On Day 11 of the fascist regime, the consequences of their near-total freeze on foreign aid began to come into focus. Sui-Lee Wee, Declan Walsh and Farnaz Fassihi of the New York Times reported on some of the troubling repercussions.
In famine-stricken Sudan, soup kitchens that feed hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in a war zone have shut down.
In Thailand, war refugees with life-threatening diseases have been turned away by hospitals and carted off on makeshift stretchers.
In Ukraine, residents on the frontline of the war with Russia may be going without firewood in the middle of winter…
…The public health implications of the aid freeze are broad, health workers say. In Cambodia, which had been on the cusp of eradicating malaria with the help of the United States, officials now worry that a halt in funding will set them back. In Nepal, a $72 million program to reduce malnutrition has been suspended. In South Africa and Haiti, officials and aid workers worry that hundreds of thousands of people could die if the Trump administration withdraws support for a signature American program to fight H.I.V. and AIDS.
There are potentially a couple of unintended upsides to this. It’s a rare opportunity for Americans to learn how their foreign aid tax dollars are utilized. For example, I was simply unaware that America is basically feeding the people of Khartoum, Sudan.
Most of the soup kitchens in Khartoum, the battle-torn capital of Sudan, have shut down. Until last week, the United States was the largest source of money for the volunteer-run kitchens that fed 816,000 people there.
“For most people, it’s the only meal they get,” said Hajooj Kuka, a spokesman for the Emergency Response Rooms, describing Khartoum as a city “on the edge of starvation.”
After the American money was frozen last week, some of the aid groups that channel those funds to the food kitchens said they were unsure if they were allowed to continue. Others cut off the money completely. Now, 434 of the 634 volunteer kitchens in the capital have shut down, Mr. Kuka said.
“And more are going out of service every day,” he added.
In other cases, like efforts to eradicate malaria, I knew the United States was a major player but I didn’t understand it with any specificity. There’s always an argument that money spent helping foreign populations could be better spent helping Americans in need, but I believe most Americans will see the merit in these impacted programs. Many of us will even have a sense of pride after learning how much positive impact we have through our foreign aid.
The second potential benefit is that sometimes people don’t really value something until it’s gone. The following remarks show a growing realization of the beneficence of America on the part of its recipients, even if it comes only when facing the impact of the cutoff.
In Africa’s war zones, some are already regretful of their dependence on American aid.
“It was our fault to rely so heavily on one donor,” said Mr. Atif, of the Emergency Response Rooms in Sudan. “But this has really shocked us. You can’t take food off people who are starving. That’s just insane.”
…On the border of Thailand and Myanmar, the implications of Mr. Trump’s decision were stark. There, a four-year civil war and decades of fighting between Myanmar’s military junta and ethnic armies have pushed thousands of refugees into Thailand.
Saw Tha Ker, the camp leader for the Mae La camp, said he was told on Friday by the International Rescue Committee, a group that receives U.S. funding, that it would stop supporting medical care, water and waste management for all of the seven refugee hospitals managed by his camp.
“The first thought that came to my mind was that whoever made this decision has no compassion at all,” said Mr. Tha Ker.
Fascist regimes are not known for their sanity and compassion, but the lesson here isn’t just about what has been lost with the election of Trump. It’s also about the generosity of America prior to the fascist takeover. People all over the world are discovering that things they perhaps took for granted were only possible because the American people, through their government, made them possible.
The flip side of learning that “hundreds of thousands of people could die if the Trump administration” doesn’t maintain “a signature American program to fight H.I.V. and AIDS” is that we’ve saved millions through that program already and are capable of saving hundreds of thousands more. In fact, the International Aids Society estimates that the program, called PEPFAR, has “saved 26 million lives and prevented millions of HIV acquisitions in more than 50 countries.”
America definitely benefits from the soft power and good will generated by its foreign aid programs, but that doesn’t mean it gets the full credit and recognition it deserves. This widespread fascist-instigated disruption of aid will have a wide range of negative consequences, including for American prestige and influence, but it’s a good thing for people to discover how much America has been doing to help people across the world.
This unfortunate episode shows, in so many ways, how essential American leadership and generosity are, and that’s a good lesson for Americans and foreigners alike.
But at the same time, the disruption also teaches another lesson. It’s a lesson expressed by Mr. Atif of the Emergency Response Rooms in Sudan when he said of the sudden closure of soup kitchens in Khartoum, “It was our fault to rely so heavily on one donor.”
The main rivals to America for global influence are Russia and China, and they are the main options to fill the vacuum left by America’s withdrawal. Even if the American foreign aid spigot is turned back on, the need to court Russia and China as backups to America has now been learned. It shouldn’t have been necessary, but these things will continue until the fascist regime is defeated.
Some of them will stay broken forever, because some things cannot be fixed.
