Among the shockwaves from Donald Trump getting re-elected and then hurrying to implement a bunch of policies he’d only repeatedly promised during the campaign, Climate Home News faints that “The writing appears to be on the wall for climate projects funded by USAID, America’s development agency, after the Trump administration turned off the money tap and is set to sack the vast majority of its staff. ‘I think this is the end of US climate funding,’ Karen Mathiasen of the Center for Global Development told Climate Home describing as ‘shocking’ the speed and brazenness with which Washington has attempted to dismantle its foreign aid arm.” And while it certainly is brazen for a sovereign nation to presume to change one of its policies, especially as advertised, we’re inclined to sneer that since you said this stuff was cheaper anyway, why do you need Yankee imperialist funding to go green and show the orange yokels what real economics looks like?

Like that business of Trump actually moving quickly to do things he’d said he would, as opposed to the usual business of promising real reform then sauntering into power with vague promises of efficiency tucked into one’s platform only to settle down for a long resigned business-as-usual nap, the story of USAID is dramatic. It’s also irritating, as this outfit has certainly done its best to look like part of some sinister “deep state” in Washington. And the frantic rush by the legacy media to defend it only made it look worse. For instance NBC emailing:

“A crusade to paint USAID as a malevolent force had developed in relatively fringe internet circles, only to be suddenly elevated and acted upon by Elon Musk. The agency has long been a target of criticism that its aid programs masked nation-meddling and overspent American tax dollars abroad. Some conspiracy theories alleged that the programs were a cover for biowarfare research or that its funding enriched an elite few who control the world. But until very recently, those claims were largely outside the mainstream and USAID generally enjoyed bipartisan support in Washington.”

(The latter part was also in the news story the email teased to.) And NBC is still policing misinformation about how the United States government and Establishment are less than perfect, or were until Trump came along.

So boo Elon Musk! Yay overspending American tax dollars abroad! But actually USAID was the main funder of EcoHealth Alliance which funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology that, despite the blanket mysterious denials of the Washington blob, really does seem very likely to have created COVID, possibly as part of the Communist Chinese biowarfare research project. And the fact that USAID nevertheless “generally enjoyed bipartisan support in Washington” is the kind of thing that made so many Americans think the place was a swamp.

Of course any large organization, especially a government agency, is liable to get up to a few odd things. But when the White House press secretary rattles off things USAID has paid for including “$1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia’s workplaces, $70,000 for a production of a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru”, which a State Department spokesperson also mockingly posted, and also had a strange long-standing habit of funding anti-Israel groups including some with terror links, it might be advisable to concede that these items, at least, were ill-considered instead of calling Elon Musk a paranoid lunatic for objecting to them. One might even ponder the possibility that they constituted cultural imperialism, if one were not thoroughly in sympathy with this particular version. That it’s also deeply implicated in “regime change”, aka overthrowing governments Uncle Sam dislikes, which used to be obnoxious Yankee imperialism until it became cool because Trump was against it, surely ought also to give progressives pause.

Instead Climate Home News laments the imminent demise of such world-critical programs as:

“the roll-out of clean energy across Southern Africa, with budgeted funding of $84.5 million up to 2028, aiming to set up 3 million new electricity connections. Other large US-backed renewable energy projects target Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Ecuador, Colombia and Bangladesh. Most are implemented by profit-making American corporations that would be financially hit by any funding cuts. Climate adaptation also features prominently. In the last year alone, USAID committed $22 million to help farming communities in Iraq deal with climate-related drought and $18.5 million for climate resilience measures in Palestine.”

It would, wouldn’t it?

As the New York Times would, and did, whimper “U.S. Aid Agency’s Climate Programs Aimed to Curb Migration. Now They’re Gone.” And apparently Trump is the fool here, since:

“Aid projects were designed to help Central Americans withstand extreme weather at home. Their end could undercut Trump’s goal of reducing migration.”

Or not, given the enormous flood of illegal migrants to the United States over the last four years, and the last 40, while these mighty programs poured a river of money into a desert of results.

Something called “Corporate Knights”, a “leading sustainable-economy media and research organization” rather than as one might have assumed a group of corporate leaders with crusading ideals, also complained that:

“While criticisms of Trump’s abrupt demolition of USAID have largely focused on global public health projects that have long enjoyed bipartisan support, the effort also threatens billions of dollars meant to combat climate change. USAID’s climate-related funding helps low-income countries build renewable energy and adapt to worsening natural disasters, as well as conserve carbon sinks and sensitive ecosystems. During Joe Biden’s administration, USAID accelerated its climate-focused efforts as part of an ambitious new initiative that was supposed to last through the end of the decade.”

