A US conservative's plan to beat the 'aid industrial complex'

Last year the conservative Heritage Foundation published a nearly 900-page document outlining detailed proposals for how a future Republican administration should deploy the power of the White House across every aspect of the federal government. One chapter deals with USAID and offers a sweeping set of recommendations that would reshape the United States’ foreign aid policies and programs. The proposal outlined in that chapter is a combination of partisan attacks on President Joe Biden’s aid policies — which it deems “a divisive political and cultural agenda” — and a technocratic blueprint for reforming U.S. aid procurement. Its lead author is Max Primorac, who served as senior adviser at USAID during the Trump administration and who has emerged as a leading figure among conservatives who might hold sway — and key political appointments — if Trump were to win November’s presidential election. Primorac told Devex his aim in leading this part of the Heritage effort was to “return this whole debate and discussion about foreign aid back to good governance rather than what we see as the politicization and the ideology that’s driving current decisions as to how to deploy our foreign aid apparatus.” Partisan politics loom large in the document — and its prescriptions for dealing with them have provoked strong negative reactions from those who view the blueprint as a regressive attack on basic human rights and democracy. Primorac spoke to Devex about why he thinks it is the Biden administration — and not Trump supporters — that has used foreign aid to push an ideological agenda, and about what he sees as the capture of U.S. foreign aid by a one-party system that serves Democratic interests. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. I’m not surprised to see criticisms of progressive policies in the Heritage playbook. I’m a little skeptical of the claim that aid has been taken over by a liberal political agenda. Do you really see a radically different foreign aid program under Biden? Oh, I definitely do. You’re correct, there’s a lot of carryover [between presidential administrations] because of Congress’ important role as the authorizer and appropriator. But in terms of the execution, it’s really gone from focusing on governance to a political goal. They are using it as a global platform to push this radical ideology, and they say so themselves. It’s in black and white. They don’t hide it. It’s no secret. This entire aid industry, both on the government side and on the contractor-grantee side, has become a one-party industry. It’s a political problem because it upends the kind of bipartisan support that had normally characterized the sector. It's just not democratic, and it just fuels bad governance and bad decisions. If everybody agrees with each other, they're all in their little ideological bubble, there's no one there to raise their hand and say, ‘you know, maybe that's not a really good idea.’ And it totally disrespects the cultural and religious norms of the places where we work. I constantly talk to Latin Americans and Africans and Middle Eastern folks, and it's always the same refrain: 'Why are you doing this? You're pushing us into the arms of China. They don't ask us to do these sorts of things.' When they have meetings with Blinken and others, the first issues are these social issues. It's not about how we can work together to counter China, how we can work together to accelerate prosperity. It's the social issues. Democrats would likely say that this document criticizes the Biden administration for seeking to advance progressive policies through its foreign aid programs, and then seems to solve that by proposing that the next Republican administration advance conservative policies through its foreign aid programs. It's just not the same. We're going to push international religious freedom — is that something that doesn't have a broad consensus? We’re going to push more funding directly to faith-based organizations, especially when in many places, especially in Africa, they are the majority of service providers. Who's against that? We're not trying to use aid as a method of social reengineering, which is what it is right now. Whether you take the abortion issue in Africa, they just don't go for this, and for most of the world, they don't go for it. Or these expanded definitions of what gender is, or transgenderism and all of that stuff. They don't want that stuff. Isn’t that in tension with the idea that a key purpose of American foreign assistance is to promote better governance — in some cases by using its influence to drive policy reforms? The Millennium Challenge Corporation literally uses a scorecard to change political behavior in the countries where it operates. And we should give more money to MCC. They do a great job. All of these things you're talking about is good governance internally, not social reengineering, and that's the difference. Stick to good governance. Let's stick to the health institutions of these countries working better. Let's get these countries to reform better in terms of making it easier for businesses to function, [and] anti-corruption laws. The whole point — and this is something that I feel very strongly about — is that our job in the aid sector is to work ourselves out of a job. A lot of