Reporting on the world can be heartbreaking. We journalists cover wars, earthquakes and massacres, and for all the emotional armor of our professionalism we are haunted by memories of children’s corpses.
So this year has been a painful one, for I’ve made three trips to Africa to report on children dying as a result of President Trump slashing humanitarian aid programs — his most lethal policy. In village after village I’ve found children perishing for want of $2 anti-malaria mosquito nets or 12-cent-a-day AIDS medicines.
Yet while the Trump policy seemed to me to be cruel, it at least appeared consistent and rooted in a clear ideology: He didn’t believe in foreign aid. Likewise, when Trump halted the entry of most refugees early this year, his motivation appeared obvious: He doesn’t want refugees.
Yet the plot now thickens. It turns out Trump likes some aid, and he’s good with white refugees.
Trump is backing a $20 billion rescue package for Argentina, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent talking about raising the total to $40 billion — more than the entire worldwide U.S.A.I.D. budget last year.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with bailing out a country facing a financial crisis: The United States did that in 1995 to rescue Mexico. One difference is that the Mexico bailout was well-crafted and succeeded, while for now it’s not obvious what policy has changed in Argentina that would lead the Trump bailout to achieve stability in a country that is still struggling after more than 20 previous bailouts (including one just this spring by the I.M.F.).
Another difference is that we had an enormous interest in stability in Mexico as our neighbor and major trade partner. Even Trump acknowledges that the bailout of Argentina does not reflect vital American interests: “We don’t have to do it,” he said this month. “It’s not going to make a big difference for our country.”
So why would Trump spend so much money to try to make Argentina great? In part to try to rescue a right-wing Trumpian ally, President Javier Milei, who is now floundering.
The bailout could also significantly benefit a number of wealthy American hedge fund investors, including two billionaire friends of Bessent who previously worked with him, The Times has reported. By some accounts, including Argentine press reports, one of them urged Bessent to intervene. By buying the peso and lifting its value, the United States gives those investors a chance to dump their bad bets.
So the United States is cutting off the kind of foreign aid that keeps children alive for 12 cents a day, but it’s willing to invest far larger sums in a dubious effort to prop up a distant economy — while effectively subsidizing tycoons who made bad investments.
I’m not suggesting that Trump and Bessent are spending $20 billion in American money with the principal aim of rescuing their hedge fund buddies; life is more complicated than that. But many wealthy American conservatives invested heavily in Milei’s Argentina because they were dazzled at the sight of Trump-like leadership in Argentina and by early economic improvements there — and the Trump administration is now trying to rescue Milei for similar reasons, in ways that will also greatly benefit billionaires who believed in him. Ideology and personal financial interests coincide.
“It’s not a bad thing that the U.S. uses its financial pumps to try and get countries out of trouble,” noted Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington. “The big problem with the Argentina situation is that unless something changes, it really is money down the drain.”
Bessent’s talk about increasing the bailout to $40 billion seemed to be an indication that the first $20 billion is likely to be insufficient. He framed the second round as coming from banks and other private investors, but it’s difficult to see why they would risk their capital without inducements from the Treasury. The Wall Street Journal reports that the banks are seeking some kind of guarantee or pledge to make sure they get their money back.
“The administration was willing to find this kind of money for what seems at least at the moment a badly designed rescue package that probably won’t work,” Kenny said, “when they can’t find money for well designed programs that were actually saving lives.”
Dean Karlan, a development economist at Northwestern University who previously was the chief economist at U.S.A.I.D., suggested applying the metric that Trump claimed at the beginning of his administration to be adopting: Does the aid advance American interests?
A great deal of traditional humanitarian assistance met that standard, Karlan told me. Aid workers suppressed Ebola so it wouldn’t spread to America. Anti-poverty initiatives may have made people less likely to migrate or to support terrorist groups. Nutrition programs put money in the hands of American farmers. Aid generally bolstered America’s soft power worldwide.
“These are all things that are in our interest,” Karlan said, adding, “Spending $20 billion or $40 billion on an Argentine bailout — it’s much more dubious that this is a good use of taxpayer money.”
As for refugees, The Times obtained documents indicating that the administration is considering a radical overhaul to prioritize English speakers, white South Africans and far-right Europeans as refugees. The cap for refugee admissions would be lowered by 94 percent, and those entering would be mostly white South Africans and Europeans. The Washington Post reports that up to 7,000 of 7,500 available positions would go to white Afrikaners from South Africa.
I think of Congolese refugees I interviewed recently in Uganda after they fled mass murder and mass rape, of Afghans I knew who kept American troops or aid workers alive, of Pakistani Christians or Iranian Baha’i followers facing persecution, or of women and girls who were trafficked — and those people can’t get access to the United States even as we pay for air tickets for better-off white Afrikaners who, in at least one case, complain about how difficult it is in America to find servants.
So humanitarianism is being turned into its opposite. Instead of feeding starving children, some foreign aid will reward hedge funds. And refugee status may go not to the world’s neediest, but to some of the world’s whitest.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
Nicholas Kristof became a columnist for The Times Opinion desk in 2001 and has won two Pulitzer Prizes. His new memoir is “Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life.” @NickKristof
The post Trump Revives Foreign Aid, Helping Needy Billionaires appeared first on New York Times.
