Authoritarian regimes around the world cheer on dismantling of USAid Elon Musk-led razing of US foreign aid agency led strong-arm rulers in Hungary, Belarus and elsewhere to celebrate.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Thursday described USAid as “anything but an aid, development and assistance agency” and instead branded it a “mechanism for changing regimes, political order [and] state structure”.
Some Republican leaders in Washington, like the Mississippi senator Roger Wicker, are also warning that dismantling the agency could hand China a major strategic victory in its quest for global influence, particularly in Africa and South America.
“Cutting funding to these essential efforts sends the wrong signal to dictatorships and undermines the brave individuals fighting for freedom,” Thor Halvorssen, founder of New York-based Human Rights Foundation, which does not receive US government funding, told the Associated Press.
In Belarus, that country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, framed Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze as a response to his calls for a “reset” of bilateral relations.
