The Politics of Assistance: USAID Control, Dependency, & Imperialism

USAID and the Maintenance & Practice of Neo-colonial Control

Preface: This work was written some time ago, when Trump & musk initially launched their attack against USAID, and was presented at the Eastern Sociological Society 2026 conference. It is still relevant to examine how USAID operates as an instrument for advancing U.S. neocolonial interests. This work focuses on its structural role and specific interventions. Through case studies, I highlight the agency’s opposition to national independence movements and alternatives to neoliberal capitalism in Cuba and Bolivia; its support for far-right groups aligned with U.S. interests in Nicaragua; and its engagement in “disaster capitalism” in Haiti, where NGOs often profit from crises rather than alleviate them. Similar dynamics are observed in post-invasion Iraq. This work contends that USAID’s approach addresses the symptoms of underdevelopment rather than its root causes, tackling some visible effects of underdevelopment, while reproducing the structural factors that sustain it. As the state department takes over USAID tasks and genuine life-saving aid is cut back, it remains increasingly important to remain vigilant of the complete toolbox of U.S Imperialism.

Introduction

The Trump administration has dismantled the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Musk and Trump claimed the institution pushes a liberal agenda and wastes money. Much of the Western media has focused on the loss of HIV and Ebola assistance provided by USAID, along with the effects on USAID workers (Knickmeyer et al., 2025). Within the United States, USAID is unquestionably regarded as a benevolent act due to the real help it gives individuals, but what if I told you it isn’t? Despite some of its nicer qualities previously mentioned, USAID has been a tool of U.S. imperialism and neo-colonialism throughout its history.

The goals are to further dependence along with U.S. interest and capital, not genuine help. There is a reason the institutions often seem more focused on the symptoms of the problem than the cause. As some scholars have already described, USAID provides “strategic assistance to the empire to quell the fire of revolutionary ferment on the southern periphery of the system” (Veltmeyer, 2011). It does the maintenance for neocolonialism. This work offers an overview of the systemically harmful way this institution acts, followed by specific case studies to help readers more clearly conceptualize the role of USAID.

What are neo-colonialism and imperialism?

Before continuing, the reader must have an idea of what neo-colonialism and imperialism are, for without understanding these concepts, you’ll never have an understanding of the role of USAID in our modern economic system. Lenin defined Imperialism as a higher stage of the capitalist system, in which finance capital and monopoly merged. His definition embraced the following five characteristics:

1. The concentration of production and capital with industrial capital developed to such a stage that it creates monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.

2. The merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of “finance capital” of a financial oligarchy.

3. The export of capital, which has become extremely important, as distinguished from the export of commodities.

4. The formation of international capitalist monopolies which share the world amongst themselves

5. The territorial division of the whole world among the greatest capitalist powers is completed (Lenin, 1916).

In this understanding, imperialism is a stage of our global capitalist economic system, where the hegemonic powers come to dominate via financial capital, competing for the division of the world. In Lenin’s simplest definition, he says, “imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.” (Lenin, 1916). This is worth unpacking. Lenin does not say that imperialism started with capitalism, but that under capitalism, imperialism is an inherent characteristic developed to its fullest extent by monopoly capitalism and its need for new markets. The much simpler definition that scholars such as Michael Parenti give imperialism is a “relationship in which the ruling interest of one country dominate, through use of economic and military power … finances and politics of another country” (Parenti, 2011). While imperialism can include things like colonialism, Lenin highlights the way capital and ownership can be leveraged by the “great capitalist powers” such as the United States to control the economic and political situation in countries. Now that we have touched on imperialism, it’s time for neocolonialism.

Kwame Nkrumah, the first prime minister of an independent Ghana, whom the current president accuses the CIA of helping kill, in “the most regrettable and darkest moment” (Mahama, 2025) in their nation’s history, was a leader in Marxist and Anti-colonial thought. He expanded on Lenin’s analysis of Imperialism in his 1965 book “Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism” the title indicating that he thought Neocolonialism represented a new development or adaptation of imperialism to the decolonization taking place in Africa.

Nkrumah saw that as decolonization took place in Africa, more traditional colonialism would be replaced by neo-colonialism. These were states that were “in theory, independent and had all the outward trappings of international sovereignty,” but “In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.” (Nkrumah,1965) It is normally the case that the former imperial power exercises control of an economy that is still based in the colonial order; but this is not always the case “Control over government policy in the neo-colonial State may be secured by payments towards the cost of running the State, by the provision of civil servants in positions where they can dictate policy” (Nkrumah,1965). Kwame Nkrumah also uses South Vietnam as an example where the former imperial power, France, didn’t become the neo-colonial power; instead, the United States did (Nkrumah,1965).

