The 47th US President campaigned on big promises. Many were sceptical he would be able to directly confront what is known as the Deep State, reduce the mammoth size of the American administrative state, or reduce the public debt and deficit. With the way he has started his second term, from the hundreds of executive orders and actions in the first 24 hours to the Herculean efforts to open up the secrets of USAID, a government of its own inside the American government, we can safely say President Trump has crossed his own Rubicon and is delivering on what he has promised.
The US Agency for International Development administers close to 60 per cent of US foreign assistance, disbursing approximately $44 billion in fiscal year 2023. Out of these, Ukraine was the top recipient with over $16 billion issued. It was created by President John F Kennedy in 1961 through an Executive Order as an agency of the State Department to assist with humanitarian aid and programmes related to growth, education, health, agriculture, etc. Recent revelations have shown that it has evolved into a ‘kraken’ of its own, unaccountable to none and with a nefarious agenda to push forward a specific ideology with American taxpayers’ money.
It was disturbing to read Senator Joni Ernst confessing that USAID did not comply with her repeated requests for information and she was even threatened. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the agency never answered congressional calls for oversight and transparency, and somehow still continued to operate unbothered and received billions of dollars spent on programmes unrelated to its original mission.
Republican Senator John Kennedy recently revealed, based on what Elon Musk had uncovered, that through USAID, American taxpayers’ money is going to Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan without many in the Senate knowing about it. Other examples included USAID giving money to support electric vehicles in Vietnam, money going to a transgender clinic in India, $1.5 million going to a Serbian LGBTQ group, and $164 million going to support radical organizations around the world, including $122 million to groups aligned with foreign terrorist organizations.
DOGE has found that $2 million went for sex changes in Guatemala, $20 million to produce a new Sesame Street show in Iraq, $4.5 million of taxpayer money to combat misinformation in Kazakhstan, $10 million worth of meals to an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group called the Nusra Front, $7.9 million of taxpayer money to a project that would teach Sri Lankan journalists to avoid binary gendered language, $1.5 million to promote LGBT advocacy in Jamaica, $1.5 million to rebuild the Cuban media ecosystem, $1.5 million for the art for inclusion of people with disabilities in Belarus, $3.9 million for LGBT causes in Macedonia, and $8.3 million for equity and inclusion education in Nepal.
However, it is not that these funds were used for mere diversity programmes. It is now quite obvious that USAID had as its purpose pushing the spread of ideas associated with the extreme left, such as cultural Marxism. Others go even further and consider it an arm of the CIA used to enable regime changes. In any case, this money did not go towards the poor, the hungry, or strengthening checks and balances or democratic systems, or any causes that would have served American interests as well as the interests of the recipient societies. Albania is one of the clearest examples that proves this beyond any doubt.
As was recently revealed, only between 2020 and 2024 Albania received $189 million, with the total for the Western Balkans reaching $1.7 billion in the period. The total amount USAID has given Albania since 1990 is estimated to be over $500 million. Albanian democracy today is not stronger, our civil society is an arm of the Socialist Party, we have less freedoms, and our judiciary is wholly perceived as serving the government, in large part due to the USAID involvement.
Especially in the past decade, USAID funds have been channelled solely to left-wing NGOs and government institutions, and have been used to attack the conservative opposition, enabling an autocratic regime. USAID has channelled funds to organizations linked with George Soros's Open Society Foundations (OSF) in Albania. Specifically, there have been reports that USAID allocated funds to Soros-backed initiatives, like the $9 million in 2016 to a ‘Justice for All’ campaign managed by the Soros-funded East-West Management Institute. This Institute is involved with the Albanian judiciary, arguably in an unconstitutional way, being tasked with selecting the judicial files of citizens and handing them over to the judges.
The Judicial Reform in Albania, drafted by the Open Society Foundations, was financed with American taxpayers’ money. The World Justice Project, one of the most prestigious organizations in the field of justice, reports a decline across all parameters of the rule of law in Albania. According to the 2024 Rule of Law Index, Albania has significantly deteriorated from 2015 (before the reform) to 2024 (after the reform), ranking 89th out of 142 countries. The country falls below the global average in terms of government power constraints, civil justice, and criminal justice. War-torn Ukraine, communist Vietnam, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and even Ghana rank higher than Albania. Furthermore, there are approximately 150,000 case files in backlog, with no clear timeline for resolution.
‘Despite billions spent by European and American taxpayers...Albanian citizens are now receiving less justice’
The Supreme Court has stated that, on average, it now takes 15 years for a citizen to have their case heard, a stark increase from 1.5 years before the reform. Despite billions spent by European and American taxpayers, not only have the metrics worsened, but Albanian citizens are now receiving less justice. Additionally, concerning delivering justice in high levels, three resolutions from the EPP, CDI, and IDU have condemned the arrests of opposition leaders and MPs, highlighting the political misuse of justice.
This controlled justice in December 2023 put the anti-Soros conservative leader of the opposition and historic leader of the centre-right Sali Berisha under house arrest for 333 days, without a single accusation. Mr Berisha in 2021 was designated as ineligible to obtain a US visa by Secretary of State Blinken, a designation that has now been wholly discredited by Republican Senators, officials and recent revelations by the work of Elon Musk and his department. Nevertheless, this Soros-backed attempt to destroy our conservative opposition with American money left its scars on the country.
There have been calls for investigations into how US taxpayer money was used in Albania. In 2017 six US Senators wrote to then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, urging him to look into the relationship between USAID, Soros, and how funds were being utilized to potentially influence Albanian and North Macedonian politics towards a left-wing agenda.
This has apparently been the case in many countries across Europe and probably beyond. This unaccountable agency has been one of the seats of power and influence of the left-wing establishment. President Trump driving a sword in USAID and either closing it entirely or reforming it completely means crossing the Rubicon in terms of his fight with the deep state and the repercussions this brings. We will have to wait and see what else is uncovered, and what the reforms in other US agencies will bring to light. In any case, these are welcomed developments for all patriots and freedom lovers across the globe and a considerable weakening of a left-wing establishment on both sides of the Atlantic, spread in many political parties, big businesses, Wall Street, and NGOs, that until 20 January thought themselves untouchable.
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