A growing number of examples are surfacing of how the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), well out of the scope of its purpose, has been spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to advance ESG/DEI ideology.
The examples are being brought to light as Democrats are fiercely fighting to protect USAID from the Trump Administration’s efforts to stop the federal government enormous waste of taxpayers’ money.
Instead of sticking to its stated mission of supporting disaster recovery, poverty relief and democracy in foreign countries, USAID has been funding activists’ efforts to advance radical leftist Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ideology and its Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) component.
For example, USAID spent more than a half-billion dollars ($569 million) on just eight projects – not to address poverty or disaster, but to support dubious, and sometimes absurd, ESG activism:
- $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and business communities”
- $70,000 for production of a "DEI musical" in Ireland.
- $32,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia.
- $1,999,900 grant to Association Lambda to “Strengthen trans-led organizations to deliver gender-affirming health care, advocate for improve quality/access to services, provide economic empowerment opportunities” in Guatemala.
- $45 million to DEI scholarships in Burma.
- $520 million for consultant-driven ESG investments in Africa.
- $400,000 grant to Centro Para Desarollo Y La Cooperation LGTBI to provide “social oversight” and reduce “historical exclusion” in Honduras.
- $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.
“I don't know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don't want my dollars going towards this crap – and I know the American people don’t either,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday.
After listing “some of the insane priorities” reflected by USAID’s expenditure of taxpayer dollars, Leavitt stressed the importance of the work being done by the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOG) led by Elon Musk:
“And that’s exactly what Elon Musk has been tasked by President Trump to do: to get the fraud, waste and abuse out of our federal government.”
“The American people deserve accountability and the respect of knowing we’ll stop wasting their money and giving it to countries that hate us,” Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) declared in a social media post Monday. “Reform won’t be easy,” the senator cautioned, because the D.C. establishment “love the unaccountable nature of USAID”:
“They’ll fight it every step of the way but the American people deserve accountability and the respect of knowing we’ll stop wasting their money and giving it to countries that hate us.”
In a separate post, Schmitt cited a USAID award of nearly a million dollars to a D.C. resident for LGBTQ activism:
“$969,821 to support ‘development, democracy and innovation inclusive development hub programs protecting the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex individuals.’”
.@PressSec lays out the INSANE priorities of USAID over the years:
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 3, 2025
"$1.5M to advance DEI in Serbia's workplaces... $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru. I don't know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don't want my dollars going towards this crap..." pic.twitter.com/tYuegqsrUD