The significance of neocolonialism lies in the old colonial economies, which were based on economic systems that allowed massive exploitation of the colonial subjects for the benefit of the colonial power. “Independence” was often handled in a way that allowed colonial powers to retain economic power, and after the collapse of the soviet union and the end of the Cold War, things have only gotten worse, with America spearheading neocolonial efforts as a global hegemon. As Nkrumah had pointed out before, it was necessary for newly independent countries to “alter the economic and political structures they obtained from the colonizers” (Nkrumah,1965), or else enter stage of ‘neocolonialism’. Where previous colonial regimes ensured the new independent nations continued to depend on them for economic and political supervision, while using foreign capital to continue plundering instead of developing (Tegegne, 2024).

Unfortunately, after nations began to decolonize, new leaders often found it personally beneficial to retain the same exploitative institutions, allowing the country to enter neocolonial relations (Smilak & Putnam, 2022). This is exacerbated by covert and overt operations against leaders who aren’t friendly to neocolonial interests. Leaders from Sankara to Lumumba paid the ultimate price for declining to act as compradors.

The Conventional Narrative

As mentioned above, USAID seems to be regarded by the opposition and those in support as an unquestionably benevolent act due to the real help it gives individuals. It’s been portrayed as a lifeline for developing nations; its most highlighted program is PEPFAR, which The Lancet recognised for saving 26 million lives from HIV (Cluver et al., 2025). Despite this massive success, a study points out the failure it has had in dealing with HIV cases, which have continued to grow in Africa, with the root causes remaining unaddressed (Kharsany & Karim, 2016). Another study claims the program’s HIV/AIDS agenda “is based on politics and religion, not on evidence”(Silnicki, 2014), and points out that despite vast resources, minimal success has been achieved in Uganda, claiming the “prevalence continues to grow.” (Silnicki, 2014), referring to HIV/AIDS.

Another relatively well-known function people may bring up is the food aid it supplies. In this, it treats the symptoms but not the cause, benefiting from these countries’ underdevelopment. Some of its more insidious attributes are shown in the Haiti case study, but can generally be summed up as the shaping of food around exports instead of consumption, whilst much of the country is dependent on unsatisfactory aid, or in other terms, the preparation of food for foreigners while the majority is malnourished, receiving insufficient food aid. Precluded from attempting food sovereignty. In fact american farmers were particularly hurt by the end of food for Peace program, no longer subsidizing them. U.S. food aid ruins economic opportunities for local farmers by overflowing their markets with free or heavily subsidized food, thereby creating a system of foreign dependency on American food aid, something Haiti, again, knows all too well.

One study points out that despite USAID claims of supplying self-reliance in recent years, their food programs reinforce that status quo, similar to what I described above, enforcing the “prevailing neoliberal construct of food systems” (Kelinsky-Jones et al., 2024). They also point out a lack of solidarity with civil society organizations to reform food systems that are becoming increasingly market-driven (Kelinsky-Jones et al., 2024). Another study furthers this point: “USAID’s self-reliance definition reproduces neoliberalism as a dominant political-economic orientation through anti-welfare rhetoric and private sector leadership” (Kelinsky-Jones, 2021). Although USAID is a vocal major critic of the land grabs in Africa affecting both sovereignty and food security, USAID ultimately serves U.S. interests (Cochrane, 2011). The neoliberal market-driven policies that USAID helps pursue in many ways enable these land grabs.

Archived on US government websites, USAID’s mission is stated to be “On behalf of the American people” to “promote and demonstrate democratic values abroad, and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world” (USAID, 2021). Within the list of seemingly laudable functions like “promoting global health,” there are caveats that this be done simply, “through activities that save lives and protect Americans at home and abroad” (USAID, 2021) They also plainly list the goals of “Creating enduring advantages at home [America] by opening markets abroad” and “Helping developing nations establish investment and export opportunities for American businesses” (USAID, 2021). USAID does the bare minimum to provide stable environments for these American economic interests, not to actually help the people, and as we will see below, it helps with both imperialism and neocolonialism.

USAID As Part of The Neocolonial Apparatus

USAID was established at the height of the Cold War (1961) and has since been a key institution in promoting the interests of the American ruling class abroad. Playing a key role in American hegemony and the expansion of markets in the global south (Bhungalia, 2016). During the 1980s, Reagan began making the agency push neoliberalism more aggressively, first in Latin America and then in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the USSR. The main way this was done was through privatization (Ruckebusch, 2024). The pushing of others onto a political and economic system you sit at the head of is blatantly imperialist.

Especially when, ironically, contrary to dominant opinion in america, there is evidence that socialist regimes have managed to provide better physical quality of life and development “in the underdeveloped world” as “socialist forces and regimes have, more frequently than not, improved health and social indicators better than capitalist forces and regimes”(Navorro, 1992). Pushing countries down the capitalist road with this evidence is counter to the physical quality of life of workers in developing countries, but it fits with the goals of the capitalist class in the West. Their lives are funded by the super-exploitation of the workers in these countries, not their social development.

