Has USAID left the Philippines for good? I don’t think so. I think USAID absence from this country is temporary. USAID will be back.
Donald Trump and his administration have done numerous ill-advised things since Jan. 20, 2025, when Mr. Trump was worn in as President of the U.S. for the second time. Unquestionably, one of the most consequential of these has been the decision to discontinue the operations of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the international development arm of the world’s wealthiest country.
It is not a certainty that the White House has the legal authority to dismantle an entity created by Congress. What is certain is that Trump dislikes the U.S. foreign-aid operations and that his administration will try to keep USAID shuttered.
Like their colleagues around the world – there is hardly a country or territory in which USAID does not have a presence – the American personnel of USAID’s Philippine office were given 30 days to pack up and return to the U.S. Needless to say, that was hardly sufficient time to complete most of the projects to which USAID was providing assistance.
USAID’s headquarters was one of the first Washington D.C. head-office buildings to lose its signage, and USAID was among the agencies that sustained massive staff reductions.
The Trump administration’s move against USAID was stunningly swift, but it was not unexpected. During the 2024 electoral campaign, Trump kept repeating that the U.S. government had to spend less money overseas if MAGA (Make America Great Again) was to succeed. USAID had been in the crosshairs of Donald Trump’s rifle for a long time. Undoubtedly the U.S. foreign-aid community was praying for a Democratic Party victory in the election, but that, unfortunately, did not happen.
This is deeply saddening. USAID has been a prominent part of the post-Independence U.S. presence in the Philippines. Given the nature of its presence in the Philippines, it is probably more accurate to say that USAID has been the most prominent element of that presence.
After the termination of the Philippines-U.S. Bases Agreement, there has been very little U.S military presence in this country, and the U.S. embassy staffers are to be found mainly in and around Metro Manila, but USAID personnel have been all over the place.
USAID was the Philippines’ largest bilateral source of economic and social development assistance. The USAID Administrator was a key member of the U.S. diplomatic establishment in this country; indeed, in some sectors of the Philippine government the USAID Administrator was treated like a Deputy Chief of Mission.
USAID’s development assistance portfolio encompassed virtually every sector of the Philippine economy and Philippine society – agriculture, education, labor, health, infrastructure and basic services USAID’s door was open to any proposals for projects likely to make a meaningful contribution to the development of the Philippine economy and the improvement of Philippine society.
Of course, USAID was not the Philippines’ only bilateral source of economic and social development assistance. There were others, chiefly Japan’s JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) and Australia’s AusAid (Australia Agency for International Development). These other bilateral agencies have their own assistance plates full, but it is to be hoped that their governments will fill the funding gap left by the discontinuance of USAID’s Philippine operations.
Has USAID left the Philippines for good? I don’t think so. I think USAID absence from this country is temporary. USAID will be back. I offer two reasons for this expectation.
The first is that Trump will not be in the White House forever. At most, he will be U.S President only until January 2029 (maybe before then, who knows?) Trump’s action against USAID is a sharp departure from the U.S. historical attitude toward foreign aid and will likely be reversed by a post-Trump administration.
My other reason relates to the concept of soft power. A discussion of that concept merits a separate column.
In the meantime, to the USAID staffers who have been sent packing by Donal Trump, I say a heartfelt thank you and – as the French people say – au revoir. We’ll see one another again.
(llagasjessa@yahoo.com)