As Biden’s White House prepares to hand over power to a new administration, it will also oversee a change in leadership at one of the world’s biggest aid agencies. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has a budget of more than $60 billion to spend on humanitarian assistance around the world, especially as it aligns with Washington’s foreign-policy priorities. What has the Biden administration achieved on this front, and what might happen when president-elect Donald Trump takes over?
To find answers to these questions, I spoke with USAID Administrator Samantha Power on the latest episode of FP Live. Power is the first person in her role to also have a seat on the National Security Council. She is also a former ambassador to the United Nations and won a Pulitzer Prize for her book A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page. What follows here is a condensed and edited transcript.
Ravi Agrawal: In A Problem From Hell, you made a strong moral case for using American power to prevent human rights crimes around the world. You wrote, “When innocent life is being taken on such a scale and the United States has the power to stop the killing at a reasonable risk, it has the duty to act.” You wrote that in 2002. Today, you’re in a position of power. Why haven’t you done more to stop the ongoing atrocities in Gaza, much of which have been committed with weapons funded by U.S. taxpayers?
Samantha Power: Having the privilege of being at USAID—the leading government agency actually trying to reach Palestinians with assistance—I actually feel really fortunate, given the scale of suffering, that I’m in a position to be negotiating things. They may seem small next to the scale of suffering going on, but they matter for people who are reached with a food distribution or something as paltry as a tent. At this point, we only have 22 percent of shelter commodities actually having reached civilians, even as the temperature drops. That’s my focus. I get to work with our responders. I get to work with the agencies who are in Gaza putting their lives on the line. More aid workers have been killed in Gaza than any other place in the world.
I have a responsibility to advocate both within the administration for the policies that I think will best advance the cause of trying to see less civilian pain against the backdrop of this horrific war, but also the operational responsibilities I have to actually negotiate changes that can make a difference. It’s really bad in terms of the concentration of suffering and the attacks on civilians while the IDF is pursuing Hamas, which is still, again, waging attacks against Israeli civilians and has made no secret of its desire to destroy Israel. Civilians are caught up in the conflict. Tens of thousands of kids have lost one or more parents. It’s not because I wrote a book. It’s also my job as USAID administrator to push for changes that will see less of that suffering. And my only hope now is that we are hopefully closing in on a cease- fire now that Hamas can’t count on the wider war that it had hoped for. That is the only way we’re going to see humanitarian assistance reaching people at scale and the civilian casualties that are coming about so often in IDF strikes, including even in the safe zone.
RA: The reason why I even bring up your book is because, in addition to your role, you’re a human rights superstar. It’s part of your profile. It’s part of what brings you attention and gives you, in a sense, more power than previous administrators in your role. And so I do not question your intent on this particular issue. I question outcomes.
SP: You should question outcomes. If you look at what has been achieved and at the number of trucks that are reaching people, for example, in north Gaza, where we’ve barely been able to see a trickle of food reaching people since October. And while we see a little bit of an uptick elsewhere in the country, it is nowhere near commensurate with the basic conditions. But, I’d sooner be in this role pushing within the U.S. government—pushing the IDF and Israeli political authorities—than I would be writing another book about the subject.
RA: I think a big part of why many of us bring up your work and your history as a journalist is because it’s relevant here. Going back to your book, you wrote back then,“My only regret is that I don’t work at the State Department, so I can quit to protest policy.” Many U.S. officials have quit over U.S. policy in the Middle East, over the civilians who’ve died in Gaza and Lebanon. Did you consider quitting? And what is the trade-off between being in power and trying to effect change and being outside of power?
SP: I have the greatest respect not only for the people who live their values that way by going and seeking to agitate from outside or to try to make a statement, but by leaving because they care that much. But also, USAID has been roiled with dissent and concern about American foreign policy. I welcome and invite the engagements I’ve had with my staff, including with ideas that they bring forward about what we should be pushing for inside and what we should be pushing the Israelis for. But when it comes to that question, I can, at the same time, respect people who have chosen to depart because they feel that that is what is warranted. But I also look at the portfolio that I have and the levers that I have until the afternoon on Jan. 20. And I ask myself, “Would I sooner be in this situation exercising those levers?” The suffering in the world is arguably most concentrated in Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine, but there is a lot to be done globally. Because I have some extra leverage, is all the more reason to try to remain and exercise it as best I can. But I’m also looking at a full field. I’m looking now at what we do with potentially a million people flooding back to Syria after finally escaping this monster [President Bashar al-Assad], where there’s unexploded ordnance. But, more than that, I’m considering the authorities and the turn that they’re going to take. I’m looking at Sudan and working 24/7 to try to get convoys to reach people in Zamzam camp, which is now coming under sustained attack. I’m working to get some support to women who’ve been raped in the mass sexual violence that the Rapid Support Forces have carried out, akin to the genocide that I covered back when I was a journalist. And then, in the affirmative agenda, we are competing with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). They have a very different development model. They’re thrilled when they see democratic backsliding. We are trying to reverse those long-term trends of democratic backsliding but also bring economic succor to communities that are still, not only reeling from the [COVID-19] pandemic, but from the debt distress from large loans that their governments have taken out from the PRC. I could go on and on about our climate program, and better food security program, and about what we do on malaria [and tuberculosis]. But my point is, I am trying to take into account again the cost-benefit of how much good am I doing, or can do, where I am versus going to the outside.
