For the first three years of President Donald Trump’s administration, the U.S. Agency for International Development mostly avoided the spotlight.
While the foreign aid agency fended off repeated attempts by the White House to slash its budget and got pulled into a handful of pet projects and funding priorities demanded by Trump’s inner circle, USAID, under the leadership of former Administrator Mark Green, attracted little public attention. For nearly three years, it focused on a bureaucratic reorganization, technical policy reforms, and carrying out programs that held little political interest for the administration, officials told Devex.
“We had an administration that really didn't understand foreign policy, really didn't understand foreign aid. So there was a lot of explanation that had to be done, but at the same time, you had a lot of leeway,” a former senior USAID official told Devex, on condition of anonymity.