How Samantha Power's testimony reveals Congress’ foreign aid fault lines

For five hours on Wednesday, USAID’s Samantha Power faced question — after question, after question — from United States lawmakers. Power was on Capitol Hill to discuss the agency’s 2025 budget proposal. But as the hours ticked on, it wasn’t just USAID that came to the forefront. It was the fractures within Congress and lawmakers’ deep-rooted fissures around U.S. foreign assistance. “The pressures on the international affairs budget have become too great, and our processes are overwhelmed,” said Sen. James Risch, a Republican from Idaho, at the start of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or SFRC — the first of two at the capitol that day. “We’re at the point, really, where it’s time to start making difficult choices.” There was Gaza, and how the U.S. should respond to the starving population there. The still-pending supplemental bill has left $10 billion of global humanitarian aid in the balance. And the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, and how to handle a group with 12 members accused of participating in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. As the questions mounted, it became clear that for most members of Congress, Power’s testimony was a platform for lawmakers to make their arguments — and everyone had a stake. “Many of these issues USAID handles will boomerang back to us in the future if we don’t make real progress on addressing these challenges today,” said Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, the chair of SFRC, as the hearing opened. “So, Administrator Power, we have a lot to cover.” The context Power was on the Hill for two separate meetings: One with the U.S. Senate, and the other with the U.S. House of Representatives. Both sessions were centered on USAID’s allocation of U.S. President Joe Biden’s 2025 budget request, which falls $3.7 billion short of last year. At the same time, an emergency supplemental bill — one with $10 billion of humanitarian assistance — has been choked by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, despite passing in the Senate in mid-February. Without both funding streams, Power told Congress that USAID would be forced to make “draconian cuts” to its humanitarian assistance worldwide — and that as a result, 40% of humanitarian needs would go up while 40% of humanitarian spending would drop. “The human consequences can’t be understated,” Power told the lawmakers. For Sudan alone, she said, “to lose the supplemental means falling off a cliff.” Still, even if that money were to come through, lawmakers were far from aligned on how it should be spent — forcing Power to engage in a tension-filled diplomatic volley with both chambers of Congress. Gaza, Gaza, Gaza The bulk of each session was spent on Gaza, where more than 33,000 people have died since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, according to UNRWA. The hearings started with a flurry of protesting: As Power began to speak to both the House and Senate committees, dozens of red-painted hands shot up behind her. One started singing about genocide. Another repeatedly called out “shame on you” as she was forced from the gallery by police. And yet another quoted passages from Power’s memoir, and claimed the administrator — who wrote a Pulitzer-winning book on genocide earlier in her career — was complicit in the deaths across the Gaza Strip. But despite such criticism, Power faced the reverse condemnation on the other side. Republican Senator Ted Cruz accused the Biden Administration of “doing everything they can to try to stop the Israelis from killing Hamas terrorists” and claimed USAID is giving support to Hamas operatives instead of Gazan civilians. “I think it is an exceptionally bad idea to give money to people who want to kill us,” Cruz said to Power, sniping at the administrator during one tense exchange. “That’s not USAID’s approach,” Power shot back. USAID doesn’t fund UNRWA, Power said — and no U.S. institution has done so since an investigation was launched in January against the refugee relief agency for its alleged role in the Oct. 7 massacre. But time and again, lawmakers circled back to the United Nations organization, with those on the left pushing Power to signal support for the agency, and those on the right urging her to condemn it. “I want to be really clear: I do not associate myself with some of the remarks I have heard this afternoon,” said Democratic Representative Madeleine Dean, who referred to UNRWA as “angels on the ground” during the House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting. “If we continue this pause … what will happen with famine in Gaza?” “I cannot overstate how chaotic and how horrific the conditions in Gaza are,” Power answered. “There is no way to avert large-scale famine without relying on the humanitarian backbone that has been UNRWA for decades and remains UNRWA today.” It wasn’t just UNRWA that divided lawmakers. There was also the crisis in Gaza in and of itself, and whether USAID was doing enough to support those in need. Democratic Senator Tim Kaine highlighted the imminent famine facing those in the strip and asked what USAID is doing to make aid delivery safer for humanitarian workers in the region. Republican Representative Andy Barr asked Power why countries such as Mozambique, Ecuador, and Sierra Leone — which all received USAID funding— had voted for a cease-fire in Gaza during a U.N. Security Council meeting last month. The U.S. abstained until the vote was tied to the release of Israeli hostages. Despite the strained back-and-forth, Power stayed calm — impenetrably so. When asked about what Congress should do to help Gazans, she answered immediately: Pass the supplemental and press Israel to ensure it allows the passage of more humanitarian aid. When asked whether Israel had violated international humanitarian law in the besieged territory, she declined to answer, stating there is a report underway from the State Department to answer that question. And when Cruz readied a poster board with material to blast Power, she let out a chuckle. “Uh-oh, a posterboard,” she laughed, glancing at Cruz’s team. “He makes an entrance.” Power only seemed to show frustration when, much later in the day, she held up her fingers to create a quarter-sized circle. It was an attempt to show how children’s arms have been whittled to bones in Gaza. “This is not something that can wait,” Power told lawmakers. “Food must flow. And food has not flowed in sufficient quantities to avoid this immense famine.” The supplemental: a misnomer Throughout both hearings, Democratic lawmakers repeatedly asked Power to emphasize what’s at stake if the House doesn’t pass the supplemental, the still-pending bill that’s kept $10 billion of humanitarian assistance stalled within the walls of Congress. According to Power, USAID’s base humanitarian assistance funding was moved into a pot of money meant to respond to humanitarian needs in Ukraine — making supplementals the mechanism to recover the assistance that was shifted away. “The word supplemental, when it comes to humanitarian assistance, is a misnomer,” Power told lawmakers. “Supplementals have become the place where people are seeking to shift a large share of our humanitarian assistance.” Without that money, Power said hotspots around the world would get even worse. Losing the supplemental would mean losing support for refugees from Venezuela to Sudan, Power explained, driving up the potential for further instability down the line. Today, the proposed budget to support humanitarian needs in Ethiopia is $3.2 billion — yet that plan is just 4% funded today, Power said. “Millions of lives are on the line here, and if this supplemental package does not get passed by the House, people are going to die,” said Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen. “I hope that those people who are holding up that package in the House understand what’s at stake.” Though the Senate passed the supplemental in mid-February, two months later, there’s still no word of when it could pass — or be blocked — in the House. Word on the budget might take a while, too: It wasn’t until the end of March that Congress passed the Biden Administration’s proposal for this year. “The problems of the world are so enormous,” Republican Senator Mitt Romney asked Power. “How do you decide where to intervene?”