Former U.S. presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush delivered uncommon open criticism of the Trump administration — and singer Bono held again tears as he recited a poem — in an emotional video farewell on Monday with staffers of the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth.
Obama known as the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID “a colossal mistake.”
Monday was the final day as an impartial company for the six-decade-old humanitarian and improvement group, created by President John F. Kennedy as a peaceable manner of selling U.S. nationwide safety by boosting goodwill and prosperity overseas.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered USAID absorbed into the State Division as of Tuesday.
The previous presidents and Bono spoke with 1000’s within the USAID neighborhood in a videoconference, which was billed as a closed-press occasion to permit political leaders and others privateness for typically offended and infrequently teary remarks. Components of the video had been shared with The Related Press.
They expressed their appreciation for the 1000’s of USAID staffers who’ve misplaced their jobs and life’s work. Their company was one of many first and most fiercely focused for government-cutting by President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, with staffers abruptly locked out of methods and workplaces and terminated by mass emailing.
Trump claimed the company was run by “radical left lunatics” and rife with “great fraud.” Musk known as it “a felony group.”
Obama, talking in a recorded assertion, provided assurances to the help and improvement employees, some listening from abroad.
Get breaking Nationwide information
For information impacting Canada and around the globe, join breaking information alerts delivered on to you once they occur.
“Your work has mattered and can matter for generations to come back,” he instructed them.
Obama has largely stored a low public profile throughout Trump’s second time period and shunned criticizing the monumental modifications that Trump has made to U.S. applications and priorities at house and overseas.
“Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy. As a result of it’s a number of the most essential work occurring wherever on the planet,” Obama stated. He credited USAID with not solely saving lives, however being a foremost consider international financial progress that has turned some aid-receiving nations into U.S. markets and commerce companions.
The previous Democratic president predicted that ”in the end, leaders on either side of the aisle will understand how a lot you’re wanted.”
Requested for remark, the State Division stated it could be introducing the division’s international help successor to USAID, to be known as America First, this week.
“The brand new course of will guarantee there’s correct oversight and that each tax greenback spent will assist advance our nationwide pursuits,” the division stated.
USAID oversaw applications around the globe, offering water and life-saving meals to hundreds of thousands uprooted by battle in Sudan, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere, sponsoring the “Inexperienced Revolution” that revolutionized fashionable agriculture and curbed hunger and famine, stopping illness outbreaks, selling democracy, and offering financing and improvement that allowed nations and folks to climb out of poverty.
Bush, who additionally spoke in a recorded message, went straight to the cuts in a landmark AIDS and HIV program began by his Republican administration and credited with saving 25 million lives around the globe.
Bipartisan blowback from Congress to reducing the favored President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Aid, generally known as PEPFAR, helped save vital funding for this system. However cuts and rule modifications have lowered the quantity getting the life-saving care.
“You’ve confirmed the good energy of America by means of your work — and that’s your good coronary heart,’’ Bush instructed USAID staffers. “Is it in our nationwide pursuits that 25 million individuals who would have died now stay? I believe it’s, and so do you,” he stated.
Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, former Colombian President Juan Handbook Santos and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield additionally spoke to the staffers.
So did humanitarian employees, together with one who spoke of the welcome look of USAID staffers with meals when she was a frightened 8-year-old youngster in a Liberian refugee camp. A World Meals Program official vowed by means of sobs that the U.S. help mission can be again sometime.
Bono, a longtime humanitarian advocate in Africa and elsewhere, was introduced because the “shock visitor,” in shades and a cap.
He jokingly hailed the USAID staffers as “secret brokers of worldwide improvement” in acknowledgment of the down-low nature of Monday’s unofficial gathering of the USAID neighborhood.
Bono held again tears at instances as he recited a poem he had written to the company and its gutting. He spoke of kids dying of malnutrition, a reference to hundreds of thousands of people that Boston College researchers and different analysts say will die due to the U.S. cuts to funding for well being and different applications overseas.
“They known as you crooks. If you had been the perfect of us,” Bono stated.
© 2025 The Canadian Press