MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Hundreds of workers for the U.S. Agency for International Development have been laid off or put on leave. Nearly all programs funded by the agency have been frozen by Elon Musk's efforts to shrink the federal government. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he is now the acting director of USAID. He told reporters that some USAID programs will continue to function.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARCO RUBIO: But everything they do has to be in alignment with the national interests and the foreign policy of the United States.
MARTIN: USAID spends tens of billions of dollars a year on humanitarian aid around the world. But since the agency is not that well-known outside of policy circles, we thought it would be helpful to take a few minutes to hear about USAID's history, what it does and how that fits into U.S. foreign policy goals. We've called George Ingram for this because he's worked on international economic and development policy in Congress, the executive branch, and in the nonprofit world. He's now with the Brookings Institution, which is a Washington D.C.-based think tank. Good morning, Mr. Ingram. Thanks for joining us.
GEORGE INGRAM: Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So President John F. Kennedy created the agency in 1961. How is it meant to advance U.S. interests?
INGRAM: It advanced interests in three ways. It promotes our humanitarian values by responding to humanitarian crisis around the world. Secondly, it represents our - advances our economic interest by helping develop markets where the United States can trade and invest. And third, it promotes our national security by helping promote stability around the world, both political stability and regional stability in developing countries.
MARTIN: So this isn't the first time that the agency's role has been questioned or even that it's been proposed to be folded into the State Department. Why is that?
INGRAM: There was a major effort in the mid-1990s to merge three smaller agencies into state. Two of them were merged. And after extensive, several years conversation between the Congress and the executive branch, it was determined to retain USAID as an independent agency because they wanted some separation from foreign policy. Foreign policy tends to be short-term transactional objectives with a government, whereas development is long-term work on the social, economic and political milieu in other countries and needs to have that independence. Not total independence from foreign policy because it receives foreign policy guidance from the Secretary of State, but some independence from the day-to-day machinations of foreign policy.
MARTIN: So is one issue here that some people - I'm assuming that some people think maybe its mission overlaps with others. But is it mainly that there's a core group that just does not like the idea of foreign aid?
INGRAM: There's always been a small cadre in America who don't like the idea of foreign aid. But over the last 25 years, foreign assistance bills, the annual foreign assistance bill has passed with overwhelmingly bipartisan support in the Congress.
MARTIN: So the other issue seems to be that there's a sense that this agency is just too independent. Now, when he spoke with reporters yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticized the USAID staff for being, quote, "completely uncooperative" when asked questions about what its programs do. Let's listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RUBIO: Their attitude is we don't have to answer to you because we are independent. We answer to no one. Well, that's not true, and that will no longer be the case.
MARTIN: So let's account for some rhetorical flourish, but is there something to that? Is there a sense that this agency just runs on its own imperatives?
INGRAM: No. USAID has always fallen under the general foreign policy guidance of the National Security Council and the State Department and the president, of course. Secondly, it has a cadre of political appointees at the top who are appointed by an administration to pursue their policies, and the career staff at AID basically implements the policies that are set and determined by the political leaders of the agency.
MARTIN: So there seems to be more to it than that. Hope we'll talk again. That's George Ingram with the Brookings Institution. Mr. Ingram, thanks so much.
INGRAM: Thank you. Have a good day. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
