Former President Donald Trump’s administration presided over a tumultuous four years for the United States foreign assistance budget. The White House repeatedly sought deep cuts for development, humanitarian, and global health programs, while officials that led them sought to recast America’s aid spending in ways that would appeal to Trump’s “America First” outlook.
The U.S. Agency for International Development sparred with the Department of State over a proposed initiative to respond to pandemics, the White House repeatedly sought to reclaim money from aid agencies that U.S. lawmakers already appropriated, and yet USAID managed to undertake a significant internal reorganization with bipartisan support.
One of the people at the center of many of those efforts was Jim Richardson, who served as USAID’s Transformation Task Team coordinator and then as director at the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance. Before that, Richardson served as chief of staff to Mike Pompeo when he was a member of Congress.