As a piece of the imperialist chessboard, USAID's supposed objectives seem laudable, even praiseworthy, supposedly helping nations develop, but this “help” is given “if and only if the US sphere of interest would not endanger”(Tegegne, 2024), and these interests are often in the extraction of resources in the global south and preservation of neocolonial economies. The U.S. is generally not concerned with human rights when deciding who receives, despite its proclamations otherwise (Tegegne, 2024).

USAID is also crucial in legitimizing the unequal exchange between the global north and the global south. Despite the narrative that colonial forms of extraction ended with the end of more blatant colonialism, the reality we went over before is that this simply isn’t true. Unequal exchange from these neo-colonial economies in the global south is a “major driver of underdevelopment and global inequality”(Hickel et al., 2022), with the losses for the global south outpacing aid by 30 times, a drain of almost 10 trillion per year (Hickel et al., 2022). Many of the “poorest” countries on the planet are not poor but over-exploited, an underacknowledged failure of our global economic system.

USAID doesn’t help challenge this fact, despite the persistent problems in the region, NGOs like those USAID supports “are implementing nodes of neoliberal orthodoxy,” (Sakue-Collins, 2020), attempting to treat problems with no real concern or interest in making the fundamental changes needed to prevent their continued “emergence and proliferation” (Sakue-Collins, 2020). These nodes of impovishment make many of usaid better progams pointless With the link between HIV/AIDS and poverty creating a feedback loop where “poverty increases the spread of HIV/AIDS increases poverty”(Whiteside, 2002), PEPFAR becomes somewhat ironic as you have Western extraction and unequal exchange playing a significant role in the poverty that is so deeply interlinked with the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

To put things candidly, it’s as if you had a chronic illness and instead of treating it, the doctor only treated the symptoms whilst extracting immense sums from your wallet over and over. I’d imagine most would find this care unacceptable and call it a scam, especially if the doctor had contributed to causing you the illness in the first place. But when the United States and USAID do this exact thing to countries instead of individuals, treating the symptoms of problems they contribute to while benefiting themselves from the root cause, we turn a blind eye.

Foreign aid as a remedy to poverty has come to dominate the thinking of economic development in aid agencies and governments since the 1950s. As Imrana Alhaji Buba points out, it is “perplexing” how some countries in Africa have gotten aid since independence but “also remain the poorest countries on the planet” (Buba, 2018). They directly point towards the concept of Neocolonialism to describe the relationship between Africa and the global economy, with foreign interventions justified by development, often bringing “ill being and poverty” (Buba, 2018). They go so far as to claim “the adverse impact of foreign aid is one such trend that is affecting Africa as a whole” (Buba, 2018). Citing unpopular policies that exacerbate underdevelopment, poverty, and even authoritarianism.

USAID’s antiterrorism efforts suffer from a similar problem: “psychological, cultural, and theological pathologies perceived to be located within individual actors, rather than the material conditions that incite armed resistance” (Nguyen, 2023). This prevents them from addressing the root causes, pushing an imperialist vision of what a terrorist free state is. The same study goes on to point out that USAID’s strategy actually “exacerbated, not mitigated,” political violence in Somalia (Nguyen, 2023).

USAID also contributes to “green colonialism” in the global south under the pretext of “conserving Africa’s Garden of Eden” (Nsah, 2023). The burden of acting against Climate change, despite the elite in the global north being its largest cause, is passed on to Africa and enforced by groups like USAID. While rich countries fight against these policies in pursuit of profit those already exploited are forced to make up the slack and poverty and global inequality is reinforced, especially with some of these countries experiencing the worst effects of our changing climate, “environmental policies have for decades done little to alleviate, and have at times contributed directly to the exacerbation of poverty across the continent” (Nsah, 2023). Another study points out, “In the case of USAID, traditional donor interests are more important than any environmental variables in understanding the allocation of aid” (Lewis, 2009). It also points out that aid often fails to target populations most in need of help, instead focusing on geopolitics and “nations with unexploited natural resources” (Lewis, 2009).

The agency admits that only 12% of its funds go directly to local actors, this alone does much to show the neocolonial nature of USAID. The national/local actors within the states being helped have relatively little control over the funds they get, affecting sovereignty and control over their development (USAID, 2024). This means they are often not used in what would genuinely be the nation’s best interest or preference. USAID appropriations accounts are programmed collaboratively with the Department of State, making any calculation of USAID’s current budget imprecise. Most projects are implemented through a grant, cooperative agreement, or contract by foreign and U.S. development partners, including nonprofit organizations, for-profit contractors, universities, international organizations, and foreign governments (Congressional Research Service, 2025).

This has resulted in a profitable NGO sector for the West, but as mentioned prior, no fundamental changes for those in the global south/outside the imperial core. One study reports a “rise over the past forty years of a lucrative development contracting industry in the United States” (Roberts, 2014). Other scholars report that “Western donor aid is often used as a subsidy for foreign corporate involvement in Africa despite dubious returns for the poorer citizenry”(Langan, 1970). USAID is also subject to what can be described as, “buy American laws,” to which USAID overly complies (Smith & Hoxie, 2021).