Still, we say again, if these measures make sense in their own terms the nations involved will presumably do them anyway and reap the rewards. And if not, well, just more do-gooder imperialism, right? Plus that piece went on:

“even if USAID eventually resumes operations to provide emergency humanitarian assistance such as famine support and HIV prevention, the agency is still likely to terminate all its climate-related work under the Trump administration. The result would be a blow to the landmark Paris climate agreement just as significant as Trump’s formal withdrawal of the U.S. from the international pact.”

Nooooo! Not Paris, that nostalgically crucial totally-not-working pact we must bolster anyway because um it’s what we do and always did.

Meanwhile a piece in Grist whined about “How Trump’s USAID shutdown threatens the world’s climate goals”. And you have to feel pretty bad for this famous “world”, unable to act effectively without cash from Trump. It should pull itself together, surely.

As should Corporate Knights, because their piece was this piece, apparently verbatim and with the same Jake Bittle byline, including:

“‘This is taking a torch to development programs that the American people have paid for,’ said Gillian Caldwell, who served as USAID’s chief climate officer under former President Biden. ‘Many commitments under the Paris Agreement are funding-contingent, and that’s very much in peril.’”

How exactly it works that if the American people have paid for something, without knowing about it and without approving when they found out, they must therefore continue to pay for it indefinitely was not clarified. But speaking of paying for things in perpetuity, the fact that virtually all of USAID’s staff are now on paid leave will not, we confidently predict, lead to crises outside the chattering classes and the woke parastatal sector. Government being government, paid leave not dismissal is seen as a cruel fate. And there are some 10,000 such people, as USAID has more than 80 missions abroad and “manages a portfolio of $40 billion of programs in more than 100 countries”. So whatever it’s been doing, it’s been doing a lot of it. Woot, say progressives:

“USAID delivers billions of dollars in humanitarian aid overseas, funding that advocates say provides a critical lifeline to more than 100 countries at only a small fraction of the overall federal budget.”

A critical lifeline to more than 100 countries. So look for them to vanish, we suppose, perhaps as part of the general sinking-beneath-the-waves phenomenon linked to climate change.

Also, the Washington Post fainted that:

“Funding freeze thrusts foreign aid groups into crisis/ Development organizations that program and deliver billions of dollars in U.S. humanitarian aid warn they may have to shut down.”

Prompting a cry of “Oh, more good news” from the kinds of people who didn’t like it anyway. And from one Jeremy Konyndyk of Refugees International (which the Post insists “does not receive U.S. funding”) a cry of:

“It’s a national security tool kit that has been developed over 60 years. And if it’s destroyed, it cannot be easily rebuilt.”

Even better. Especially since we defy anyone to show how it’s actually contributed to American national security, even in the dubious field of buying goodwill that doesn’t seem to have worked anyway.

Perhaps we digress. The key point here is that if the American government cannot even try to rearrange its foreign aid portfolio, possibly transferring whatever of USAID’s activities don’t seem accidentally pointless or deliberately offensive into the State Department, without destroying the “green energy transition” worldwide, the thing wasn’t worth funding anyway.

Funnily enough, if you Google “USAID climate strategy” you get a bunch of links about its “efforts to integrate climate considerations and priorities into the Agency’s broader development and humanitarian” or “whole-of-agency efforts through 2030 to advance equitable and ambitious actions to confront the climate crisis” but then you need a password to learn what it was about:

Sounds like a swamp thing to us. Though thanks to the Office of Inspector General of USAID we were able to learn that:

“USAID announced in April 2022 a new globally focused climate strategy with the 2030 goal of mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 6 billion metric tons; conserving, restoring, or managing 100 million hectares of natural ecosystems; and mobilizing $150 billion of public and private finance to address climate change. According to USAID’s climate strategy, as temperatures and sea levels rise, increasingly heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones, and wildfires are upending lives. Moreover, climate change is considered a global crisis that disproportionately impacts the poorest and most marginalized communities.”

And speaking of swamps, the OIG then commented acerbically that:

“USAID did not have quality data to support its efforts to implement a comprehensive climate strategy. Specifically, the data was not complete, accurate, accessible, or current due to the design of USAID’s information system and the related processes the Agency used to collect and report data on its climate change mitigation activities. Consequently, USAID did not have the information to assess the success of its mitigation efforts. Weaknesses in the Agency’s processes for awarding funds, managing performance, and communicating climate change information could impede successful implementation of its strategy. While USAID reported $2.6 billion in funding for climate change mitigation from fiscal year 2011 to 2021, the Agency lacked complete information to effectively identify and support decisions regarding its resource needs. We also found that USAID’s performance management process did not produce useful information for assessing its mitigation results. Finally, the Agency lacked efficient processes for communicating comprehensive, consolidated information on its mitigation efforts to stakeholders. Failure to successfully address these issues will inhibit USAID’s efforts to implement its ambitious global climate strategy.”

So definitely a swamp thing, and one spewing cash in ways not even they were bothering to track for effectiveness. If shutting that creature down derails the global green energy transition, we say again, it wasn’t merely not worth the cost, it was actively bad.