From the Frontlines of U.S. Foreign Aid: A Final Word Before the Lights Go Out
Editor’s Note: This piece was submitted by senior USAID professionals with decades of service. The authors have requested anonymity due to the political sensitivity of their roles. Their identities have been verified.
On July 1, thousands of U.S. government employees, including many of our most experienced diplomats and development experts, will be let go — part of a rushed, contested, and potentially unlawful dismantling of one of America’s most powerful tools of global influence: the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). By September 2, all remaining staff will be permanently separated, and the agency that has advanced development, global stability, and American soft power for over 60 years will cease to exist.
We are among those being forced out. Most of us will be gone in a week. The rest will follow in two months. Before we go, we want to make one thing perfectly clear: this isn’t just about jobs lost. It’s about U.S. power forfeited.
The way this closure has unfolded — abruptly, opaquely, and without accountability — represents more than a bureaucratic failure. It is a strategic collapse. It betrays the values of nonpartisan, mission-driven public service that have anchored decades of bipartisan investment in development as a pillar of U.S. national security. And it sends a clear message to allies and adversaries alike: the United States is willing to gut its own global capacity and abandon its public servants without reason, and without a plan.
Over our careers, we have advised U.S. Special Forces in war zones, helped craft economic policy abroad, and built partnerships that directly served American interests while strengthening democratic governance and global goodwill. Our teams designed energy and biotech programs that positioned U.S. technology ahead of Chinese alternatives. We supported critical mineral supply chains and labor reforms that directly benefited U.S. consumers and protected American values. We helped contain disease outbreaks before they crossed borders, issued early warnings before disasters struck, and led rapid humanitarian responses — not just to save lives, but to remind the world who shows up when it matters most.
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National security wasn’t a distant concept in our work. It was the driver.
Every program we ran and every partnership we built was designed to reinforce America’s strategic position in a complex, competitive world. We saw firsthand that helping allies become more stable and prosperous didn’t weaken the U.S. — it made us stronger.
The erasure of USAID is not a bureaucratic reorganization. It is the willful dismantling of tools that protect American interests. USAID’s programs curbed migration through investments in stability, opened markets for American goods, strengthened global coalitions that share the burden of international crises, and gave the U.S. leverage over adversaries without firing a shot. Walking away from these efforts doesn’t make America stronger — it makes us isolated, less prepared, and more vulnerable in a volatile world.
The void left by the quick and haphazard dismantling of U.S. foreign assistance will outlast us. The reputational harm, the broken partnerships, the instability left unaddressed — these are not abstract costs. They are real, and they mark a retreat that will weaken U.S. influence for years to come.
This article won’t reverse what happens on July 1. But silence, in this moment, would be complicity. We are speaking out, together , because the historical record deserves clarity.
This was wrong. And we tried to stop it.