RA: You mentioned Sudan. The civil war there has killed many tens of thousands of people. There’s a famine underway. A bipartisan group of senators this week has called on the Biden administration to do more. First, would you call what’s happening there a genocide? And second, from USAID’s perspective, what more can be done now to send in the aid that people there need?
SP: Just like in Gaza, anything we can think to do, we are doing with the limited effects that we see on the ground. But we have reached millions of people, even if not with enough commodities that they need. In terms of what the atrocities underway should be called, that lives at the State Department as a complicated analysis underway there. One of the features of the genocide 20 years ago was that it involved mass sexual violence to try to destroy the African tribes in Darfur. Specifically, those same militias are at large today, and the reports are just as chilling and harrowing as they were back then, with the complicating factor that you also have the Sudanese Armed Forces using air power in a manner that often does not discriminate between civilians. They were active in the genocide back there, as well, but now they’re fighting each other with only civilians caught in the crossfire. I think—as the members of Congress have made clear and as President [Joe] Biden has made clear publicly and privately—any country that has leverage over the players on the ground are doing a heck of a better job getting access to arms than they are to providing access for the populations in their territory to food, and water, and medicine. Those spigots have to dry up for the calculus to change by the parties on the ground. [U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan] Tom Perriello, has been really working with the U.N., and the African Union, and members of the Arab League to try to bring people together around a shared set of objectives. But right now, both belligerent parties think that they can win, and they appear willing to allow and to inflict all kinds of harm on civilians in pursuit of that maximalist goal. Whereas we know in the end, just as everyone in Sudan has ended at the negotiating table, that that is what’s going to happen. It’s just a question of how much harm in the meantime.
RA: Let’s talk about Ukraine. You were instrumental in securing financing for Ukrainian farmers who were being targeted in Russian attacks. You visited the country several times. Talk to us about how American aid money is being deployed there and what impact it is having.
SP: In the context of Gaza and Sudan, we talked about the frustration and the gap between the impact we seek and what we see. In Ukraine, the impact is breathtaking. Much of that turns on it being a very different circumstance. Humanitarian access and development access is not an issue. We can reach the people we intend to reach and then get out of the way, because it turns out, as we’ve seen on the battlefield, as well, Ukrainian civilians are capable of taking precious taxpayer resources and turning $1 into $6, which is what we see in the agricultural sector. For every dollar USAID has invested in returning Ukraine to becoming the breadbasket of the world, they’ve actually succeeded in turning that into about $6 of benefit. Ukraine is now exporting almost as much wheat, and sunflower oil, and corn as it was before the full-scale invasion, despite what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has done to the Black Sea ports and despite his occupation and takeover of so much rich farmland. That’s just in agriculture. Look at the journey they’re on toward the European Union in terms of anticorruption, which, again, there is still work to be done. The independent media, the governance questions, the vetting of judges—all those have to be in line if they are going to go all the way to Europe. And that journey has not been slowed down by these brutal attacks, including on energy infrastructure. In fact, that path and work has been accelerated and deepened. And that’s something those resources have allowed us to do, which also, not incidentally, allow us to represent with considerable confidence that the resources are going to their intended destinations. The number of small businesses that started this last year is higher than the number started before the full-scale invasion. GDP last year was 5 percent. It’s going to be about 4.5 percent this year. That would be the envy of many countries, not just those subjected to full-scale bombing. And, finally, I’ll point to the investments that the U.S. taxpayers have made in energy infrastructure, which we channel to our Ukrainian partners, keeping the lights on. They flicker, they go out for a period, maybe we have to rush in with generators or mobile boiler houses or whatever, but by and large, we’ve been able to keep the lights on and keep the heat on. There’s a reason Putin’s attacking energy infrastructure. He’s trying to create leverage for what he hopes will be a negotiation where he gets to keep what he has taken. Putin could have won this war without firing another shot if the economy had collapsed, if energy infrastructure had collapsed. And thanks to the support of these Ukraine supplementals, we were able to work with the Ukrainians to prevent that from happening.
RA: When we last spoke about a year ago, we talked about how a lot of countries don’t really want aid, they want trade. And in many ways, that is your model, as well. But one of the criticisms of the Biden administration has been that, like the previous Trump administration, it has turned inward. It has focused less on free trade and more on protectionism. That has hurt some of the very objectives that an organization like USAID has: more trade and less aid.