A USAID report titled Private-Sector Engagement Policy makes it clear by saying, “reorienting our investments to open markets for U.S. firms” (USAID, 2018). If admitting the goal of investment is the opening of markets to U.S. firms is not imperialist, I do not know what to call it.

The top 10 recipients of USAID-managed funds in FY2023 were, in descending order of funding, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Jordan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Syria (Congressional Research Service, 2025). 86% of USAID contractors are from the United States, meaning the United States is largely financing its own private and NGO sectors, at least ⅓ of its budget goes toward actions I would hardly call humanitarian assistance (Ilasco, 2022). The majority of these are also conflict zones in which the United States played a significant role formenting turmoil.

While we see it treating the symptoms in many of these places, USAID conducts outright imperialism and obfuscates the United States’ responsibility for the situation that many of these countries are in. Despite the many lives it has saved, USAID serves the interests of the empire, and by helping maintain imperialist and neocolonial relations, it has contributed to stifling and stifling out many more. USAID and other agencies and policies have allowed the U.S. to maintain immense influence over governments, using it to preserve interests and extractive relationships, while other countries have little control over the use and influence of foreign capital.

A study points out that despite the increasing prevalence of post-colonial research, USAID’s policy documents have overwhelmingly “non-postcolonial rhetoric” and “discourse in which the donor countries’ own national development is prioritized at the cost of the receiver countries” (Löfström & Wiggur, 2009). The neocolonial and imperialist nature of USAID is clear when you notice that the majority of USAID contracts (86%) went back to the United States. One can also point to the lack of control by local actors, the green colonialism creating poverty, the conditioning of aid on our interest, the push towards an unhelpful neoliberalism, its use in spreading markets, and obfuscation of imperialism already shown as reason to call the USAID part of the United States imperialist and neocolonial apparatus. But, if you are not convinced or need more practical examples, the case studies below should show some of the previously mentioned functions, as well as other insidious ways in which USAID has acted. Those who think USAID is a benevolent organization are making the mistake of missing the forest for the trees.

USAID and Propaganda

People are constantly warned about Russian or Chinese propaganda, but what about American? We seem to never consider ourselves as having pushed propaganda, narratives, or dis/misinformation for geopolitical reasons; this is a mistake.

USAID funds are used for propaganda meant to foster dissent, as we’ll see with Cuba. USAID maintained a massive propaganda machine. USAID “funded training and support for 6,200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets and supported 279 civil-society organisations dedicated to strengthening independent media in more than 30 countries”(Barber et al., 2025), with many unable to operate without U.S. funds (Barber et al., 2025). It’s ironic to call them independent, as the saying goes, he who pays the piper picks the tune.

USAID paints their media operations as a counter to other countries’ disinformation, using it as an excuse to have “independent” journalists and news organizations across the world. USAID has also turned some attention to the advertiser sense, believing it could redirect users away from “radicalizing” content. Studies have argued that USAID is an important part of “intellectual warfare,” mobilizing communications and organizational resources to enforce elite hegemonic narratives” (Thomason, 2024). The USAID version of misinformation seems to be anything counter to our interests. A USAID premier on the subject makes it clear when they begin to speak of “problematic information,” not simple dis/misinformation characterizing anything out of the hegemonic “mainstream” as problematic and warning of the creation of a “populist expertise”(USAID, 2021).

Case Studies, USAID in action

In this section, I plan on highlighting how USAID has acted in specific countries to highlight the ways it’s been used to the benefit of U.S. capital as part of the imperialist and neocolonialist toolkit of the United States. The countries I’ve chosen are all countries I believe USAID has helped further imperialism and neocolonialism to the benefit of U.S. hegemony. This can be done by opposing projects of national independence and alternatives the neoliberal capitalism, as has been done in Cuba and Bolivia, supporting far right groups as can be seen in Nicaragua or through disaster capitalism in Haiti, where NGOs rush into a disaster zone not the help but to make profit, sometimes even encouraging the disaster, like in Iraq. This section will detail these along with other experiences, to apply the more general overview given above on how USAID is part of the imperialist and neocolonial tool kit in a more specific manner that may help some understand on a deeper level.

Democratic Republic of Congo

A prime example of this is the DRC, a top USAID receiver. The Crisis in the country has to do with its history of colonialism, ethnic conflicts, and imperial powers, but I focus on the United States’ part in creating the conditions of the modern-day crisis. In doing so, it should be easy to demonstrate how USAID distracts from U.S. crimes, as the Congo, despite being one of the top recipients of USAID, has experienced far more suffering at the hands of its supplier. The actions of the United States in the DRC are meant to maintain neocolonial relations and the imperialist exploitation that Countries in the imperial core benefit from, while USAID provides breadcrumbs that do not challenge the core of the issue, but provide a way to deflect from it.

