The U.S. government’s move to freeze foreign aid and shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has multiple negative impacts, from the direct harm to maternal and child health to eliminating education initiatives, economic growth programs, and anti-corruption efforts. The U.S. is hurting its own interests: USAID helps create resilient markets for U.S. products and trade, mitigates against the spread of conflict, disease, and transnational crime, and contributes to a more democratic and stable global order. Stopping development assistance undermines critical U.S. soft power and partnerships, reaffirming a narrative of the United States as an unreliable partner and creating a vacuum that China and other competitors and adversaries can fill with their own development projects, such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The result would be to strip the United States of influence and undermine its national interests in multiple ways.
Equally important is how the decision to eliminate USAID and dramatically shrink foreign assistance is a magnificent gift to anti-democratic leaders worldwide. Not only does it eviscerate civil society, independent media, and watchdog efforts that the agency had supported in the interests of U.S. foreign policy and national security, but it also reinforces disinformation campaigns and attacks on democratic actors. The Trump administration’s actions are undermining bipartisan efforts to support courageous freedom fighters, while simultaneously enabling the corrupt, autocratic strongmen who have felt challenged by those efforts. To the extent this is a feature, not a bug, in the administration’s aims, it represents another shocking setback in U.S. foreign policy.
Playing Out in Georgia
A perfect example of how this is playing out is Georgia, a country on the frontlines of this century’s evolving great-power competition and the struggle between autocracy and democracy. Georgia’s relatively new democracy has been hijacked by the autocratic, pro-Russian Georgian Dream party and its oligarch chief Bidzina Ivanishvili, recently sanctioned by the United States for serving the interests of the Kremlin. Georgian Dream wants its country to become a pliant, subservient satellite of Russia, like Belarus.
Standing in the way of this dystopian vision are Georgia’s robust civil society and the brave Georgian people, who understand their country as European and democratic, and have been protesting daily for more than two months following fraudulent elections in October 2024 and the regime’s decision to postpone accession into the European Union. More than 500 people have been arrested and 300 tortured by the regime.
Georgian Dream, having already captured all layers of the State – parliament, local government, judiciary, and the presidency, has been waging war against civil society and independent media, the last bastions of democracy in the country. Last year, the parliament passed a “foreign agents” law to curtail civil society and media organizations receiving money from the United States and Europe, by labeling them as “foreign agents” even if their work is charitable, development-related, or educational and even though it is for their own compatriots, not anybody else. In addition to the stigma of such a label, the law would enable the government to conduct investigations into these NGOs, access personal data, demand detailed reporting, and levy restrictions, fines and prison sentences on media and civic groups deemed noncompliant. Georgian Dream leaders have accused civil society advocates of being “liberal fascists” and “anarchists,” carrying out the wishes of the “global war party” — referring to the United States and EU member countries. Journalists have been special victims of Georgian Dream’s violence and arrests – among them, journalist Mzia Amaglobeli was imprisoned and has been on a hunger strike for weeks.
Defending Georgia’s democracy has garnered absolute — and rare — bipartisan agreement, and Republicans and Democrats have come together to draft sanctions legislation and statements condemning Georgian Dream. There has also been bipartisan support to increase funding for democracy work, from election observation and independent journalism to judicial reform and watchdog efforts. Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, has been a particularly stalwart defender of Georgia, and he invited the legitimate president, Salome Zourabichvili – who was illegally replaced by former footballer and notorious pro-Russian propagandist Mikheil Kavelashvili — to President Donald Trump’s inauguration, an invitation she accepted.
Smothering USAID – and Democratic Values?
As the Georgian democracy protests proved resilient and with the United States united behind them, the Georgian Dream regime was in a defensive, vulnerable posture. Then came the freeze on foreign aid and the dismantling, practically overnight, of USAID, breathing new oxygen into this regime and others fighting to smother democratic values around the world.
USAID has been pivotal in supporting the lawyers who defend the arrested protestors, civic actors, and journalists; the journalists who report to the Georgian public and the world; the watchdogs who monitor and disclose the corruption and violence of the regime; the international organizations that observe and report on the conduct of the elections and train parties, civil society, and independent media. All of this work has screeched to a halt, and the regime couldn’t be happier.
Georgian Dream leaders are now also able to use the exact language of the Trump administration’s criticism of USAID to justify and bolster their own repressive actions. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has praised the U.S.’s actions and called Georgian democracy groups part of the “deep state.” “We have great hope that the ‘Deep State’ will finally be defeated in the U.S., and in such a case, the approach towards Georgia will change completely.” He added, “We have very high hopes that under the new [U.S.] administration …this ugly coordination that has existed between the embassy, USAID, NED, and other actors will end.” (NED refers the National Endowment for Democracy, established by President Ronald Reagan, one of the premier congressionally funded non-government organizations in the United States that has promoted democracy and human rights abroad for more than four decades.) Regime officials argue that President Trump’s decision proved local organizations were indeed foreign agents.
Buoyed by the USAID freeze, this week, the regime quickly passed a new package of repressive laws criminalizing criticism of the government, restricting speech and assembly, violating due process for protestors, and removing NGO participation in policy decision-making. A new media law will redefine journalistic ethics and ban foreign funding for media (this in a country that is still developing domestic charitable fundraising capacity), and the regime is replacing the foreign agents law of 2024 with a new, tougher law with enhanced enforcement.
In an era where autocrats are on the offensive (militarily in Russia’s assault on Ukraine) and democracy is in decline, it is the worst possible time to disengage and allow America’s friends of freedom to fall into darkness. What previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have understood is that supporting democrats on the frontlines against autocracy represents not only our values but our interests, as a world dominated by free, democratic nations is a safer and more prosperous one for the United States.
The Trump administration’s pivot away from this orthodoxy — even giving cover to the autocrats the United States should be opposing — offers a window into a new foreign policy era. It may redefine U.S. interests, dispense with long-held values, and flip the script on who the administration considers to be U.S. allies and adversaries.