Joel Schectman
Appearances
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
You know, USAID... Its role is a little bit complicated. You know, people think of it, I think, primarily as far in terms of like aid that we're giving to other countries around the world. You know, there is a lot of that, like medical assistance or kind of training up doctors or helping with famines. And I think that that's a good part of what it does. But it's also an organization that
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
is intended to project American soft power, right? So a lot of what it does also is give out money to organizations that are involved in promoting democracy, for example, in other countries, and also encouraging free trade and encouraging organizations that promote the idea of free trade and access to markets. I think that when you look at it in that way,
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
It becomes a little bit clear why it's like so kind of like anathema to the Trump people, right? Because they really believe that, you know, power, be it soft power or hard power, that there's a bit of like a zero-sum game to it, where you use like all the leverage and power that you have as a big country in a direct effort to make even allies succumb to your will.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
So it's not entirely clear exactly how it's going to play out, right? So they're talking about folding it into State Department. But it's also not clear to me whether in the longer term they're going to be able to, you know, this dismantling is going to be successful, right? Because, like, there are statutes that enshrine USAID, enshrine the funding.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
It's an organization that has had, you know, bipartisan support for, you know, since it was created by JFK. And I think given that it would probably require further legislation to actually make this shutdown permanent, it's not clear to me exactly how that's going to play out or whether what we're seeing now is permanent.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
It could be that like with many things with Trump, this is kind of like a starting offer to get it to be something more like what they envision, whatever that might be.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
You know, I think as Molly pointed out, like, once you do these things, once you break these things, no matter what happens after the fact, you kind of create the facts on the crowd, right? Because the thing is, like, it's not like these NGOs that are being supported around the world, you know, like... like in East Africa or something, are overflowing with money to begin with, right?
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
And so if you're able to cut off money to them for, you know, two or three months, right, while this all gets fought out, you know, most of those organizations are going to sort of go out of business, right? And those people who work there, those aid workers are going to have to find other things to do with themselves, right? And so even if you come back and
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
A few months later, there's some chance for them to kind of reapply in some new form to some new USAID. A lot of that ability, even to do so, even to write a proposal, to have an office, to have staff that could carry out the projects, a lot of that's going to be gone. And I think that once you break it, you can glue the pieces back together. But I think a lot of it's probably going to go away.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
I think the situation you have at CIA is very different from what we saw at USAID in terms of the intent here, right? And John Ratcliffe, the new CIA director, what he wants to see is a much harder-edge CIA, a CIA that is able to push back on China in very aggressive ways
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
Using covert action, kind of secret CIA missions to kind of influence events on the ground, and just much more aggressive spying.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
And there's an opinion among Republicans and even some agency employees that during the Biden years and during Democratic administrations in general over the last generation, the agency had gotten like a little too soft, a little too liberal minded, and that they really need to kind of go back to like the real hard edge stuff that went on during the Cold War, the real like cloak and dagger spy craft, you know?
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
kind of clandestine missions where we undermine our enemies overseas. And so part of what they're trying to do with this buyout is kind of push out people and give people like a runway out, essentially, who aren't down with this new kind of like harder-edge, more aggressive CIA.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
They're talking about using the CIA as a tool to maybe spy on the government of Mexico, for example, in order to give Trump a more powerful negotiating hand when they're talking about tariffs. And, you know, I think you could kind of see what they want to do as CIA is being sort of like the other side of the coin of what they did with USAID, right?
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Less Foreign Aid, More Tariffs
You know, they're looking at like a much more bare-knuckle world and much more zero-sum games world where, you know, soft power maybe doesn't do the trick, where you need to use much more bare-knuckle tactics and be much more aggressive, even with countries that are close allies, in order to get the things that you want.