these other issues, the domestic and social issues, that's for these countries to figure out on their own. I think the reason these issues come to a head in global health is because with HIV, for example, what’s hindering the global fight against AIDS right now is, in large part, social policy. It’s the criminalization and marginalization of key populations who are disproportionately affected. But it's also social behavior. It's unprotected sex and things of that sort. I don't want to get too far into that because global health is not my specific expertise. We've seen the backlash that's occurred in Uganda, Ghana, and some other places. I think these are best addressed in ways that are sensitive to the culture. We address them, but I think that there is a good way and a wrong way to do it. And right now, this kind of public lambasting is not the way to do it. It's hurting these communities. It’s hard to see how the current Democratic administration is exporting a progressive agenda when the actual prevailing trend on the African continent is toward laws against homosexuality. Did that happen in the Trump administration? Did you have these backlashes? I think the trends were moving in the same direction. I think we had a far better relationship with the recipient governments of aid than we do now. That's my opinion. When you have a good relationship it's easier to have discussions on these very sensitive issues. But right now it's almost like the door is closing, and that's not helpful to the marginalized communities. Moving on, I think it's going to be hard for a lot of folks to get behind the message that international disaster assistance should be cut at a time of unprecedented global hunger. Do you want to make the case for cutting aid more directly? Absolutely, strongly, and affirmatively — by working more with local partners, who know the lay of the land, who are cheaper, who can better avoid or navigate the corruption and the bad players because they're from there, who already have networks in place, infrastructures in place, rather than working with expensive U.N. agencies or international organizations. I'll take an example: Ukraine, which after the brutal assault of Putin needed help right away. Instead of counting upon a very strong and well-ensconced local network — mostly churches, but not only churches — they brought in the World Food Programme and others, and it was a disaster. They took months to get going when instead we already had a local infrastructure. It's not only the waste and the time lost, but they start cannibalizing local talent to work for international organizations, and they actually de-capacitate local organizations. The more we can localize, the stronger our programs are going to become, the cheaper they will be, and we'll be able to get to that point of empowering these societies in these countries to do it themselves. But right now it's just too much money. We have too much money. I don't know if you've ever heard this term that's often used internally — 'burn rate.' 'Keep your burn rate going.' 'You've got to spend your money.' That's not the right incentive. What do you see as the biggest impediments to moving toward more localization in those programs, and what would a Republican administration do to overcome them? It's an easy question. It’s the aid industrial complex lobbying Congress. 'If you don't give us the money, babies will die.' That's basically what they say. And they have a very strong lobby. It's about the only part of their operations where they hire Republicans. And that's just, to me, dishonest. That's the problem. It's a lobby like everything else. So what will we do? We're going to stop listening to them. We won't listen to them. They have no credibility for reform. All of these discussions about foreign aid and what the Republicans are going to do, there's no Republicans to discuss it because there's so few of us. Can't get a job. Can't get a job in the industry, so you can't build up a cadre of expertise on the right among conservatives, because there's open discrimination in the hiring process. Is it that Republicans aren’t getting hired by development organizations, or is it that the Republican Party is less interested in these issues? I think what the Right wants is good governance and effective use of money to counter our enemies abroad, and anything else that goes on we're going to oppose. So depoliticize, de-radicalize the industry, and exercise good governance to achieve the principal mission. And right now, both of those aren't being honored. You've got to cut the budget. You've got to do the reforms that Mark Green had started, and they've got to be pushed out fast. Even Samantha Power tried localization — you can see the pushback from the industry. And third, the social stuff has to go. With this conversation, Michael, I'm helping myself even more for Senate confirmation in the future, ain’t I? How's that? [Laughing] I'm not. I’m telling the truth. I’ve spent over 30 years in this. I’m not rich from it, and I believe in America’s mission on this. But it’s just not working, and it’s doing harm, and it has to stop. We spend more money, there's more poverty, there's more corruption, there's more misgovernance. And the whole green agenda — we haven't talked about that, but boy is that causing poverty and hunger. Anyway, that's another issue.