SP: We just spent a fairly arduous few weeks building up to the continuing resolution, the so-called C.R., which included Haiti trade preferences through the leadership of Congressman [Hakeem] Jeffries. And as you probably read in the press, we came very close to seeing the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) renewed. Unfortunately, at the 11th hour, it was not able to be included in this really complex package. But what emerged was just how many members of Congress, especially—but not only—the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), cared about that measure. People saw how important AGOA is not only for consumer prices in the United States, not only for jobs in Africa, but also in the strategic competition with the PRC. And that is why the Biden administration has championed the reauthorization of AGOA, which is set to expire next year. You cannot divorce these pieces of trade preference legislation from the broader bipartisan objectives of development. We want to see self-reliance in these countries, to, as you said, move from aid to trade, to see foreign direct investment, to see economic growth. We recognize that inclusive economic growth needs to translate into jobs for young people, or it’s incredibly destabilizing.
But we do have a lot more work to do to show up in earnest for the countries that are reeling from debt distress because of the PRC and the terms of loans taken out to counter the vulnerability of the pandemic or the associated economic slowdown. They want us to be the partner of choice.
I don’t know what will happen in the next administration, but it’s important to take advantage of the fact that at USAID, at the Development Finance Corporation, and at the Commerce Department, we’ve expanded our economic toolkit. We’re better able to compete and show that the U.S. model is the better model. For every dollar that the Chinese dole out in debt, we do $9 in grant assistance. But that is catalytic. That’s about moving toward closing U.S. aid missions because those economies will be self-sustaining and self-generating. It’s important to note the contradiction between rightly wanting to compete with the PRC and seeing how their flawed model harms these countries by virtue of these huge loans. Most countries where we work now pay more on the interest payments to creditors, including the PRC, than they do on education and health. That’s not good for anybody.
RA: I’ll come to the next administration shortly. But one more beat on the current administration. You sit on the National Security Council. When you hear criticisms of the Biden foreign-policy agenda—the withdrawal from Afghanistan was botched, the Middle East looks like a mess right now, there have been no major trade deals, U.S. soft power has declined dramatically, America applies double standards in its policies—how do you respond to that?
SP: Well, in my travels around 50 countries and my meetings with government leaders, civil society, private sector leaders, and independent media, I hear a desire for more, not less, partnership. There’s no question that the war in Gaza has affected Muslim-majority countries. But even on that, NGOs and other donor nations lean on us to ask things of the IDF and Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu. So there is such an indispensability to U.S. leadership, as you saw with the cease-fire in Lebanon that was negotiated by the United States and as I pray you’ll see in Gaza, which we’ve pursued for so long, and in Sudan. There just is no substitute when it comes to diplomacy for U.S. leadership.
It’s such a privilege, and it’s in the interest of our own people to help these countries recover from the walloping shocks that they’ve had to endure. It’s not just the pandemic and the debt, but the war in Ukraine, the Houthi attacks on shipping, the climate shocks. This is a really tough time for countries working to meet the needs of their citizens. And so that is leading to people to look to the United States and to appreciate President Biden’s efforts to expand this toolkit.
RA: For all the criticisms of the Biden administration in this conversation, there is little doubt that Trump does not prioritize human rights or development in the way that you and many human rights advocates have argued for. What is your sense of how a second Trump term will affect the American aid and development agenda around the world? What do you foresee for USAID’s role in securing the priorities that you’ve spent your tenure putting in place?
SP: I can’t predict anything. Given the potential composition if the cabinet nominees go forward, you may have the president-elect surrounding himself with a really heterogeneous team. In the interagency scrum, it’s never obvious who will prevail. But so many of the positions that Sen. Marco Rubio has taken aligned with the long-term objectives of this agency on human rights, corruption, and resisting dictatorship in Venezuela and other parts of the world. Expanding markets for American businesses, making sure that we are better prepared if there is another massive infectious disease outbreak because we have better surveillance overseas. There’s so much in our development toolkit that aligns with U.S. interests, even narrowly defined.
It’s a given that we have a month left, and the work is not diminishing. We’re hoping that there will be a cease-fire in Gaza, and we’ll be able to flood assistance in and finally be able to reach people at the scale that is long overdue. But, as I make my farewells, I hear appreciation that we at USAID have a seat on the National Security Council. I didn’t have anything to do with that. That was President Biden. It wasn’t symbolic; it was a recognition that you can’t deal with crises in the Middle East if you’re not hearing from USAID about what people on the ground are saying about the HTS and what governance was like recently in Idlib, about how to reintegrate people from al-Hol prison in a manner that makes them less susceptible to [the Islamic State’s] recruitment.
Those same countries that we will ask to interdict shipments of goods going to Iran also ask us for help preparing for extreme weather events; you can’t just show up when you need something. It fundamentally needs to be a more enduring partnership. And I recognize the transactional aspect of foreign policy in every administration. But the soft power dividend of making those investments over decades, including under President Trump, as this agency continued to do incredibly important work on food security, on health security, on girls’ education, on growing small businesses and trying to help countries, creates inclusive growth.
There will be shifts, of course, on some of the high-profile issues. But under the great leadership of Mark Green, whom President Trump appointed, this agency was in really great shape when I came in. And those programs out in the world have long pipelines. So I expect there to be a lot of continuity.
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