After independence from Belgium, the United States, namely the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), played an important role in the murder of Pan-Africanist socialist leader Patrice Lumumba, the country’s first leader after independence. After this, the United States continued to perform the maintenance for neo-colonialism in the country (Ray, 2000).

The United States, angered by the lack of desired pro-Western orientation, was excited at the prospect of a Mobutu Coup against Lumumba, this undesired orientation was confirmed to the US by further attempts to decolonize by the Congolese people and Lumumba. The strife caused within the country by decolonization was something Western powers wished to take advantage of to maintain colonial relations, and was increased by Belgium sending its military.

The U.S. operated a covert political program in the Congo for almost 7 years, “initially aimed at eliminating Lumumba from power and replacing him with a more moderate, pro-Western leader” (U.S. Department of State, 2024).

The United States gave advice and financial subsidies and developed plans for Lumumba’s assassination. During the period after the coup, despite being a dictator, “Mobutu’s early efforts to support a pro-Western government and his ties to the military placed him in good stead” (U.S. Department of State, 2024), with the CIA and the U.S. The office of the historian states it in plain terms when, after underplaying his crimes and corruption, they state: “he received extensive U.S. financial, materiel, and political support, which increased his stature in much of Sub-Saharan Africa where he often served the interests of administrations from Johnson through Reagan.” (U.S. Department of State, 2024). I very much doubt the interest of these administrations aligns with that of the congo’s people. Mobutu also received U.S. financial support covertly during the coup, with the U.S. covert programs, “organizing mass demonstrations, distributing anti-Communist pamphlets, and providing propaganda material for broadcasts” (U.S. Department of State, 2024). His regime received 1.5 billion in military and economic aid from the U.S., in return allowing U.S. nationals an increased share of the Congo’s mineral wealth. The corruption and brutality of the Mobutu regime were ignored by those who placed him there for thirty years, only when his plunder became an international embarrassment did the U.S. support begin to falter (Ray, 2000).

Despite U.S. support and involvement in the overthrow of Mobutu, this wasn’t due to a new benevolent turn by the United States. U.S. support for Kabila, his replacement, was weak and only weakened as he distanced himself from what was in many ways a US proxy in Rwanda, signaling to the US the possibility of a Congo further from its influence. Despite continued strife, Kabila brought some normalcy to life and restored infrastructure. The United States pressured the administration for elections within 2 years of taking office, despite its silence when supporting a brutal 30-year dictatorship, and used the government’s opposition to running a candidate deeply involved with the dictatorship (its prime minister) as an excuse to withdraw support from the new government. Rwanda, in 1998, tried to coup the government with the president of Zimbabwe, claiming “Rwandan and Ugandan soldiers...constitute the major portion of those troops which are combating Kabila’s government”(Ray, 2000). The U.S. has not confirmed its speculated involvement (Ray, 2000).

UN experts have accused Rwanda of sponsoring groups like M23, currently wreaking havoc across the region. As a largely symbolic gesture, $200,000 was cut from a $200 million military program between the U.S. and Rwanda, and relations from that point on only continued to grow under the Obama administration. In the late 90s, the U.S. began training the country’s military, ironically around the same time as the coup attempt. The Clinton admin had made Rwanda a close ally, and relations since have remained “relatively strong.” In the words of James Beloff, a visiting research fellow of Queen’s College London:

“American officials have chosen to overlook concerns about Kagame’s human rights record. They are much more inclined to view Kagame’s support as instrumental to promoting American policies and interests in Africa. These include promoting a business environment that is favourable for US foreign investment” (Beloff, 2022).

The alignment of M23 with Western imperial interests can easily be felt when they claim to be “fighting for Congo” and wanting to make “Congo as a business land” (Pronczuk & Banchereau, 2025). An important question to ask is: business with and in favor of whom? As M23 has made land grabs and caused chaos, Rwanda has acted as the spearhead of Western imperialism in the DRC. Rwanda lacks significant mineral reserves of its own but is now one of the world’s leading exporters of minerals like coltan. Outlets have begun pointing out that minerals brought out of Rwanda, stolen from conflict zones in the DRC, help fuel green revolutions and tech in the West (Mallinder, 2024). The DRC said it was losing almost $1 billion a year from this robbery (Schipani & Wilson, 2023). While wealth is drained and suffering is brought by this Balant imperialism in the interest of the empire, we tell much less complex stories about what USAID has done for the country, or told to focus on the U.S. doing the bare minimum sanctions on Rwanda. This allows us not to question our government’s role in the crisis in the Congo.

Haiti

Haitian history within Western scholarship is often looked upon with pity and contempt. This has been the sad Truth since the emancipatory Haitian revolution led by those enslaved under brutal French rule, a first of its kind. Dominico Lusardo describes relations between the United States and Haiti as a “Cold War from the onset,” (Losurdo & Elliott, 2014), pointing out the tension between a country built on slavery and one made up of slaves who had freed themselves. Thomas Jefferson saw commercial relations with the country as dangerous, fearing that seeing free black people could inspire ideas within black people enslaved in the South. The President at the time, assured France “nothing will be easier than to furnish your army and fleet with everything and reduce Tousannt to starvation” (Losurdo & Elliott, 2014).

