SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
President Trump's efforts to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development were dealt a setback yesterday when a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration's order to put more than 2,000 of its employees on leave. Now, this injunction is temporary. Future of the agency President Trump has called wasteful and corrupt remains in doubt. It is also a target of Elon Musk, who has called USAID, quote, "a viper's nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America."
But others contend the organization has been a leader when it comes to distributing food and curing diseases and promoting democracy, and shutting it down would hurt U.S. interests. Peter McPherson ran USAID under President Ronald Reagan. He's also the former chairman of Dow Jones and joins us in our studios. Mr. McPherson, thanks so much for being with us.
PETER MCPHERSON: Good morning. Good to be here.
SIMON: The voters elected President Trump to cut spending and put America first, as he said. Why shouldn't USAID be part of the effort to rein in spending?
MCPHERSON: Well, I think President Trump will find that AID is an important instrument for U.S. foreign policy and that he will find this very important. Reagan, in fact, increased the amount of foreign aid, which is now less than 1% of the federal government budget. We're in this competition with China all over the world, and AID is an important instrument for dealing with - in this whole competition. I think the Reagan administration - I think other administrations have found that AID was responsive and should be responsive to the foreign policy of the administration. I believe that President Trump can find it to be such as well.
SIMON: The annual budget is $40 billion, which is more than it - I'm guessing it was under your stewardship when you were administrator of USAID. Is there a case to be made that any agency of this side - this size that spends that amount of money could be a target for reform?
MCPHERSON: Well, I think every government agency should be looked at carefully in terms of expenditures. In fact, as administrator, not longer after I got there, I returned to the U.S. Treasury $28 million of projects I thought were inefficient. In fact, Reagan thought it was such a great idea he had me over to the White House for a press conference where I gave him a big check. That was on the front pages of the papers all over this country. And later on, we had the authority to reallocate money to be more efficient to focus on some key things. That authority is there, and I'm sure that President Trump will want to do that as well.
SIMON: Let me pose it to you in a different way. Why should the U.S. be the largest funder of food and health programs in the world? Wouldn't it be better for the world if other countries had to step up and meet humanitarian obligations?
MCPHERSON: Well, other countries, in fact, do provide huge amounts of assistance. I was - back in the '80s, most weren't, but in the years since, there's a substantial amount of money from Europe, from Japan, other countries. I think it's important that others do. The disasters - for example, I was involved in a famine deeply in Ethiopia, and I went to those camps and saw those starving...
SIMON: Yeah.
MCPHERSON: ...Children.
SIMON: I was there and covered that. And I will never forget seeing the bags that said gift of the American people.
MCPHERSON: Exactly. It is a - it's important in terms of food production around the world, including the research to work on crops that poor people eat. We do important work. It's important to see that that, for example, bugs, viruses have no borders, and diseases in one place go around the world. It's important to see that we don't - failed states can be sources of terrorism and disease and so forth. We need to help the world to help ourselves.
SIMON: We have 30 seconds left. You're a Republican. What would you tell President Trump?
MCPHERSON: This is - this agency will respond to the policies that you wish. That was certainly true under President Reagan. You will find it a very important tool that will be helpful to you, and you need to look at these projects carefully. I - Secretary Rubio has commented recently about that to the Guatemala Embassy, and I hope that policy approaches pursuit.
SIMON: Peter McPherson, the former administrator of USAID under President Reagan. Thanks so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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