Taxpayers should have demanded accountability for USAID decades ago

USAID has long been plagued by waste, corruption, and covert political meddling; the biggest scandal may be how little scrutiny it has faced, until now.

About a decade ago, young Cubans were encouraged to use a messaging app called ZunZuneo. It seemed harmless — just another social media platform where users could chat, check soccer scores, get weather updates, and follow pop music trends. What they didn’t know was that this wasn’t a Silicon Valley startup. It was a covert US government operation designed to incite revolution.

Funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the same agency President Trump has announced he is shutting down, ZunZuneo was a secret project to create a Cuban version of Twitter. The goal was to attract thousands of unsuspecting users and, once the platform reached critical mass, flood it with anti-government content to stir unrest and spark an "Arab Spring"-style uprising.

Classic psyop!

According to public government data, USAID funneled an estimated $1.6 million into ZunZuneo, money that had been publicly earmarked for an unrelated project in Pakistan. When the scheme was exposed in 2014 by an Associated Press investigation, USAID dismissed it as a routine ‘democracy-promotion’ program. A spokesperson, Matt Herrick, insisted that the organization was "not an intelligence agency" and that USAID "works all over the world to help people exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms."

But ZunZuneo wasn’t an isolated case. It was just one in a long series of covert, politically motivated projects funded by an agency that has operated in the shadows for decades — burning through billions of taxpayer dollars, interfering in foreign governments, and evading accountability.

And yet, despite this deeply troubling history, USAID is now front-page news — not because of its long record of fraud and mismanagement, but because President Trump wants it gone. Critics — well, those vocally fighting the current administration blind to their own ideological possession — are in an uproar, arguing that dismantling the agency will deprive millions of people of ‘humanitarian’ aid. But that willfully ignores ZunZuneo and myriad other programs just like it, which were anything but aid.

Certainly, as a prosperous nation, the US should be generous in supporting those in need. But the real question is why Americans have tolerated USAID’s corruption, waste, and political interference for so long. Because its track record isn’t just bad — it’s abysmal.

Some progress, but many broken promises

Take Haiti, for example. After the catastrophic 2010 earthquake, USAID pledged to build 15,000 new homes for displaced families. The budget swelled from $59 million to $97 million — yet by 2015, only a fraction of the planned homes had been built. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Haitians remained in tent cities without clean water or sanitation. The project was quietly scaled back, its failure buried under bureaucratic reports and official statements.

Afghanistan was no different. USAID poured millions into "rebuilding" the war-torn nation, but numerous investigations found evidence of mismanagement. Warehouses were filled with unused equipment, payroll systems operated on cash handouts, and Afghan officials attended planning workshops that they found meaningless. No one seemed to be keeping track of where the money actually went.

When whistleblowers raised concerns, USAID officials ignored them. In 2015, the Center for Public Integrity exposed major irregularities at a vocational training institute in Afghanistan funded by USAID. Nils Kauffman, a former education officer for the agency, visited the Kabul-based institute in 2012 and 2013. He was shocked to find laboratories filled with brand-new, unopened scientific equipment — yet no students using them.

Although Kauffman did see students elsewhere on campus, he was never able to verify enrollment numbers. He also found that a 2011 audit had uncovered significant financial mismanagement, including the lack of accounting software, a reliance on cash-based payments, and $118,000 spent over five months on weapons, international travel, and salary supplements.

Despite reporting his concerns to his superiors at USAID, no action was taken. He later recalled that an official from the agency’s Office of Afghanistan-Pakistan Affairs worried that canceling funding would create "bad press." This response underscored USAID’s priorities — public perception mattered more than financial accountability.

This pattern of mismanagement is not new. During the Vietnam War, USAID operated as little more than a front for CIA counterinsurgency operations. According to Newsweek, USAID’s projects were so deeply intertwined with CIA efforts that the two became synonymous. The agency funneled millions into politically motivated programs, propping up regimes that aligned with US interests while suppressing opposition.

Over and over, USAID has promised development and democracy but delivered inefficiency, waste, and corruption. While Americans were told their tax dollars were building schools, homes, and better futures, in reality, much of the money disappeared into bureaucratic black holes and failed programs.

Despite decades of mismanagement, USAID operated with little public scrutiny. Americans did not demand accountability, perhaps because foreign aid was framed as an unquestioned good — a symbol of American generosity. But the reality was far more complex.

USAID’s vast bureaucratic structure made it difficult to track spending or enforce oversight. Its projects were spread across multiple countries, creating layers of administration that shielded the agency from meaningful transparency. Meanwhile, over the last decade media coverage largely ignored USAID’s failures, instead emphasizing its mission of humanitarian aid.

That changed when President Trump announced plans to dismantle USAID.

Suddenly, the media has taken an interest — but not in the agency’s long history of covert activity. Instead, the focus is on portraying Trump’s move as a reckless act that will hurt vulnerable populations, which is nothing shy of an unfortunate perversion of damning facts that are now exposed to the light.

Further, the selective outrage — largely on the left — is striking. Where was this level of concern when USAID failed to deliver on its promises to the vulnerable of Haiti? Where was the scrutiny when USAID funneled millions into projects with no oversight in Afghanistan? Where were the congressional hearings when whistleblowers exposed financial mismanagement? Where was the media, doing its job as the fourth estate, when all this was taking place?

Even now, some politicians seem more focused on fighting for the survival of USAID than addressing its long history of failures. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, pictured above at a rally in support of USAID last week, called the USAID audit "the biggest heist in American history." This is an ideologically-motivated perversion; an audit would, in fact, expose the biggest heist, which has now come to the fore.

So, what exactly is the opposition fighting for? The right to continue spending taxpayer money with little oversight? The right to keep the truth about government agencies hidden from the public? The unfettered access to cash in the service of ‘greasing the wheels’ and enriching contractors and high-ranking managers? Instead of acknowledging USAID’s systemic failures, critics seem intent on preserving the status quo.

A moment for accountability, not outrage

This is a moment to reexamine not just USAID, but all government programs that spend taxpayer dollars without proper oversight. The closure of USAID, or any other institution shown to be rotten or corrupted, is not about politics, its about accountability.

Whether Trump’s actions were ‘politically motivated’ is worthy of analysis, but given the fiscal precarity of the US government, the more pressing question is: Why did it take so long for Americans of all political stripes to demand answers?

The USAID slogan is "From the American People." But if USAID is allowed to continue operating as it has for decades — unchecked, unaccountable, and wasteful — US taxpayers will keep footing the bill, not just financially, but in terms of America's global reputation. Americans are exceptionally generous, yet their goodwill has been exploited by those who have turned a federal agency into a vehicle for graft and corruption under the guise of foreign aid. These abuses don’t just need reform — they need to be dismantled entirely. And for finally exposing this, credit is due to the President and his team.

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