While this thankfully did not play out as Jefferson wished, he did isolate and strangle the country economically (Losurdo & Elliott, 2014). Haiti has never been able to enjoy the full material benefits of this independence, with an economy still shaped by colonialism to this day, 200 years later (Young, 2011). Haiti was forced to pay an Independence debt 10x the Louisiana purchase made the same year Haiti gained independence (Rosalsky, 2021). According to one study, the country developed into a double debt as a result of continuing “domination and exploitation” of Haiti in part through the debtor relationship with France (리오, 2022).

The United States also occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, exporting ideas of white superiority and failing to set up any democracy of substance, likely due in part to the fact that this intervention was prompted by financial motivations. This project was hated by the common people of Haiti and never gained the necessary acceptance of its elites (Mullen, 2012. During the occupation, a new constitution was drafted, one that allowed foreigners to own land in Haiti, written by “Franklin D. Roosevelt, then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy”. American companies were granted land, and the Haitian American Sugar Company was created, evicting the local peasants and plantations. Other corporations followed suit with the backing of American capital, largely disrupting the way of life from many peasants who had lived off the land for generations, who “suddenly found their fields had been sold or leased to U.S. corporations” (Scheld, 2018) an american led “shift towards exports over domestic consumption in an effort to raise state revenues” had “set the stage for agricultural decline” (Vitez, 2015).

American Marine Corps Commander John Russell had become the dictator of Haiti in the 1920s. The entire occupation was to the detriment of local populations (Mullen, 2012). During this period, the education system in Haiti was not designed for independence or self-governance, but for producing a nation of laborers dependent on the United States. This led to countrywide unrest and the U.S. withdrawal in 1934 (Mullen, 2012). A report by the National Association of colored people paints a stark picture with, “US marines, rum-drunk,” bragging “of torturing and murdering Haitian peasants” (Hudson, 2012). Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, U.S. colonial occupation left Haiti with “no significant lasting in stitutions except the Haitian gendarmerie, which furnished the power base for the post-occupation dictatorships” (Mullen, 2012). The gendarmerie was also an institution with deep relations with the U.S. Some of the dictators born of it, the United States would support. Specifically, the thirty-year Duvalier dictatorship, the United States only briefly broke relations when an American citizen and opponent to the regime was killed, only to quickly restore these relations. This deal included the, “restoration of grant assistance, military assistance, and loans; recreational visits of the U.S fleet; possible augmentation of U.S. military training missions; and increased U.S. tourism, private investment, and technical assistance,” justified often by anti communism (309. Editorial Note, 2025). USAID to duvliers dictatorship was significant,

The Brenton Woods institutions also play a role in what’s gone on in Haiti. Haiti began taking loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) starting July 14, 1958, during the start of the dictatorship. Since then, until 2016, they had taken out 27 loans from the institution. Outstanding debt to the IMF totaled $65,582,561.65 in 2016, better than it could be due to forgiveness surrounding the earthquake to prevent virtual collapse (IMF, 2016; IMF, 2010). It is first worth noting that the IMF and World Bank both imposed neoliberal policies on Haiti, such as “austerity, export markets, deregulation and privatization” with Structural Adjustment Programs to pay back loans, eroding the country’s sovereignty. Within these institutions, discourse has also evolved in a way that co-opts ideas to legitimize neoliberal extraction (Thiery, 2020).

In the aftermath of the thirty-year Duvalier dictatorship’s overthrow in 1986, USAID, the World Bank, and the IMF recommended a neoliberal reform program. A new entrepreneurial class created room for such reforms, they argued, “Haiti’s salvation rested in orienting production towards the export market and in adopting free trade policies for the domestic market,” reinforcing inequality “without overcoming dependency and underdevelopment” (Dupuy, 2023).

It has been pointed out before the earthquake that aid in Haiti overall yielded “relatively poor results” and needs a change in “the overall strategy”(Tondini, 2008).. With more focus on justice at the local level and their demands, and on less financial aid that often benefits MNCs more than the people (Tondini, 2008).

Only 6% of USAID’s funding goes to local organizations in Hatai, with administrator Samantha Power pointing out “gravity” pulling in the other direction. This gravity is mostly the weight of dependence on US NGOs (Johnston & Lorentzen, 2022). One study has pointed out that USAID’s operations in Haiti largely conform to the interests of the United States’ multi-national corporations. The study also argues that, contrary to popular belief, the US used the 2010 earthquake tragedy in Haiti to accelerate the neo-liberal reforms in Haiti. These reforms were to the benefit of multinational corporations, mostly U.S. MNCs (Metayer, 2012).

