Make no mistake about it: USAID was and is indispensable, no matter its faults. The Trump administration’s wholesale demolition of the agency will cause untold suffering to millions of innocent people. USAID provides massive funding to essential programs for people desperate for help. That money is mostly allocated to large NGOs such as Save the Children or Catholic Relief Services and then redistributed to smaller international or local organizations. And yes, some of that money disappears along the way, as Elon Musk and others have pointed out. But a huge amount of it does get through and does fund absolutely essential humanitarian needs: clinics in remote areas where there are no medical services, food for people facing the threat of malnourishment or even starvation, and AIDS cocktails that keep people alive. In an immensely irresponsible act, Trump and Musk are literally taking bread and penicillin out of the hands of the hungry and sick.

There is an undeniable ethical........

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