Written by Associated Press’s Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington (AP) In an emotional video farewell on Monday, singer Bono choked back tears as he performed a poem alongside U.S. Agency for International Development colleagues. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama also offered rare direct criticism of the Trump administration.
The six-decade-old humanitarian and development organization, founded by President John F. Kennedy as a nonviolent means of advancing U.S. national defense by fostering goodwill and prosperity overseas, marked its final day as an independent agency on Monday.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued an order for USAID to be merged into the State Department.
The videoconference, which was advertised as a closed-press event to provide political leaders and others the privacy to make occasionally irate and frequently tearful statements, featured the previous presidents and Bono speaking to thousands of members of the USAID community. The Associated Press was given access to some of the video.
As thousands of USAID employees have lost their jobs and life’s work, they conveyed their gratitude. President Donald Trump and his billionaire supporter Elon Musk selected their agency as one of the first and most aggressive ones for government-cutting; employees were immediately locked out of their offices and systems and fired by mass email.
Trump said the agency was infested with massive fraud and was run by radical left lunatics. Musk referred to it as a criminal group.
Obama assured the relief and development workers, some of whom were listening from abroad, in a recorded statement.
He assured them that their work had made a difference and would continue to do so for many generations to come.
Obama has mostly remained out of the spotlight throughout Trump’s second term and has not criticized the significant adjustments that Trump has made to American objectives and programs both domestically and internationally.
It is a tragedy and a travesty to gut USAID. Obama stated that it’s some of the most significant work taking place globally. In addition to saving lives, he credited USAID for playing a significant role in the global economic expansion that has made certain aid-receiving nations into trading partners and marketplaces for the United States.
Eventually, leaders from both parties will recognize how much you are needed, the former Democratic president said, calling Trump’s demolition of USAID a huge mistake that damages the United States.
In response to a request for feedback, the State Department said that this week it would launch America First, the department’s foreign assistance replacement for USAID.
According to the agency, the new procedure would guarantee adequate control and that every tax dollar spent will contribute to the advancement of our national interests.
In addition to sponsoring the Green Revolution, which transformed modern agriculture and reduced starvation and famine, USAID oversaw programs all over the world, including preventing disease outbreaks, promoting democracy, providing water and life-saving food to millions of people uprooted by conflict in Sudan, Syria, Gaza, and other places, and providing development and funding that helped nations and people escape poverty.
The changes to the historic AIDS and HIV program, which was launched by his Republican government and is credited with saving 25 million lives worldwide, were the first thing Bush mentioned in his taped address.
Significant funding for the well-liked President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, was saved thanks to bipartisan reaction from Congress against its cutback. However, fewer people are receiving life-saving care as a result of budget cuts and regulatory reforms.
“Your work has demonstrated America’s great strength, and that is your good heart,” Bush told USAID staffers. Does the survival of 25 million people who would have died benefit our country? “You and I both believe it to be,” he said.
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Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, former Colombian President Juan Manual Santos, and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf also addressed the personnel.
Humanitarian workers also did, such as one who described how, as a scared 8-year-old in a Liberian refugee camp, USAID staffers brought food to her. Sobbing, a World Food Program representative promised that the U.S. aid delegation will return eventually.
The surprise guest, dressed in shades and a cap, was revealed to be Bono, a seasoned humanitarian crusader in Africa and beyond.
Recognizing the low-key tone of Monday’s informal gathering of the USAID community, he mockingly praised the USAID workforce as secret agents of worldwide development.
As he read a poem he had written to the agency and its workers, Bono occasionally fought back tears. In regard to the millions of people who Boston University scholars and other analysts predict will perish as a result of U.S. cuts to support for health and other programs overseas, he mentioned youngsters dying from starvation.
You were referred to as crooks. Bono remarked, “When you were the best of us.”
