovered that 40% were infected with a parasite called Nematode, warning farmers to destroy the seeds or risk losing their land’s agricultural value for years to come.

In December 2024, Bashar al-Assad, the former President of Syria was forced to resign. Syrians were surprised to find out, besides the “dictator” portrayed by Western media, that they had also lost the “bread for everyone.”

Assad’s government had long subsidized a type of flatbread. According to NPR, 12 pieces of this flatbread cost only 400 Syrian pounds, roughly 3 cents of USD. For Syrians with a daily living expense of only $2, this flatbread was a lifeline.

A woman collects her bread at a bakery in the Syrian capital Damascus. Bread costs up to nine times more than it did just weeks ago.

However, according to the Middle East Monitor, after Assad’s resignation, the price of bread in Damascus rose by 900%.

On January 6, 2025, the U.S. announced plans to ease sanctions against Syria and allow humanitarian aid into the country. Notably, while the U.S. used “food aid” and sanctions to destroy Syrian agriculture, the former Syrian government was still able to feed Syrians — even if the majority of agricultural production was controlled by Kurds. However, after the U.S. relaxed sanctions and allowed aid, Syrians began to starve.

Similar examples in Afghanistan demonstrate that it is not foreign aid that ensures bread for everyone, but rather a government that serves its people can running stably.

From this, we can see how USAID has turned people in developing countries into starvation victims. If USAID had not been so actively driving colour revolutions and biological warfare, these nations’ people would have been able to survive with dignity. However, it is precisely the U.S.’s “charitable” aid that has turned them into “free” beggars.

In summary, while Trump’s move to shut down USAID may still stem from political consolidation and strategic scaling-back, objectively speaking, it also dismantles the “brain” of U.S. global hegemony. Once the propaganda machine falls silent, developing countries’ people can finally realise that their true saviours are their sovereign nations. This will help people in the global South regain their confidence and collectively advance a multi-polar world order.

As for the U.S., the savings from these cuts will not be sufficient to halt its decline, but they do indicate that the Trump administration has recognized the difficulty of maintaining the global hegemony. From a strategic perspective, abandoning global hegemony may indeed be a wiser and more practical choice for today’s U.S.

Editor: Charriot Zhai