Due to this, aside from USAID’s role in obfuscating our responsibility, people have begun to notice USAID’s use of what some call disaster capitalism. Disaster capitalism refers to how capitalists make a fortune off disasters, catastrophes, and crises, using them to open up public resources to markets, gunning for private contracts. In 2010, Haiti experienced its most devastating earthquake in 200 years, leaving up to $14 billion in damage, 230,000 dead, 1.2 to 2 million displaced, and many more injured. With political, economic, and social life in ruin, an opportunity arose for the softer arm of U.S. imperialism, this being USAID. Masked by the altruistic platitudes of politicians and officials, they are, in truth, forcing neoliberal economic policies on weak states for their benefit. The controversial policies go through due to the desperate need for aid within these countries. In Haiti, the U.S. has militarized aid, disguising imperialism as stabilization (Forte, 2014).

In a survey of over 1,000 people, many claimed that food was more expensive in the aftermath of the earthquake, with food aid seeming not to have “any impact on food expenditures,” and that the kind of help they felt was needed was mostly jobs and education, which were not supplied in a meaningful way by this intervention (Lusk & Andre, 2017). 40% of all Haitians were experiencing food insecurity, and 30% of preschool children were chronically malnourished. USAID has done projects such as Feed the Future North in the earthquakes aftermath (2013) with the goal of addressing this, spending $87 million. Although achieving some successes like slightly expanded water access, many factors are worth highlighting, such as the fact that “USAID did not engage either the Haitian government or the beneficiary farmers in project design” (Anglade et al., 2019). They also failed to address water access or the issue of periodic drought. The gains of the projects are also dependent on their continuation (Anglade et al., 2019).

The World Food Program points out that the crisis has reached historic proportions, with half the population facing acute hunger (World Food Programme, 2024). This is disturbingly similar to the dynamic I described when I said, “it’s as if you had a chronic illness and instead of treating it, the doctor only treated the symptoms whilst extracting immense sums from your wallet over and over. I’d imagine most would find this care unacceptable and call it a scam. Especially if the doctor had contributed to causing you the illness in the first place.” Our NGO sector represents the benefits off suffering in Haiti without getting to the roots of the problems, instead reinforcing dependence while obfuscating our role in it. For example, creating an agricultural system based on exports that leaves locals undernourished, while then setting up an NGO sector that doesn’t get to the root of the problem.

Bolivia

USAID, along with deflecting responsibility and abusing disasters, has been a key piece of US regime change efforts against left-leaning governments. Evo Morales, who was at the time president of Bolivia, from the Movement for Socialism Party (MAS), had accused the agency of seeking to conspire against Bolivia. He said the programs had “political rather than social” ends. He accused them of interfering in the country’s unions and politics, eventually expelling the agency (BBC, 2013).

The United States would later go on to help orchestrate a coup against Bolivian democracy and its people in 2019, using in part the groundwork and atmosphere it had set prior with USAID. While Morales was the country’s first indigenous president (the majority of the population), it wasn’t simply identity that got him his support, he lowered poverty by 42% and extreme poverty by 60% (Weisbrot, 2023). Mark Weisbrot portrays it accurately when he says, “The coup was led by a white and mestizo elite with a history of racism, seeking to revert state power to the people who had monopolised it before Morales’s election” (Weisbrot, 2023). In 2020, when elections were finally held, the Bolivian people rejected the US-backed coup resoundingly. MAS won 55% of the vote; the next closest, at 28%, was Carlos Mesa (VALDEZ, 2021).

During Evo Morales’s rise, USAID was heavily meddling in Bolivian politics and sovereignty. This was done via investment, ironically enough, via “democracy programs,” something they invest in all over that seeks to stabilize and advocate for a capitalist state (preferably neoliberal). In Bolivia, “these programs were reconfigured to undermine the rise of Evo Morales’s Movement toward Socialism” (Burron, 2012). Over ⅛ of USAID funding in the country went into these programs; you’ll find similar stories all across the globe (Burron, 2012). What is the point of aid if it requires you not to challenge your impoverished and subordinate position within the world system? What is the point of aid if it’s dependent on you not challenging the systemic reasons your people require it?

Cuba

The United States’ imperialist actions against Cuba know no bounds, from the embargo and invasion to USAID, the onslaught seems to have no end. “USAID started ZunZuneo, a social network built on texts, in the hope it could be used to organize ‘smart mobs’ to trigger Cuban spring” (Associated Press in Washington, 2014). Planning to build a base through non-controversial media content and then, once at “critical mass,” introduce political content, intent on creating “smart mobs”. USAID made sure its involvement was unknown to the Cuban people (Associated Press in Washington, 2014). This isn’t the only story of USAID attempting to form a rebellion against Cuba’s socialist experiment. In “October 2009, a project overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development sent Venezuelan, Costa Rican and Peruvian young people to Cuba in hopes of ginning up rebellion” (Associated Press, 2014). This is blatant imperialism, which USAID took part in.

