Trump vs USAID: The Rise and Fall of America’s Aid Empire

On the first anniversary of the dismantling of USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, Thomas and Aimen trace the history of the organisation and ask whether USAID’s collapse represents a failure of liberal internationalism itself, or simply the end of one particular way of organizing American power in the world.

They discuss:

Trump’s 2025 executive order and the effective end of USAID

USAID, anti-communism, and the CIA

The Clinton-era debate over whether USAID should survive at all

USAID in the War on Terror: Iraq, Afghanistan, and counterinsurgency

The Arab Spring and the shift toward NGO-mediated governance

Corruption in USAID

What the end of USAID tells us about the end of the unipolar era

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

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