Nicaragua

In Nicaragua, the Somoza dictatorship was ideal for the United States. At the time head of state (3rd in the dynasty), Anastasio Somoza Debayle was a West Point graduate (American Military Academy) and during his military career in Nicaragua would help the United States with the Bay of Pigs invasion, showing his worth as an asset for U.S. imperialism. The family owned 50% of the country’s land, and income inequality was massive; material law was also imposed for a significant period (editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, 2025). Despite him pocketing U.S. aid and committing human rights violations, support for him continued with relatively insignificant reservations by Jimmy Carter (Jack Ray, 2023). During the fighting, the Harvard Crimson called it a U.S.-sponsored genocide, claiming the United States had sent:

“the guided missile cruiser Richmond K. Turner with 400 marines to Nicaragua’s Pacific coast...oversaw the Central American Defense Council actions involving the use of Guatemalan and Salvadoran troops in northern Nicaraguan cities … $25,700 in military grants and $400,000 in grants for training the military and police” (Roberts, 1978).

The peasants and the poor formed the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which eventually won the support of the middle class as well. The Sandinistas, with no thanks to the United States, were able to liberate themselves and defeat the dictatorship. The Sandinista National Liberation Front, as Marxist, could expect little support from the U.S. In an attempt to regain influence, in 1982, the United States began supporting anti-Communist insurgents against the Sandinista National Liberation Front that had overthrown a brutal U.S.-backed dictator.

These insurgents enjoyed direct support from the U.S. until reports surfaced that the Contras had trafficked in cocaine and used “death squads”. They would then be secretly funded in what is today known as the Iran-Contra Affair. Once a ceasefire was signed, “Congress passed a law that put non-lethal Contra aid under the auspices of the U.S. Agency for International Development” (Morse & W. Haven North, 1998). They felt “if the Contras were disarmed and disbanded immediately, then they wouldn’t be out there as a potential pressure to be reactivated...” (Morse & W. Haven North, 1998). During this, the Contras were given political training, and in an attempt to see if they could fulfill their purpose democratically. USAID also tried to get them to form a veterans’ association and create political leaders (Morse & W. Haven North, 1998).

Iraq

During the war on terror, following the United States’ inhumane invasion of the country based on lies, “Iraq and Afghanistan went from receiving virtually zero aid … to receiving two of the largest per capita allocations following 9/11” (Roodman et al., 2005). This invasion was not made up for by the involvement of USAID after. Iraq was left with a significant number of unfinished projects, some not even been started. They also often had to take over from American construction companies due to their poor performance. Baghdad residents had less electricity after the U.S. cleanup than before the war. Many of the United States’ largest companies received billions of dollars in contracts to rebuild (Mosher & Witte, 2006).

Ironically, those who would benefit most from USAID contracts were often those who pushed for the invasion. The Senior Vice President of Bechtel, a California-based construction company, was on the defense policy board and must have seen a lucrative business opportunity in invading, using his position to advocate for it. Richard Perle, a public advocate of the war in Iraq, who was criticized off the policy board, also had obvious connections to contractors who were waiting to benefit from the cleanup, “Perle reportedly advised clients of Goldman Sachs on investment opportunities in post-war Iraq, and is a director with stock options of the U.K.-based Autonomy Corp., whose customers include the Defense Department.”(André Verlöy, 2022). In this example of disaster capitalism, instead of a natural disaster, the United States military was the man-made disaster.

Trump’s Poor Reasoning for USAID’s Dismantling

Despite the neo-colonialism and imperialism of USAID, it’s clear Trump was unconcerned with these issues when he went about dismantling it. According to the office of the spokesperson, “He is initiating a review of all foreign assistance programs to ensure they are efficient and consistent with U.S. foreign policy under the America First agenda” (Bruce, 2025). In other words, he is checking to make sure all of USAID’s actions are to the benefit of American hegemony and imperialism. He claims that funds for activities that encourage diversity, equality, and inclusion are a waste.

I don’t mean to downplay the importance of saving lives in the now with USAID, but I believe a few questions are worth considering: Is it preferable to make exploitative relations bearable, or would it be better to challenge them? Should we treat the causes or symptoms of problems? Should US hegemony be reinforced or more equal relations introduced? This does not mean I don’t worry about the effects on the vulnerable; it has helped now that it’s gone. The world needs an alternative now more than ever to the imperialist and neocolonial USAID set up by the United States. This alternative is not more aid programs based on pity and chauvinism, that preserves neocolonial relations and the imperialist global economy of the modern era, but in partnerships, solidarity, and development on an equal footing, breaking away from the norms of the current system. Pierre Jalee a French official in Morocco who was asked to remain after independence, made clear the blame-deflecting power of aid in his 1968 book The Pillage of the Third World when he wrote, “For many, whether they write in good faith or not, aid is a kind of alibi, a way of absolving oneself from the need to be aware of the exploitation of the third world” (Jalée, 1970). Unfortunately, at times, USAID has served as more than just an alibi, becoming a full-blown agent of neocolonialism and imperialism.

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